Pete Wikul

Pete Wikul serves as the Secretary for the Women For Wounded Warriors Foundation. Pete Wikul is an interdisciplinary expert in the fields of special operations, counterterrorism, counterproliferation, intelligence, and interagency coordination. His experience spans over 39 years of naval service.Mr. Wikul is widely recognized throughout the special operations and naval intelligence communities as a visionary. His reputation as an “agent of change” was never more evident than during his final assignment in the Navy when he served as special advisor for special operations to four Directors of Naval Intelligence (now a three star admiral). During this period of extraordinary operational activity, Mr. Wikul led the most profound transformation of special operations intelligence in the history of naval intelligence.

During his military career, Mr. Wikul had two combat tours to the Middle East and deployed to all Combatant Command theaters of operation. As Chief, Counterproliferation Branch on the Joint Staff, he was the primary author and coordinator of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) Concept Plan 0400, Counterproliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. He edited all key classified counterterrorism plans and policy documents, and regularly interacted with and briefed senior National Security Council members and members of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. As the Commanding Officer of SEAL Delivery Vehicle (SDV) Team TWO and the most ardent agent of change for USSOCOM’s undersea capability, he instituted strategic and tactical policy shifts that fundamentally transitioned employment concepts for SDVs from a Cold War model to Information-Age relevance. As Deputy Commander of Special Operations Command SOUTH, he was responsible for oversight of all special operations in SOUTHCOM, regional-and- national-level interagency coordination, political-military relations and major budgetary decisions. As Acting Commanding General of SOCSOUTH for a four month period, he was directly responsible to both the SOCOM and SOUTHCOM Combatant Commanders.

Most notably, Mr. Wikul, in support of the Global War on Terrorism, conceived and created the TRIDENT Program, which became the Kennedy Irregular Warfare Center at the Office of Naval Intelligence, of which he was its first Commanding Officer. He advocated and instituted far-reaching and permanent changes in how naval intelligence provides strategic, operational, and tactical combat intelligence support to special operations forces worldwide.

Mr. Wikul is in a special class within the Navy SEAL community known as the “Bullfrogs.” Bullfrogs are the longest serving Navy SEALs on active duty at the time they serve and have a special responsibility as “Senior Mentor” within the community. Mr. Wikul is the 13th Bullfrog in SEAL history. At his retirement, he passed the coveted title of “Bullfrog” and the trophy to Admiral Eric Olson, the Commander of SOCOM.In addition to his “Bullfrog 13” status, Mr. Wikul also enjoys unique prominence in the SEAL community as the only Naval Special Warfare (NSW) officer in history to qualify in all four NSW warfare disciplines: Underwater Demolition, SEAL, SDV, and Special Boats.

Mr. Wikul is a visionary leader and agent of change who has participated in the evolution of special operations from the Cold War and Viet Nam era into the Information Age and Global War on Terrorism. He is an in-demand motivational speaker.