Florian L. Waitl

Florian L. Waitl joined the New Mexico Military Museum Foundation Board as a trustee in May of 2021. He is currently the Command Historian at the U.S. Army Engineer School at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. He is also an engineer officer in the New Mexico Army National Guard and he serves as the Command Historian of the New Mexico National Guard. As the Associate Vice President of Human Dimension Leadership Consulting (HDLC), he provides strategic leadership and direction in long-range planning, program development and staff development. He also coordinates and facilitates staff rides and other leadership development seminars and activities for corporate clients.

He received his Master of Arts in Military History from Norwich University and has an extensive background in military history, leadership development, team building, and lessons learned programs. He served both as an enlisted and as an officer in the US military before he joined the New Mew Mexico Army National Guard in 2020 after almost a decade long break-in service. He deployed to Afghanistan twice as an Army Civilian where he was in charge of a Human Terrain and Analysis Team. As a military analyst at the Center for Army Lessons Learned Strategic Analysis Branch, he assisted in the development of quantitative and qualitative analyses to present to senior leaders based on research and analysis collected during a variety of multi-national exercises, key leader interviews, and table top exercises. As a military historian, he facilitated leadership seminars at dozens of universities and at various prestigious military leadership institutions such as the US Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC), the US Army Engineer School, the British Land Warfare Centre, and for the German Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr.

He published several articles in military history publications around the world and co-authored several Army publications. Since becoming the Command Historian at the U.S. Army Engineer School in 2017, the Engineer School History Office was able to publish two books under Florian’s guidance and leadership. In September of 2020, Essayons: The Origins and History of the US Army Engineer School was published by Army University Press (AUP) in Fort Leavenworth, KS. In October of 2018, Into the Breach- Historical Case Studies of Mobility Operations in Large-Scale Combat Operations was published by AUP. He personally wrote several chapters as well as content edited both books.

He is married to the former Terra L. Colucci. They have three children: Krysta, Alexandria and Augustus. The Waitl family currently resides in the greater Kansas City (Missouri) metropolitan area. In his free time, he likes to spend time with his family, travel, and advance and support a variety of history projects at the local government level. “HISTORY MATTERS!” is not just a simple slogan for Florian but words of progress and action.