Colonel Tattersall joined the militia Engineers as soon as possible on January 8th, 1976. In 1977, he was released from the militia to accept a position at Royal Roads Military College, graduating from the Royal Military College, Kingston in 1981.

Commissioned as a Military Engineer, Colonel Tattersall held a variety of command and staff appointments at unit, brigade, base, school, Area and Army levels, as well as within Canadian Operational Support Command and National Defence Headquarters.

Command tours include command of combat and/or construction engineers at troop, squadron, school, and formation levels at home and abroad. He considers his time as Commandant, Canadian Forces School of Military Engineering (1998-2001) and as the first Commander, Operational Support Engineer Group (2007-2008) to be highlights of his engineer command tours, exceeded only by command of the joint and combined Task Force BosniaHerzegovina on Operation PALLADIUM Roto 13 (2003-2004).

As a staff officer, Colonel Tattersall has supported commanders at various levels: as a construction engineer at base and Area levels; as a training officer at unit, Brigade, Area, Army and national levels; as COS Land Forces Western Area; for joint military engineer operations at operational and strategic levels; and, for operational engineering support at theatre level. Colonel Tattersall was honoured to serve as the Branch Advisor to the Canadian Military Engineers from June 2004 to July 2008.

Colonel Tattersall is a graduate of Royal Military College, the Canadian Land Forces Command and Staff College and the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College. He is married to Clarice née Corrigan; together, they are blessed with two beautiful ladies, Jenna and Lisa.

After slightly more than 36 years of service, on 18 January 2012, Colonel Tattersall will retire and commence a new career in the private sector.

Colonel Tattersall is a sports enthusiast and former jogger, cognizant that “the older he gets, the better he was.”