wynnyk attended royal roads military college and the royal military college of canada. he was commissioned into the canadian military engineers in 1986. he became commanding officer of 1 combat engineer regiment in edmonton in 1997. then he became the commander of 1 area support group in 2004. later, he was sent to combined security transition command in afghanistan as assistant commanding general in march 2009. he went on to be commander of land force western area in 2010. he became as deputy commander of the canadian army in 2012 and commander of the canadian forces intelligence command and chief of defence intelligence in july 2014.