Colorado’s two U.S. senators introduced one of their predecessors Wednesday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to consider former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s nomination to become U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

“Ken is exactly who we need to strengthen our vitally important relationship with Mexico, which is critical to the stability and prosperity of our entire hemisphere,” said U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who was appointed to his seat when Salazar stepped down in 2009 to join the Obama cabinet.

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper also maintained that his fellow Democrat’s background and temperament made him suited for the diplomatic position.

“It’s a delicate point in the relationship right now, a point that demands someone like Ken Salazar,” Hickenlooper said. “In everything that he’s done, he’s been able to bring people together, resolve conflict and create progress, and that’s exactly what we need now.”

The 66-year-old Salazar, a fifth-generation Coloradan whose family first settled in the American Southwest more than 400 years ago, was among a set of key diplomatic nominees announced by the White House in June.

Both senators described Salazar’s roots on the family ranch in the San Luis Valley, which wasn’t wired for electricity or telephone service until the early 1980s.

“The American Southwest embodies our braided history with Mexico, and I can’t think of anyone with a deeper connection to the region than Ken,” said Bennet.

The relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, Bennet added, faces “no shortage of challenges, from immigration to trade, energy, resource management, public health and the rule of law. Ken has worked and lived virtually all of these issues.”

“From a ranch in Conejos County, Colorado, to the hallways of this chamber, Ken has had a package of experience that makes him uniquely qualified to make him ambassador to Mexico,” Hickenlooper said.

Hickenlooper noted that he’s known Salazar for more than 30 years and said his son learned how to ride a horse on the Salazar family’s ranch.

Under questioning from committee members, Salazar said several times that the neighboring countries face a “shared set of challenges” and a shared interest in resolving them.

“Our futures are inextricably bound together as two nations, as a people that have a very common heritage,” Salazar said.

He said the upcoming international summit with members of the Organization of American States – set to be held later this year in the Untied States for the first time since 1994 – will be an opportunity to address a number of thorny topics.

“Expect economic issues, jobs, trade, economic opportunity, migration and how we deal with those issues both from Canada and Mexico at the borders. I imagine we could be talking – and should be talking – about security,” Salazar said, adding that “the whole issue of conservation and environment” will also be part of the agenda.

“We can’t afford to have our relationship with Mexico go into an abyss of dysfunction, and that’s in the shared interests of both the United States and Mexico,” Salazar said.

The committee hasn’t yet scheduled a vote on Salazar’s nomination.