U.S. Ambassador to Mexico

Most recently, Ken served as United States Ambassador to Mexico from 2021-2024, where he led the U.S diplomatic mission during a pivotal time for North American relations. In this role, he advocated for and worked to strengthen cross-border collaboration on issues including trade, border security, energy and migration.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior

Before serving as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior under President Barack Obama (2009–2013). As Interior Secretary he helped craft the nation's "all-of-the-above" energy strategy and led responses to critical issues such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He oversaw the creation of 10 new national parks, 10 new wildlife refuges, numerous national heritage areas, and the creation of a 21st century America’s Great Outdoors conservation agenda, with local conservation projects in all 50 states launched. He initiated new efforts and partnerships to create and revitalize the next generation of great urban parks; led innovative, collaborative new approaches with private landowners to preserve priceless regional landscapes around the U.S., and directed new initiatives to ensure a more inclusive and complete preservation of our nation’s history.

Ken implemented onshore public lands oil and gas leasing reforms to promote smarter development in the right places, and the most comprehensive offshore oil and gas safety and management reforms ever, while approving millions of acres for onshore and offshore development; he prioritized and approved first-ever onshore solar and offshore wind energy projects and plans; established Interior’s first-ever coordinated, science-based strategy to analyze and address current and future impacts of climate change; and championed efforts to correct historic injustices in Indian Country, and implementing new, respect-based, federal commitments and relationships with First Americans.

U.S. Senator

Ken Salazar was elected as Colorado’s 35th U.S. Senator in 2004. In the Senate (2005-2009), Ken was a key architect of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Security Act, and the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act—landmark legislation that reshaped America’s energy future. He promoted laws and policies strengthening homeland and national security and military readiness and efforts to end the Iraq war, helped craft Senate-passed comprehensive immigration and border security reforms, led successful efforts to ensure continued land and water conservation funding, and successfully fought for improvements to rural veterans’ health care and access to children’s health insurance.

Colorado Attorney General

Ken Salazar was twice elected state attorney general in 1998 and 2002, the first Latino to be elected to statewide office in Colorado’s history. As Attorney General (1999-2003), he led efforts to make Colorado’s communities safer, increase funding and standards for law enforcement training, address school safety and youth crime and violence, enhance and enforce Colorado's consumer and elder protection laws, and protect Colorado's environment, creating first-ever special units to prosecute environmental polluters, gangs, and fugitive murderers.

Governor’s Office and Cabinet

Between 1987 and 1994 Ken Salazar served as chief legal counsel to Governor Roy Romer and then as executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources.

Ken Salazar’s work in the private sector and in the Governor’s Office and Cabinet included helping craft Colorado's state finance equalization law in the 1980s to provide a fairer system of funding for Colorado's less wealthy school districts, and establishing the nationally recognized Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) conservation program that has and continues to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to protect Colorado’s rivers, open spaces, and ranch lands, and providing recreational trails and other outdoor opportunities for Colorado’s citizens.

He created the Youth in Natural Resources program in the Department of Natural Resources, giving thousands of Colorado's youths an opportunity to work and learn about Colorado's natural resources, crafted mining law reforms praised by both environmentalists and the mining industry, and crafted other reforms of laws governing oil and gas operations to provide greater public and environmental protection.

Ken also helped lead the fights against proposed water grabs from the San Luis Valley, the Arkansas River, and from the Western Slope in Gunnison County: massive diversion projects that would have ruined those areas of rural Colorado.

Private Practice

After obtaining his law degree in 1981, Ken Salazar returned to Colorado, working as a water and environmental lawyer with some of the top firms in the West, and became a leader in civil rights and education reform.