The impact of William Wendt's career as Cornell's director of transportation and mail services can be seen rolling across the Ithaca campus every day: TCAT buses, Campus-to-Campus bus services, OmniRide, RideShare and vanpools, to name a few. Wendt will retire March 1, after 32 years at Cornell.

"Bill is highly regarded in the Ithaca community and nationwide for the transportation initiatives he has implemented during his tenure at Cornell," said Kyu-Jung Whang, vice president for facilities services. "He has represented the university's interests on numerous committees and boards and consistently demonstrated the highest degree of professionalism and concern for our campus and all those who visit, study and work at Cornell. He has served us well, and we wish him the best."

Wendt began his career at the university as director of transportation in 1977. Over the past three decades, he launched such Cornell transportation initiatives as the recently completed Transportation-focused Generic Environmental Impact Statement (t-GEIS) under New York State Environmental Quality Review guidelines. The t-GEIS will serve as a road map for Cornell transportation policy into the foreseeable future.

Wendt was also instrumental in developing university shuttle services, charter bus services and the highly successful Campus-to-Campus bus service to connect the Ithaca campus with its New York City facilities. Through his work with Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit Inc. (TCAT), he collaborated with local government and municipalities to develop a public-private partnership that minimized duplication of services and maximized use of available resources. He also served as TCAT board director.