>As per subject line. :)
>The VB.NET console application is supposed to return the numeric code value to the Zeke scheduler application.
>Any ideas?

I was able to do it the most straightforward way:
I converted Sub Main into Function Main and returned the code from it.
In simplified form:

Public Class Main

    Friend Shared returnCode As Integer = 0

    Public Shared Function Main() As Integer
       ' Start processing here
       Return returnCode
    End Function
End Class

The processing is wrapped in Try... Catch so, in case of the error the error handling code sets returnCode variable to appropriate value in addition to saving the related error info into the log file. The external scheduler application can read the return value from OS ERRORLEVEL variable.