Originally posted September 26, 2006
There
are not enough thanks for my colleagues, friends and family who
gathered to celebrate (and to a certain extent, roast) my retirement
from the University of Wisconsin.
Last week,
September 21st, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by my children and
grandchildren, old friends, and valued colleagues. As those of you with
Scandinavian background know, we are not used to compliments and in
fact we grow uncomfortable when we hear our own name praised. Listening
to stories of my early career, or tales of my parenting, I can only
reflect on the blessings of my life and be very, very thankful.
Happier
still was a reunion of the “Wisconsin Mafia” a collection of
brilliant scientists with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working over
the years. Ron Laessig, Merle Evenson, Ian Carlson, all now retired;
Neill Carey, now of Peninsula Regional Hospital, Carl Garber, now of
Quest Diagnostics; David Koch, now of Emory University; and Sharon
Ehrmeyer, Don Wiebe and Terri Darcy, still at UW. Ron, Merle, and Ian
were
collegues and collaborators in my early scientific work; Neill, Carl,
and Dave worked with me in Clinical Chemistry and are the fellows who
continue the labor of the annual “Method Validation” workshop at the
AACC conference. Sharon and Terri have been especially supportive of my
teaching and educational efforts. Also present were a number of
Clinical Lab Scientists who were influential in putting some of my
ideas and theories into practice, particularly Trish Barry and Elsa
Quam at UW Hospital. Don Wiebe emcee'd the event - he's always provided
humor that makes life and work enjoyable and he kept us laughing that
night.
It is increasingly rare that
one can work for a single institution for your entire career. But I was
fortunate to find a place in the University of Wisconsin, a great
public institution that took its job seriously. The UW takes care of
its students, its educators, and its patients. Even under withering
budget pressure from less charitable legislators, it endures in its
mission. One of the reasons why Wisconsin is so great is because we
give our citizens a great education. It has produced an amazing set of
professionals who have made a huge impact on the practice of laboratory
medicine. I am proud to be in their number.
Jack
Levine, an old colleague from Bayer Diagnostics, gave a speech entitled
“The Wisconsin Conundrum” in which described how he met both me and Dr.
Laessig early in our careers. We all worked together on some very early
and important papers, which frankly laid the foundations of how we use
analytical instrumentation in the laboratory. Over the years, Jack and
Ron and I managed to do pretty well for ourselves. But Jack outlasted
us. He is still working at Bayer (which is now going to be Siemens)
with more than 40 years under his belt.
There are
more names, more colleagues, more memories than I can describe right
now. The frenetic pace of life gives us few moments to stop and take
stock of our lives, family, and friends. For me that night was one of
those golden moments. So let me again say thank you.
Just
one final note: I still find myself going into work. My office space
hasn’t been reoccupied yet, so there is still a space where I can go in
and tackle some issues.
You’ll hear more from me soon…
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