CAP TODAY Pathology/Laboratory Medicine/Laboratory Management
Dr. Zeiler recognized early on the value of commercial laboratories, Dr. Neff says. “When those first commercial laboratories opened up, many pathologists thought of them as threats,” he says. “Bill and some of the others saw that some of the testing was going to become so esoteric that most laboratories would not be able to do it. These commercial laboratories would be needed, and the real question wasn’t ‘Yes or no?’ It was, ‘What kind of a deal can you make with them for your laboratory or hospital?’”
Dr. Zeiler and other past presidents “gave me an education on politics and medicine and political giving,” Dr. Neff says, and were instrumental in expanding the resources of the CAP’s Washington office.
Nick T. Serafy Jr., president and CEO of Proficiency Testing Service in Brownsville, Tex., says Dr. Zeiler was “always the gentleman in the room.” Dr. Zeiler oversaw negotiations when Serafy’s company became a vendor to the CAP in the late 1980s.
“I was a young man of 30 at the time and was pretty much the kid in the room,” says Serafy, who is a member of the CAP Foundation Board of Directors. “I remember Dr. Zeiler treating me with the same dignity and respect with which he treated everybody else. It was a big moment in my life and he was part of it.”
Dr. Zeiler established a generous dedicated trust with the CAP Foundation that will go to the Geraldine Colby Zeiler Fund for the CAP Foundation, created in 1996 and named in memory of his late wife. “We were very honored to be among his philanthropic concerns and interests,” says Diana Kelker Workman, former executive director of the CAP Foundation.
Dr. Zeiler set up other gifts in memory of his wife, who trained as a cytotechnologist at the Mayo Clinic, among them the Geraldine Colby Zeiler Professorship in Cytopathology at the Mayo Clinic. “The good that’s come of this is absolutely so widespread. A tremendous amount of work has been done,” he said of the professorship in 2010 in an interview with CAP TODAY.
He established also the Geraldine Colby Zeiler Fund for the Advancement of Pathology, which supports annual cytotechnology educational grants managed by the CAP Foundation and distributed to recipients selected by the American Society of Cytopathology.
Kelker Workman says Dr. Zeiler also shared his skills as a master pianist with the CAP Foundation. “He was such a beautiful pianist,” she says. “He helped with a lot of our special events and did a piano recital that was well attended at one of our annual meetings.”
Says Dr. Neff, “He knew a lot, he accomplished a lot, and the College was well served by his presidency.”
Dr. Zeiler is survived by four daughters, one son, and 11 grandchildren.
—Amy Carpenter Aquino