Thank you for the opportunity to serve as VA’s Chief Veterans Experience Officer

Dear Veterans, families, caregivers, survivors and VA teammates:

It's been an honor to serve you as VA's Chief Veterans Experience Officer. As a Marine, VA customer and departing public servant, I want to share my experience in the hopes that it can serve as a waypoint for how far VA has come and where we are going in delivering a world-class benefits and health care experience.

I'm a U.S. Marine Corps Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) combat Veteran, serving as a non-commissioned officer. Much of my time was spent in the Reserve in Texas during college. I use VA for all my health care and have used the Montgomery G.I. Bill and Post-9/11 G.I. Bill.

While in Iraq, I was exposed to toxins and am now rated for two presumptive conditions that were made possible by the passage of the PACT Act in 2022. Fifteen years ago, my first claim was denied, and I experienced many roadblocks along the disability compensation journey. I appealed that decision and, after waiting nine years, my appealed claim was finally granted, enabling me to use VA health care for that condition and several others important to my well-being. There's still plenty of work to do, but I hope you've seen the massive VA improvements as I have over the past decade.

Since joining VA's Veterans Experience Office (VEO) in 2021, I've seen firsthand how many of these improvements were possible through VA's deliberate shift to focusing on direct Veteran feedback. But that's not John talking, that's your rating of VA. VA's Trust Score increased from 55% Trust in 2016 to 80.4% Trust in 2024-the highest it's been since we started measuring.

Based on direct customer feedback, we have collectively made great strides in improving the military to civilian transition experience, disability compensation experience and education benefits experience, not to mention, increasing VA health care outpatient trust, ease, effectiveness and emotion experience scores to all-time highs.

A great example is the recent uptick of Veteran and family fraud. There are bad actors going after your earned benefits and services. Veterans sounded off about it. So, with the White House and our federal agency partners, we launched the Veteran, Service Member, and Family Fraud Evasion (VSAFE) program, to better inform and assist our customers who may have fallen victim to these scams.

We've been fortunate to be guided by transformational leaders like Secretary McDonough, Deputy Secretary Bradsher and a host of dedicated career leaders who come to work every day and actively use the "Voice of the Veteran" to make hard decisions to empower change.

But change is hard, and you should be proud of your more than 400,000 incredible VA public servants. Day in and day out they've welcomed the opportunity to immerse themselves in customer experience training and the Veteran-centric mindset. We also now know, based on research, how in order to deliver a world-class Veteran experience we need to also strive to deliver a world-class employee experience.

VA is dedicated to making the changes needed using the feedback we receive from Veterans daily. So, as a PSA from a VA customer and a Chief Veterans Experience Officer, take your surveys. From your VA medical center to VA headquarters in Washington, D.C., we are listening. Intently.

VA has come a long way, and it still has a long way to go. Our aspirational goal is to achieve 90% Trust, because we deserve nothing less than an "A" from our VA.

I am departing my service at VA knowing that the work is never done, but proud of what we've accomplished. I am incredibly hopeful that the foundational progress VA has made in the past 10 years will multiply over the next 10.

Thank you for the opportunity for me to serve again on this amazing team in this critical role. As a proud customer and patient, look out for my customer feedback surveys. Semper Fidelis.

John Boerstler was sworn in as VA's Chief Veterans Experience Officer on Feb. 16, 2021, and departs his role at VA on Sept. 13, 2024. He is a native of Texas who served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1999-2007, including deployments to Iraq and the Republic of Kenya. He later served in the U.S. House of Representatives, under two Mayors of Houston, and helped found the Lone Star Veterans Association to serve Texas Post-9/11 Veterans and their families. He previously served as the Chief Executive Officer of Veteran-focused nonprofit Combined Arms.

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