John Boerstler

John W. Boerstler was sworn-in on February 16, 2021, as the Chief Veterans Experience Officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). As Chief Veterans Experience Officer, John leads the Veterans Experience Office (VEO), the Secretary’s customer experience (CX) insight engine supporting and enabling the Department in providing the highest quality experiences in the delivery of care, benefits and memorial services to Service members, Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors. In this role he provides executive oversight of VEO’s many innovative projects and programs, working collaboratively within VA’s leadership to help achieve greater access, outcomes and experiences for all VA’s customers.

Prior to his current position, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of Combined Arms, a collaborative backbone organization whose purpose was to unite collaborative methodology and technology in order to more effectively connect Veterans to thousands of government and non-profit services.

John has a distinguished career as a leader in the Veteran services field as a recipient of both the Eisenhower and Marshall Memorial Fellowships, having travelled to the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Israel, Bosnia, Hungary and Ukraine to write comparative papers on their military transition systems. As the first Marshall Prize recipient, John recently completed a 3-year project in Ukraine to assist in the development of their Ministry of Veterans Affairs – the first of its kind in Europe. John was also honored to be selected in the inaugural cohort of Stand-To Scholars at the George W. Bush Institute’s Veteran Leadership Program in 2018.

John is a native Texan who served honorably in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1999-2007 as a non-commissioned officer and infantry unit leader, including one combat tour in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2004-2005, and Operation Natural Fire in the Republic of Kenya in 2006. John has also served as the Executive Director of NextOp, a program manager with Wounded Warrior Project, the Mayor of Houston’s Office of Veterans Affairs, and as a policy and district staffer for a U.S. Representative. In 2009, John helped found the Lone Star Veterans Association, which became the largest network of Post-9/11 Veterans in Texas and successfully merged with Combined Arms in March 2019.