Dr. Ervin (Erv) Rokke is currently the Senior Scholar in Residence at the USAF Academy Center for Character and Leadership Development. Before returning to the Academy in 2007, he served nine years as President of Moravian College and Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He was commissioned into the U.S. Air Force in 1962 and retired from active duty as a Lieutenant General in 1997.
Dr. Rokke is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and serves on the Chairman’s Advisory Council of the U. S. Institute of Peace. In recent years he has spent time as a fellow at the Australian National Defense University and made substantial presentations at international conferences in Romania, Serbia-Montenegro, the Former Soviet Union and Germany. In 2000, Erv was inducted into the Defense Intelligence Hall of Fame and, in 2006, was awarded the Jan Masaryk Silver Memorial Medal from the Czech Republic for his contributions toward U.S.-Czech Republic relations.
His 35-year military career was distinguished by operational, diplomatic, and academic leadership positions. He served as a staff plans officer at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, as an intelligence officer with U.S. Forces Japan, as the National Security Agency’s associate director for support to military operations, and as Permanent Professor and Dean of Faculty at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He was also assigned as Air Attaché at the American Embassy in London; as Defense Attaché in the former Soviet Union; as Director of Intelligence for the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany; and as the Air Force’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence at the Pentagon. Prior to assuming his duties as President of Moravian College in 1997, he served as the President of the National Defense University, Washington, DC.
Rokke is a native of Warren, Minnesota. He graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1962 with a Bachelor of Science degree. He later earned a master's degree and a doctorate in international relations from Harvard University. He and his wife Pam have two children, Lisa and Eric.
Our previously scheduled speaker, Gen. Michelle Johnson, Superintendent of the US Air Force Academy, has been given a special assignment that prevents her from speaking on September 16th. Please note the program change.