By Tom Latek
Kentucky Today
FRANKFORT, Ky. (KT) – Kentucky businesswoman Kelly Knight Craft called her new role as U.S. ambassador to Canada the “highest professional honor of my life.”
Gov. Matt Bevin swore in Craft during a ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion in Frankfort on Friday. She was confirmed by the U. S. Senate earlier this month, and becomes the first female U. S. Ambassador to Canada.
Gov Bevin swears in Kelly Knight Craft as her husband, Joe, looks on.
“Growing up in Glasgow, I never dreamed of a day like this,” Craft said. “I’m also sobered by the challenges and opportunity this service provides. Every day will not go as planned, but I know whatever success comes my way will be deeply rooted in my faith in God and the man that shares my heart.”
Bevin said Craft will be “an extraordinary emissary between the United State and Canada.”
“A diplomat must be intelligent, genteel, a good listener, and have a strong network,” he said. “Kelly possesses all of these qualities and is an incredible class act in every sense of the word.”
This isn’t Craft’s first diplomatic post. She was appointed in 2007 by then-President George W. Bush to serve as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations.
The Barren County native heads Kelly G. Knight, LLC, a Lexington-based business advisory firm. She has also been on the Salvation Army board of directors, and on the board of the Center for Rural Development, a nonprofit dedicated to economic progress in rural Kentucky. She is a co-founder of the Craft Academy for Science and Mathematics at Morehead State University, and is a member of the University of Kentucky Board, her alma mater.
Craft’s husband, Joe Craft, is the chief executive of Alliance Resource Partners, a large Kentucky coal producer.
“Although our address will be in Ottawa, my heart will always remain in Kentucky,” Craft said. “This is the place I will always return to. It is the place that restores me, that cares for my soul.”
