After the Navy and law school, Dinger worked in politics from 1975–1980, including on the 1976 Udall for President campaign, on U.S.

From August 2004 to June 2005, he was the State Department's Senior Advisor to the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

[3] While serving as Chief of Mission at Embassy Rangoon, Burma, from 2008-2011, Dinger oversaw the beginning of a new diplomatic relationship as Burmese politics began to thaw, including with the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.

After retirement from the Foreign Service in 2011, Dinger worked from 2012-13 as leader of an inspection team in the State Department Office of the Inspector General.

Subsequently, since 2013, he has been the East Asia and Pacific Bureau's Senior Advisor at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations each autumn.