William Luers
Politician
Notable for his work with both the United States Foreign Service and the U.S. State Department, Luers also served as the director of the high-profile Iran Project and as the president of the U.N. Association of the U.S.A. Apart from his diplomatic work, he served for over a decade as President and C.E.O. of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
After graduating from Hamilton College, he earned a master's degree from Columbia University. In the late 1950s, he began his three-decade career in the U.S. Foreign Service.
Throughout his diplomatic career, he taught seminars at Johns Hopkins, George Washington University, Princeton, Columbia, and other notable institutions of higher education.
A native of Springfield, Illinois, he later lived in both New York City and Washington, D.C. His marriage to journalist and non-profit executive Wendy Woods Luers resulted in six children.
He and fellow diplomat Curtin Winsor Jr. both held United States ambassadorships (Luers in Venezuela and Czechoslovakia and Winsor in Costa Rica).