[9][11] After becoming the president of ITU shortly prior to the merger, he was re-elected to seven more terms as head of the printing, publishing, and media sector in the merged organization.

CWA President Larry Cohen praised Boarman's experience and his service to printing sector members and workers in the industry.

[8][14] In April 2010, The White House announced that President Barack Obama would nominate Boarman as the 26th Public Printer of the United States, succeeding the Honorable Robert C.

[16][17][18][19] The Washington Post announced that Boarman officially "took the helm of the Government Printing Office" on January 5, 2011, "returning after 37 years to the agency where he began his career as a proofreader.

"[20] During Boarman's confirmation process, he stated in his testimony to the Senate committee that, if confirmed as head of the GPO, he would face the challenge of maintaining traditional printing skills of an aging workforce while helping a 150-year-old organization adapt to a world in which most documents are "born digital":[21] "The GPO today is a substantially different agency compared with the one I left many years ago," Boarman said.

"It employs fewer personnel but is significantly more technologically advanced, and it is responsible for a range of products and activities that could only have been dreamed of 30 years ago: Online databases of federal documents with state-of-the-art search and retrieval capabilities, passports and smart cards with electronic chips carrying biometric data, print products on sustainable paper using vegetable oil-based inks, a management infrastructure supported by the latest IT enterprise architecture, and more.... We have an aging workforce, and this is going to be a critical issue in the coming years.... We need to develop a program to recruit and replace the people we are going to lose in the next three to five years.

[21] At his January 2011 swearing-in ceremony, Boarman said that "Keeping America informed is a function rooted in the Constitution, and it's one of the great national purposes served by this agency.

"[23] He referenced the 1923 poem by Beatrice Warde, "This is a printing office," which concludes: "From this place words may fly abroad, not to perish on waves of sound, not to vary with the writer's hand, but fixed in time, having been verified by proof: Friend, you stand on sacred ground,"[23][24][25] and then continued: We still print—using processes that are thoroughly computerized—but we also use digital technology in new and exciting ways.

"[23] In addition to specific cuts, he "realigned management to have the Chief Financial Officer report directly to him, and implemented a task force to recover outstanding payments, known as 'chargebacks,' from Federal agencies.

[23] Under Boarman's leadership, the GPO published Keeping America Informed, an official history of the organization on the occasion of its 150th anniversary—and the first such publication since its earlier 100th anniversary volume.

Few Federal agencies can count as their heritage the scope of the work GPO has performed, ranging from the first printing of the Emancipation Proclamation to providing digital access to the Government's publications today.