Vernon E. Weckwerth, Ph.D.

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Weckwerth, Vernon E. Ph.D. (April 29, 1931 February 25, 2021) Dr. Vernon Ervin Weckwerth, a loving father, a professor emeritus of the University of Minnesota, and a long-time resident of the Como Park neighborhood and of 1666 Coffman in St. Paul, MN, passed away at his home on February 25, 2021. He is survived by his five children: Vicki Kennedy, Marsha (Lee) Olch, Debra (Vincent) Fedor, Amy Weckwerth, and Mark Weckwerth; six grandchildren: Alyssa, James, Joseph, Robert, Katherine, and Andrew; two great-grandchildren: Aspen and Jaeda; and his former wife, Joanne, to whom he was married for 56 years. He was born on April 29, 1931, to Ervin Rudolph Weckwerth and Bertha Barbara Anna Brutlag on a farm near Herman, MN. He had one sister, Betty Jane Weckwerth Agre. During the depression, his family moved to Colorado and lived on various farms in Severance, Windsor, and Loveland. In 1943, the family returned to Minnesota and purchased a farm south of Monte-video. In 1947, the family moved to their maternal grandmother's farm east of Montevideo. In six of the eight years Vernon attended elementary school in Colorado and Minnesota, he was the only child in his class. It was the depression, few children were born, and many didn't have the luxury of attending school. In high school, he was captain of the football team and won State Superior Speaking Awards for several years, fore-shadowing the lectures he would give as a professor. These achieve-ments also presaged his becoming a beloved lay reader of scriptures at Como Park Lutheran Church in St. Paul, MN - a church he joined in 1955 and which he continued to attend and support throughout his life. Vernon graduated from the University of Minnesota (UMN) with bachelor's and master's degrees, and ultimately a doctorate in biostatistics. During his summers in college, Vernon sold Northrup King seeds to businesses for resale. After graduating from UMN, he worked for the American Hospital Association (AHA) in Chicago for a few years before returning to UMN as a professor of hospital administration in the School of Public Health where he taught and advised graduate students in the MHA, MPH, and doctoral programs. In 1969, Vernon developed the Independent Study Program (ISP) to serve rural populations. It was an off-site learning program which was an early example of remote learning opportunities common today. The program also appealed to executives already running hospitals around the world and allowed them to continue working while completing their master's degrees. From 1969 to 2011, more than three thousand healthcare executives enrolled in ISP. They run hospitals providing public healthcare to millions of people in 45 countries around the world, including places like Hong Kong and Bahrain. Vernon traveled extensively in those years, visiting virtually every country where his ISP students worked. He held annual December seminars to support and enable cross-cultural symposia. Even as he led ISP, Professor Weckwerth also taught statistics to students in six colleges at UMN: Nursing, Medical, Pharmacy, Humphrey Public Affairs, Public Health, and Dentistry. He was an avid fundraiser for UMN. At his retirement party in 2011, in an extraordinary display of esteem for Professor Weckwerth, hundreds of former students (executive and master's) attended from across the US and around the world. They honored and roasted his dedication to public health and lifelong learn-ing. Vernon especially enjoyed the good-natured lampooning. In his retirement he continued to hear from his students with updates on their lives - personal and professional - and expressions of deep gratitude for their learning experiences. In 2014, the first recipient of the newly created Vernon E. Weckwerth Professorship in Healthcare Administration Leadership was named. An endowed professorship is a time-honored means of paying tribute to the contributions of prominent faculty leaders. Beyond his work life, the things that mattered most to Vernon were his children, worldwide travel, educa-tion, biblical archeology, and his Lutheran faith and church. He summitted Machu Pichu in 1977, well before it was a popular thing to do. Every summer, he would take his family on a road trip, and by the time his children graduated from high school, they had visited 46 of the 50 states (including Hawaii - not a road trip!). Vernon was a constant fixer-upper, including building additions to his home in Como Park. He held annual August picnics at his home for his students with up to 200 attendees. Vernon was living proof that you can take the boy off the farm, but not the farm out of the boy. When he moved to the UMN Coffman Condominium he always tended a garden and many houseplants. He will be missed by his family, friends, students, and colleagues, but his memory will live on through stories they share of his life and adventures. A celebration of life will be held at a future date. Interment will be at Lakewood Cemetery. Please send memorials to Como Park Lutheran Church or to the Vernon E. Weckwerth Professorship in Health-care Administration Leadership Fund 11702 at the University of Minnesota.

Published on February 28, 2021