Bruce DeRuntz, director of SIU’s Leadership Development Program, holds a copy of “Work Ready.” The new book highlights a late-SIU alum and U.S. Navy SEAL veteran, whose principles helped shape the program and the successes of its participants. (Photo by Brooke Kelter)
May 15, 2026
New book honors late SIU alum’s legacy on Leadership Development Program
CARBONDALE, Ill. – Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Leadership Development Program (LDP) boasts a 100% graduation rate, a 96% career placement rate, and its graduates are 19% more work ready than their peers. A part of that success is thanks to the late William “Will” Bushelle, a SIU alum and U.S. Navy SEAL veteran, who is the focus of a new book.
Bruce DeRuntz, director of the LDP and engineering professor, co-authored he Amazon best-seller highlights how Bushelle helped transform the program with the lessons he learned while serving the country.
Leadership Development Program
The Leadership Development Program has been supporting SIU students in the College of Engineering, Computing, Technology, and Mathematics since 2006. It’s designed to engage students in an immersive environment that promotes leadership development and success.
To get the full experience, students join the two-year training program and begin the academic year with a week-long team-building exercise. Other requirements include organizing and leading university and community service projects, joining registered student organizations (RSO), being paired with a mentor for one-on-one coaching, and participating in weekly meetings that start at 6 a.m. to learn from guest and peer speakers.
Over the course of its 20 years, the program has shaped hundreds of STEM students and contributed to the SIU campus. Participants have secured cabinet roles in RSOs, raised thousands of dollars for these clubs, and have even created three new groups within the College of Engineering, Computing, Technology, and Mathematics. In addition, the program placed first in three campus-wide blood drives and received the Delyte W. Morris Award of Excellence in Community Service in 2016 and 2018.
“The Delyte W. Morris Award of Excellence in Community Service is the ultimate and highest honor that a registered student organization can receive,” DeRuntz said. “It recognizes a combination of quantity and quality of community service projects. Leadership must be practiced and one way of doing that is through service projects.”
Beyond campus, students who graduated from the LDP have gone on to be recipients of the Illinois Technology Foundation’s Fifty for the Future, earned two National Science Foundation awards, and have received more than $1.6 million in STEM scholarships.
Will attends SIU
One person who contributed to this nationwide impact is the late William Bushelle, and his legacy continues to live on through the students who participate. After graduating from high school in 1994, Bushelle enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He completed basic training, Electrician’s Mate ‘A’ School and Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, leading him to a position as a platoon operator during the entirety of his active service. While reporting to NR SEAL Team Eight in Great Lakes, Illinois, the service member began attending SIU.
During this time, Bushelle sparked a friendship with DeRuntz, a professor of his during a weekend class. DeRuntz can recall the exact moment the two made a connection, when his then-student approached him after a lecture.
“The class clears and this student comes down and thanks me for the wonderful instruction,” DeRuntz said. “I was floored. Students never do this. It really made me wonder, who is this guy?”
Bushelle slowly opened up about his military experience and how he applied the leadership lessons learned as a Navy SEAL to his civilian and academic life. In 2004, he graduated earning a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Technology and a minor in business administration.
The graduate accepted job offers at Boeing as a manufacturing engineer and later at GES Corporation as an industrial engineer. But his heart for serving the country never faded. He completed one voluntary deployment to the Al Anbar region of Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2006 with SEAL Team Five and served on SEAL Team 17’s Charlie Platoon with deployments to the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and Korea.
Bushelle earned personal decorations, including the Navy Commendation Medal with Valor, Navy Achievement Medals with Valor, Meritorious Service Medals, the Combat Action Ribbon, the Iraq Campaign Medal and various other unit and service awards.
His impact
DeRuntz kept in touch with Bushelle after his graduation and featured him as a guest speaker during one of the LDP’s early morning meetings. Bushelle, along with the help of his then boss Shannon Barnett, refined his core principles from his experience as a Navy SEAL and shared them with participants:
- Be better, faster, and smarter than you were yesterday.
- Focus on the team – not yourself.
- Building relationships leads to trust and a team.
- Everyone on your team needs to believe in the mission.
- Learn to love your team deeply.
- Work to eliminate your job.
- Leaders are force multipliers.
- Subordinates are teammates too.
- Set and communicate expectations.
- If being the leader isn’t the hardest job, you’re doing it wrong.
“It was really inspiring to hear how Will’s principles were guided by the Navy SEALs,” DeRuntz said. “How Will used them, how he applied them based off one of the highest performing teams in the world. I thought, if it’s good enough for the Navy SEALs, it’s good enough for us.”
DeRuntz then began applying these principles to LDP projects such as participating in blood drives and volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, The Survivor Empowerment Center, and The Science Center Carbondale IL.
Students define their mission or reason for the project, hold everyone accountable for being on time and participating, teach one another skills for equal contribution, learn to work through differences that arise for the good of the team, and all members stay until the project is complete.
“You can teach these principles in a classroom, but there’s nothing like real-world situations” DeRuntz said. “That’s why we would apply them to projects. Students were able to truly feel and experience the impact of why these principles matter and make a difference.”
Work Ready
Regarding the success of the leadership program, DeRuntz noted that all students earn their bachelor’s degree. On top of this, 94% of participants secure job placement pre-graduation and 96% post-graduation. Participants have gone on to become U.S. Marines F-35 pilots, doctors, engineers, professors, PhD researchers and plant managers, among other notable positions.
“After being several years into their careers, many program graduates come back with their own leadership stories and it’s so inspiring,” DeRuntz said. “They share the value of how the program has impacted their professional life and to keep the program going.”
One company shared employee performance statistics with DeRuntz showing that LDP graduates advanced their careers 20% faster compared to their peers.
The book
Now, DeRuntz hopes people beyond the SIU campus can take these principles and apply them to their own lives and careers.
“There comes a time when you have a recipe for success and you want to share it with a bigger, broader audience,” he said. “I wanted to couple that with giving honor to Will for sharing his leadership principles, for being a fellow Saluki, and a U.S. veteran who served.”
Each chapter of the book pairs a real Navy SEAL experience with student case studies and concrete action steps, covering topics like personal discipline, team leadership, organizational influence, and continuous improvement.
DeRuntz is thankful for everyone who made the book possible, including the U.S. Navy SEALs who served with Bushelle and were willing to share stories about their enlistment together and the leadership principles that they learned as a team.
“These are some of the finest gentlemen you will ever meet in your entire life, just amazing character,” DeRuntz added. “I’m so grateful that they were able to share their insights.”
All net proceeds from the book will support the Will Bushelle Scholarship through the SIU Foundation. The scholarship is open to all applicants who are active-duty military/reserve, veteran or active ROTC with a major in engineering. If these criteria are not met, the recipient must be an engineering student participating in the LDP.
Book signing
Bushelle’s parents will join DeRuntz and Barrett for a book signing at Traxx in Carbondale where their son worked during his time at SIU. The event will take place on Saturday, May 30, from 4 to 6 p.m. The public is invited to attend.