HEIDELBERG, Germany — Heidelberg Army Hospital changed commanders Thursday at a ceremony that bid farewell to one colonel, who is moving down the street, and welcomed his successor, a former Army nurse and medevac pilot.

Col. William Novakoski relinquished command of the U.S. Army Medical Department Activity–Heidelberg (Heidelberg MEDDAC) to Col. Kyle Campbell in a ceremony on the Nachrichten Kaserne parade ground.

Campbell, a former nurse and air ambulance pilot, comes to Heidelberg MEDDAC from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C. He has previously commanded the 421st Medical Evacuation Battalion in Wiesbaden, and the 498th Medical Company (Air Ambulance) at Fort Benning, Ga.

He was in Heidelberg previously, as deputy chief of staff for the Europe Regional Medical Command.

He’s also been posted in Puerto Rico and South Korea, and deployed with the 1st Brigade of the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) in support of Operation Desert Shield/Storm.

Before he went to flight school and transferred to the Medical Service Corps, he was an Army nurse, with duty at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Soto Cano Air Base, Honduras.

Campbell is a board-certified health care executive and member of the DUSTOFF Association, a group of medevac pilots that started during Vietnam.

Novakoski — an osteopathic doctor whose father was an Army noncommissioned officer, according to his biography — is to be V Corps Surgeon.

He holds one master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and another in health care administration from Baylor University.

He had preventive medicine residency training at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C. Novakoski is also certified by the American Board of Preventive Medicine, the American College of Healthcare Executives and the American College of Physician Executives.

He was commissioned in the U.S. Army from ROTC as a quartermaster officer in 1981. Two years later, he left active military service to attend medical school, and was later recommissioned as a Medical Corps captain.

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