Col Daniel MacIsaac enrolled in the Canadian Forces in 1987, and graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada in 1991 with a Bachelor’s degree in Fuels and Materials Engineering and commission as an Engineer officer.
As a line officer, Col MacIsaac has been fortunate to command soldiers at the troop, squadron and regimental levels in both of Canada’s official languages. As a junior officer, he commanded field and armoured Engineer troops in 5e Régiment du genie (including support of the 2nd Battalion R22eR BG in Bosnia- Herzegovina), and was second in command of a Royal Engineer squadron with 35 Engineer Regiment in 1 (UK) Armd Div in Germany (including support to 24 (UK) Airmobile Bde of NATO’s Rapid Reaction Force in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina). As a major, he commanded 1 Combat Engineer Regiment’s 18 Administration Squadron, 15 Support Squadron and 11 Field Squadron (including support to the 1st Battalion PPCLI BG in Bosnia-Herzegovina). From 2009 to 2011 Col MacIsaac commanded 5e Régiment du génie de combat – Canada’s francophone Engineer Regiment. During this time, this 570-man Regiment deployed a Regimental Headquarters and seven squadrons for counter insurgency operations in Afghanistan, and a Regimental Headquarters and 150 Engineers for immediate humanitarian assistance and disaster response after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake (including Col MacIsaac’s deployment as the Op HESTIA Task Force Engineer in Haiti in 2010).
Col MacIsaac’s staff postings include four years as in Land Force Atlantic Area HQ in Halifax, three years in the Canadian Army Headquarters’ Directorate of Land Strategic Planning (where he was involved with Army Transformation), two years as the Chief of Plans at the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre in Wainwright, and a year as the Director of Military Careers 3 – i.e. the Army career manager. He holds a Masters of Defence Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada, and is a graduate of Canadian Land Force Command and Staff College, and the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College’s Command and Staff Programme.
In 2012, Col MacIsaac was promoted to his current rank and appointed as the Commander of the Operational Support Engineer Group, Canadian Operational Support Command (CANOSCOM) and the Branch Advisor for the Canadian Military Engineers. As the Commander of the Operational Support Engineer Group and as the Canadian Joint Operational Command (CJOC) Engineer, Col MacIsaac is responsible to deliver national-level operational military Engineer support to Canadian Forces missions at home and abroad. This involves shaping force development in operational Engineering, planning for operations, reaching back to national strategic engineering support, and coordinating the force generation of task-tailored Engineer organisations for employment in theatre activation activation and opening, operational sustainment and mission closeout.