A Sweetwater County native with a distinguished military, academic and leadership career in the U.S. Army has been named the 29th president of the University of Wyoming.

Brigadier General Shane Reeves, currently the dean of the Academic Board at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., was offered a contract by a vote of the UW Board of Trustees today (Thursday) and has accepted the position. He will take office in July.

“I am deeply honored and humbled to return home and serve as the next president of the University of Wyoming,” Reeves says. “The future is bright for our incredible community, and I am excited about what we will accomplish together.”

“We are thrilled that a proven leader with a track record of academic success and strong Wyoming roots has agreed to become the next president of Wyoming’s university,” says Kermit Brown, chairman of the Board of Trustees. “We offer our deep appreciation to the search committee, others who participated in this process and, especially, the excellent field of candidates who applied for UW’s presidency. We have every confidence that General Reeves will lead UW’s faculty, staff and students — working with the trustees, state leaders, alumni and many other supporters — to lift Wyoming’s world-class university to even greater heights.”

Reeves will retire from the Army after 30 years of service, the last five as the chief academic officer at West Point, where he has led more than 700 faculty and staff members across 13 academic departments with an annual budget of about $80 million. An attorney, he’s a globally recognized international scholar whose career bridges higher education, military service and the law.

After graduating from Rock Springs High School in 1992, Reeves enrolled at West Point and earned a bachelor’s degree in European history in 1996. He began his Army career as an armor officer with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, leading soldiers at the platoon and troop levels and establishing a foundation of tactical and organizational leadership.

Reeves earned a Juris Doctor from the College of William and Mary in 2003 and was deployed in support of combat operations in Iraq as a brigade judge advocate, advising commanders on operations, detainee prosecutions and international law. For his combat service in Iraq, he received the Bronze Star.

After receiving a Master of Law in Military Law from the Judge Advocate General’s School of the U.S. Army in 2008, he directed and taught courses at that institution in constitutional and military law, jurisprudence, legal theory, international law and rules of engagement. Reeves moved to West Point in 2011, serving as a professor and deputy head of the Department of Law, where he was a prolific scholar with over 35 peer-reviewed publications and other articles about armed conflict and national security. He became the head of the Department of Law in 2020 before receiving the appointment as dean of the Academic Board in 2021.

In that role, he has driven institutional transformation by advancing education, research and partnerships that prepare leaders for complex global challenges. In founding both the West Point Werx Innovation Hub and the West Point Press, he has accelerated the U.S. Military Academy’s position as the intellectual engine of the Army’s innovation ecosystem.

“Throughout my Army career, I have worked with and learned from amazing people who are engaged daily in important work for our nation where communicating, innovating, winning and, most importantly, leading with character are essential,” Reeves says. “I look forward to applying those same characteristics as president of this amazing university.”

Throughout his career in the Army, Reeves has maintained close ties with Wyoming, where many of his family members live. He says he looks forward to traveling around the state to hear from the people of Wyoming about the state’s university, which he describes as an indispensable institution for Wyoming’s future.

Reeves’ priorities include “deepening connections with the university and state communities, building the team, establishing an artificial intelligence task force to ensure we lead in the evolving landscape of higher education — and of course, watching our Pokes dominate in sports this fall.”

Reeves and his wife, Kimberly, have three children. His contract is for four years, with an annual base salary of $500,000.

The trustees’ vote completed a process that began in September, when a 17-member committee was appointed to lead the search for UW’s next president. That committee was composed of UW trustees, faculty, staff and students, along with representatives of the state’s key industries.

The committee worked with a consulting firm to solicit candidates for the presidency, and more than 100 people applied. The committee conducted video interviews of 10 candidates and forwarded a list of five semifinalists to the Board of Trustees last month. After interviewing the semifinalists last week, the board publicly identified Reeves and another finalist and conducted well-attended public forums on campus this week.

The leaders of UW’s Faculty and Staff senates, along with the Associated Students of UW, voiced support for Reeves’ appointment as president.