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Alumni Awards List

Jess McNeely was nine years old when he read an article on architecture and told his mother that's what he wanted to do. He's still working towards that goal. Jess graduated from Texas A&M University in 1992 with an Environmental Design degree. While at A&M, Jess was in the Corps of Cadets, was an Army ROTC Scholarship winner, graduated as a Distinguished Military Graduate, and was commissioned as an active duty U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Second Lieutenant.

Jess spent seven and a half years on active duty, most of it stationed in Germany. While in Europe, Jess became interested in community character, public spaces, pedestrian accessibility, and community quality of life. At the end of his German tour, Jess deployed to Bosnia with U.S. peacekeeping units. In Bosnia, Jess worked in military base camp planning and construction project management.

While stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, Jess took a couple of Regional and Community Planning night classes at Kansas State University. He finally found what he wanted to be when he grew up. Jess transitioned to reserve military in 1999 to attend full-time grad school at K-State. While working on his Master's in Regional and Community Planning, Jess worked as a graduate teaching assistant with architecture history classes. In graduate school Jess worked on a downtown design plan for Topeka, Kansas, and a comprehensive plan for Auburn, Kansas. He also did a summer internship with MESA Design Group in Dallas, Texas, assisting with various planning and design projects.

Upon graduation in 2001, Jess took an associate planner position with the Wichita/Sedgwick County Metropolitan Area Planning Department. Jess has since been promoted to senior planner, and became American Institute of Certified Planners certified. His work includes staff analysis and recommendations for numerous property re-zonings, conditional uses, planned unit developments, and commercial community unit plans. He regularly develops overlay district design standards, and reviews construction projects for conformance with design standards and pedestrian circulation requirements. Jess was appointed as the secretary of both the Wichita and Sedgwick County Boards of Zoning Appeals, where he gives staff analysis and recommendations on zoning variance requests. Design initially attracted Jess to urban planning, but community involvement and participation keeps him passionate about the profession. While working as a planner in Wichita, Jess has twice served as an adjunct faculty member at Wichita State University teaching a Historic Preservation course within the Master's of Public History program.

Jess's other career, the U.S. Army Reserves, has taken him to Iraq for two one-year deployments. Jess served as the 1st Armored Division base camp master planner in Baghdad from 2003 to 2004, doing the initial planning and project management for several base camps that continue to house thousands of soldiers. In 2010 and 2011 he served as the staff engineer for the 103d Expeditionary Sustainment Command stationed in Balad, Iraq. Jess is currently a lieutenant colonel, and serves as the Assistant Chief of Staff for Logistics in the 451st Expeditionary Sustainment Command in Wichita.