Change of CommandNew ERDC boss gets ‘down-home’ welcome

Published 12:00 pm Friday, November 19, 2010

Col. Kevin J. Wilson assumed command of the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center Thursday, filling the last few minutes of the ceremony with gracious remarks on his new environs.

“I gotta say, I’m really looking forward to this,” said Wilson, 49, a Cokato, Minn., native, as his wife looked on. “I appreciate the down-home, Southern hospitality that has been extended to Jackie and I over the last couple weeks. It has been the warmest of welcomes.”

ERDC’s seventh commander since its creation in 1999, Wilson will be responsible for all ERDC installations and will oversee all its support elements, including assisting the ERDC directors in planning and execution, identifying soldier requirements and acting as a liaison to Corps districts, military installations and the Army’s Engineer Regiment.

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Wilson replaces Col. Gary E. Johnston, a Rayville, La., native who retired in September after more than 30 years in the Army but was asked by Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, the Corps’ chief of engineers and commanding general, to return to ease the transition.

Wilson arrives at the Halls Ferry Road research complex from commanding the Corps’ Afghanistan Engineer District-South, or AES, based in Kandahar. Before that, Wilson commanded the Corps’ Alaska District for three years. Commissioned by ROTC in 1983, Wilson has two master’s degrees, one in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College in 2006 and another in civil engineering from Cornell University in 1992, and a bachelor’s from Bemidji State University in northern Minnesota in 1983.

His military career began in 1984, when he served in multiple posts in the 65th Combat Engineer Battalion (Light), Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Other assignments include coordinating the Army Engineer Operations in support of Homeland Defense and Civil Support in the U.S. Northern Command; commander of the 249th Engineer Battalion Command (Prime Power) and commandant of the U.S. Army Prime Power School; and supporting disaster relief for FEMA in New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, in Guam after typhoons Chata’an and Pongsona in 2002, and in Louisiana for Hurricane Lily, also in 2002.

His awards include the Legion of Merit with one oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, and the Meritorious Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters. He is also a recipient of the Army Engineer Association’s Silver and Bronze Order of de Fleury medals.

“It is truly an honor and truly a privilege…I think it’ll be a very fun and very rewarding assignment,” Wilson said.

Johnston’s flair for anecdotes and oratory held true during his outgoing remarks, along the way crediting his parents, Eugene and Nancy Johnston, for being role models in his life and relating a story from when his college-age daughter, Alana, was a young child and called his attention to a double-sided, Bambi-themed coat hanger while he was tending to a cut on his face after a shave.

“She’s fascinated with this thing, I’m trying to get dressed, I’m trying to get her dressed…She says, ‘Daddy, look at the other side.’ Now, I’m an engineer. I’m an Army officer. I’m a very black-and-white person. My first response is, ‘Baby, one side is the same as the other.’ I said, ‘See, it’s the same.’ She comes back and says, ‘Oh, no, Daddy. Bambi’s going the other direction!”

“There’s a lesson learned from this — a lesson for the R&D community,” Johnston said. “You have to look at both sides of the situation. You can’t look at it from one side because you get one view. We solve problems to make the world better and safer. Well, you can’t do that with a one-side view.”

Johnston received a letter of appreciation from President Barack Obama, a retirement certificate and pin, a USACE commander’s coin, a Legion of Merit medal for exceptional service and a Silver Order of de Fleury Medal for career contributions to the Engineer Regiment.

His wife, Susan, received an Essayons Award — given to spouses who contribute to the Engineer Regiment — and certificates for patriotic civilian service and to recognize her husband’s retirement.

ERDC is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ distributed research and development command, consisting of seven laboratories in four states, more than $1.2 billion in facilities and an annual research program exceeding $1.5 billion. It supports the Department of Defense and other agencies in military and civilian projects. The Vicksburg facility is home to the ERDC commander.