Lieutenant General Kenneth R. Wykle will be honored at the annual awards banquet during Homecoming festivities at Potomac State College of WVU on Oct. 31 where he will receive the Alumni Achievement Award.
Lieutenant General Wykle, a native of Ronceverte, received his associate from Potomac State College in agriculture education, Wykle then graduated from West Virginia University with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture education in 1963, where he completed ROTC and was commissioned a second lieutenant in field artillery. He also earned a master’s degree in psychology from Ball State University in Muncie, IN, and graduated from the United States Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, PA.
During his Army career, Lt Gen Wykle commanded a medium truck company in Vietnam and later taught military logistics doctrine and operations at the Army’s Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, KS. He also served in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Korea, and across the United States.
Lt Gen Wykle was the 14th administrator of the Federal Highway Administration and the 20th overall chief road executive since the agency’s inception in 1893. The FHWA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation, has 3,600 employees, a field office in every state and an annual budget of more than $27 billion. He was nominated by President Clinton and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 1997.
He has received numerous awards throughout his military career, including the Department of Army and Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal, both the Department of Army and Department of Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Legion of Merit three times and the Army Commendation Medal and Bronze Star twice.
He retired in 1995 as a Lieutenant General serving as deputy commander-in-chief of the U.S. Transportation Command. From 1995-97, he was vice president for defense transportation at Science Applications International Corporation in Northern Virginia.
Lt Gen Wykle has participated in the National Security Management Program at Harvard University and served on the advisory council of the Center for Transportation Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Lt Gen Wykle remains involved in the life of Potomac State College. Recently Kenneth contributed to the establishment of the Veterans’ Lounge on campus.
