Larry Leon Palmer (born July 13, 1949) is a former American diplomat, who served as the United States Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean from 2012-2015. He was the United States Ambassador to Honduras from 2002–2005. He also served as the President of the Inter-American Foundation from 2005 to June 2010.
Larry Palmer was born in Augusta, Georgia. He graduated from Emory University with a B.A. in 1970 and completed his graduate training at Texas Southern University (M.Ed., African History, 1973) and Indiana University at Bloomington (Ed. D., Higher Education Administration and African Studies, 1978). While at Emory, he was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.
Palmer served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia, West Africa from 1971 to 1973. He then worked as assistant director of financial aid at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville (1973–1974), and as a professor of history at Cuttington College in Suakoko, Liberia (1974–1976), and at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (1978–1981).
Palmer entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1982. He served as vice consul in the Dominican Republic (1982–1984), and then as personnel officer in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Asuncion, Paraguay, from 1984 to 1986. He worked in the State Department as staff assistant to the Assistant Secretary for African Affairs from 1986–87 and then served as counselor for administration in Freetown, Sierra Leone from 1987 to 1989.
In 1989, Palmer became a Pearson Fellow, serving as assistant to the president of the University of Texas at El Paso. His portfolio was advancing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), creating faculty and student exchange opportunities in universities throughout Mexico, and serving as university consultant for International Affairs. At the end of two years as a Pearson Fellow, Palmer left to serve as personnel officer in Seoul, South Korea, (1991–1994), and later served as counselor for administration in the Dominican Republic (1994–1998).