Bradtke, a career diplomat who was until recently the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, will replace the incumbent Ambassador, Ralph Frank, also a career diplomat who has worked in different regions of the world and has held a number of leadership positions in the U.S. Department of State. Frank took the ambassadorial post in Zagreb in May 2003.
According to a press release from the State Department, Mr. Bradtke joined the Foreign Service in 1973, and his first overseas assignments were Georgetown, Guyana, and Zagreb in the then Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
According to the biography of the incoming ambassador, "a native of Chicago, Mr. Bradtke completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Notre Dame, including spending a year in the University's foreign study program in Angers, France. He did graduate work at the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and at the University of Virginia. His languages are French, German, Russian, Italian and Croatian."