David Boisen is a retired U.S. Army Major, educator, and author who helps schools and organizations build a shared language for leadership.

His story begins with four teachers. Growing up as an at-risk kid in a small Wisconsin town, David had, by the numbers, every reason not to make it — and four high school teachers and coaches decided otherwise, changing the trajectory of his life. It would take two full careers before he found the words for what they had done.

He served 20 years as an Army National Guard officer, retiring as a Major, while spending most of his working life in education — teaching students, advising them, and later supporting the faculty who carry higher education. As Cadet Command's 2009 Officer Instructor of the Year, he taught leadership to Army ROTC cadets and managed his battalion's leadership development program — the four-year process that prepares cadets for commissioning — at a unit recognized as the best of roughly 275 nationwide.

Years after he'd hung up his boots, near the end of a long career in higher education, something finally clicked. The Army had given him a clear, shared language for how you grow leaders. Education, the place that shapes everyone else, often had none. Some of the best teachers, faculty, and administrators he knew led by instinct — without the words to name what they were doing, recognize it in others, or be credited for it.

That gap became his work. All Manner of Things: Teaching and Leading the Next Generation (2026) uses the Army's Leadership Requirements Model to offer readers a practical vocabulary they can adapt to recognize and name the leadership they already practice. His memoir, Our Father is Not in Heaven, tells the family story underneath it all. Read together, they form a complete account.

Today David speaks to K–12 educators, higher-education faculty, and leadership-development audiences. He lives in central Wisconsin.