Nine months after he took over as President of the United States, Barack Obama has chosen a black woman as the new ambassador-designate to T&T.
Her name is Beatrice Wilkinson-Welters, 58, of Mc Lean, Virgninia. She replaces Dr Roy Austin, who left Trinidad at the end of last year after Obama was elected the new President. Austin was the nominee of the last US President George Bush. Austin, a close friend of Bush, spent more than six years as the ambassador to T&T. A native of St Vincent, Austin has returned to his home in Pennsylvania.
T&T was without a US ambassador for most of this year until Obama nominated Wilkinson-Welters for the job. Her name has already been forwarded and approved by the Patrick Manning government. The T&T Guardian was reliably informed that Wilkinson-Welters is packing up her belongings at her Virginia home to come to Trinidad for the next three years. It is expected that she will arrive in Trinidad next month and present her credentials to President George Maxwell Richards. She is married to Anthony Welters and they have two sons, Bryant, 19, and Andrew, 17.
Wilkinson-Welters is the founder and chairman of the AnBryce Foundation and the Vincent Wilkinson Foundation. These foundations focus on underserved youth and young adults to provide multiple settings for their personal and scholastic development.
