For Immediate Release
Contact: Daniel Wackershauser, Marketing and PR Specialist
Phone: 608.822.2303
Mail: 1800 Bronson Blvd., Fennimore, WI 53809
Date of Release: May 18, 2026
Kieler honored for years of laboratory leadership
Fennimore -After more than 47 years serving patients and mentoring future laboratory professionals, Debra Kieler is still finding new ways to make an impact.
Kieler, an adjunct Medical Laboratory Technician instructor at Southwest Wisconsin Technical College and recently retired medical technologist at Southwest Health, Platteville, Wisconsin, was presented with the 2026 Peter A. Shult Award from the Wisconsin Clinical Laboratory Network on April 7. The award recognizes active participation, exceptional service and outstanding promotion of clinical laboratory science.
For Kieler, the recognition was both humbling and meaningful. “It was such an honor,” she said. “The things that were said about me were really great to hear.”
Kieler grew up near Cuba City, Wisconsin, and began her medical laboratory career shortly after graduating from UW-Platteville in 1977. She completed her clinical internship in Dubuque, Iowa and started working full time the Monday after graduation.
Her first job was at the same hospital where she had been born 21 years earlier.
Over the next four decades, Kieler witnessed dramatic changes in laboratory science, from handwritten paper charts and manual testing to advanced automation and electronic medical records. Despite the technological changes, she said one thing always remained the same – helping people. “We really did make a difference in people’s lives because the doctor wouldn’t know how to treat unless they had our lab results,” she said.
Kieler retired from Southwest Health in April 2025, but she quickly found herself back in the classroom when Southwest Tech officials recruited her in August 2025 to assist with the college’s phlebotomy and Medical Laboratory Technician programs.
She said working with students has become one of the most rewarding parts of her career. “You have to know your job, but you also have to be compassionate,” she said. “You have to be a team player.”
Kieler was nominated for the Peter A. Shult Award by her former manager and learned she had received the honor during a phone call from Madison while working at Southwest Tech.
Reflecting on her decades-long career, Kieler said one quote especially captures what the award means to her. “Be proud of the work you have done, the person you are and the difference you have made,” she said.