He served a two-year stint in South Korea, where he worked in a tuberculosis program in a rural clinic. He found his goal of helping people would be better served in the medical field and, starting in 1974, he took a path that led him to become a doctor, a psychiatrist and, finally, a top-level medical administrator. Today, at 60 years old, he's in the midst of his third term as president of the Marshfield Clinic. Because the job has term limits, it's a position he'll leave in just more than a year. The Peace Corps also led him to his wife, a Korean native. He has been married for 36 years, and the couple have four adult children and two granddaughters.
Peace Corps leads Korea RPCV Dr. Karl Ulrich to change in life plans
Boomer Q&A: Peace Corps leads to change in life plans
October 31, 2010
Capiton: Karl Ulrich, president of Marshfield Clinic, said that his Peace Corps service led him to a career in the medical field. Photo: Dan Young
When he was growing up in Rochester, Minn., Dr. Karl Ulrich thought he was going to be a teacher and a coach. That was the focus of his studies at what now is Minnesota State University, Mankato, but his plans changed after he graduated in 1972 and joined the Peace Corps.
He served a two-year stint in South Korea, where he worked in a tuberculosis program in a rural clinic. He found his goal of helping people would be better served in the medical field and, starting in 1974, he took a path that led him to become a doctor, a psychiatrist and, finally, a top-level medical administrator. Today, at 60 years old, he's in the midst of his third term as president of the Marshfield Clinic. Because the job has term limits, it's a position he'll leave in just more than a year.
The Peace Corps also led him to his wife, a Korean native. He has been married for 36 years, and the couple have four adult children and two granddaughters.
Question: Is retirement on the table as a next step for you?
Answer: Is it an option? Perhaps. But I still feel as though I've got something to give. And I probably would not feel very comfortable with myself if I were to retire just for my own sake and saying, 'Wow, I don't have to work anymore,' knowing that I still have something to give to the institution or to people or patients, whatever the case may be.
Q: How have the career goals changed through your life?
A: It perhaps is more important. There probably is, whether we like to admit it or not, there is a large association of who you are in life based on what your occupation role in life is. And based on what you've given other people in your life. And I think that for me, that's a very important element of identification. The longer you are at something ... the more strongly you begin to identify with what your occupational goal is, at least in my personal experience.
Q: How has the Peace Corps informed your life?
A: The family role came about very directly as a result of the Peace Corps experience. I fell in love, got married and had children and have gone forward. ... Two, as a young man, I had no thought of going into medicine as a career. My experience working in tuberculosis control ... had a great awakening in me about the fact that if altruism was indeed the driving force in me in joining the Peace Corps, then what better altruistic pursuit could there be than medicine where you're taking care of other people?
Q: How do you feel about being labeled as a baby boomer?
A: Well, it just is. I don't attach any particular value judgment to that label. I will say that the older I get, though, the more it becomes apparent to me that I'm edging into the latter stages of life now. But other than that, a baby boomer is a baby boomer. It doesn't make me feel good or bad.
