Distinguished Alumni Award: Ron Waeckerlin

 

By Tamara Linse

 

Ron Waeckerlin arrived at the University of Wyoming in the fall of 1969 thinking he’d major in music, but it was at a Frontier Days party with his future wife Carol, not in a classroom, that his path was determined. Waeckerlin had been leaning toward optometry after realizing his musical knowledge was at best challenged. A friend, a CPA, suggested he set his sights on medical school. “That was a gauntlet,” Waeckerlin says. “I said, maybe I’ll change my focus.” 

Waeckerlin declared pre-med, fell hard for chemistry and zoology, and found himself adopted, one mentor at a time, by people who saw something he hadn’t yet seen in himself. Dr. Floyd Clark, the university’s pre-med advisor, helped him on the path to medical school. The same thing happened again and again throughout his career — people taking him under their wing, redirecting him toward a passion he didn’t know he had. “I was influenced by some pretty amazing people who guided my career in unexpected ways,” he says. “You don’t realize what an impact your mentors have on you in terms of directing you toward what ultimately becomes your career and your passion, and along the way helping many toward a better life.”

Music brought more than just direction to Waeckerlin’s early life. He met his wife, Carol, of more than 50 years in the UW marching band. Their shared passion for classical music has been a life-long rewarding journey. They married, and Carol worked to put him through medical school and raise their three children during Ron’s residency and the grueling hours of early practice. Carol built a parallel legacy of her own across Wyoming, serving on boards and raising funds for several Wyoming nonprofits. “We graduated medical school with no debt,” Waeckerlin says. “That’s absolutely unheard of these days.”

After graduating UW as a Phi Beta Kappa, a contract program sent him to the University of Utah for medical school, followed by residency at University of New Mexico that introduced him to forensic pathology — he assisted with autopsies after the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary riot, work he still describes vividly decades later. As a result he was an early pioneer in digital wound analysis. But it was a mentor in transfusion medicine and a physician named Toby Simon who set the course that would define his career. He then turned down a prestigious fellowship in blood banking at the Mayo Clinic to take a pathology position in Casper. He jokes, “We love wind so much that we have lived in Casper, Rawlins, Laramie and Cheyenne.”

What followed was 44 years with the organization now known as Vitalant, the second largest blood bank in the country. Waeckerlin was local medical director from 1981–2008, joined the board of trustees and served as chair. He guided the organization through a difficult merger of dozens of regional blood banks into a single national brand and, almost immediately after, through the early uncertainty of the COVID pandemic. Vitalant’s president and CEO, Dave Green, wrote that, under Waeckerlin’s leadership, the organization delivered more than 2 million blood products a year to nearly a thousand hospitals nationwide, and helped create a national brand.

Waeckerlin also helped found and later chaired Creative Testing Solutions, the joint venture between Vitalant, the American Red Cross, and OneBlood that now tests roughly 80 percent of the nation’s blood supply — proof, he says, that organizations that once were fierce competitors could learn to work together for patients’ sake, a lesson rarely achieved. 

Through it all, Waeckerlin has kept a foot in Wyoming. 

He practiced pathology in Casper and then Cheyenne for more than 34 years, served on the boards of Jonah Bank and the Cheyenne Rotary Club, and was active in his church. He and Carol raised three children — a son who played golf at UW, a daughter who became a professional fly-fishing guide and now leads Casting for Recovery sponsoring retreats for breast cancer survivors, and a youngest who built her own life of service back home in Wyoming as choir director at schools ranging from elementary to community college. Waeckerlin still enjoys fly-fishing, and he skied his age in days the year he turned 71. Together, the Waeckerlins have visited 85 countries, engaging a passion to travel and learn about new cultures. 

The couple established the Waeckerlin Pre-Med Undergraduate Scholarship at UW, structured so that promising pre-med students can lessen their financial stress. “I was extraordinarily fortunate,” he says. “If we can help these students get through undergraduate school with little or no debt, it gives them a leg up.” It is the same gift that Dr. Floyd Clark, Dr. Toby Simon,and a CPA at a Frontier Days party once gave him — someone noticing potential and making room for it to grow. 

“We’ve been very blessed to have University of Wyoming in our lives — this is where it all began,” Waeckerlin says. “We have a tremendous amount of gratitude for what the university has done for us and will continue to do for so many Wyoming and other students fortunate enough to study, learn and grow in Laramie.