Teresa Lynn Wilhelm Waldof has a habit of achieving her goals. In her career, she’s worked in medical device sales, run her own business, worked as a consultant and held corporate leadership and executive level roles. But despite those decades in corporate America, in her fifties she decided it was time to pursue her goal of earning a Masters of Business Administration (MBA), a journey that would ultimately lead her to a future she wasn’t expecting.
Waldof had earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and always had an interest in getting her next degree. Living in Rochester, she looked for local possibilities and learned that the Labovitz School of Business and Economics (LSBE) at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) offered the Rochester Executive-format MBA. It seemed tailored for Teresa, a program for working professionals that provided a flexible, primarily face-to-face curriculum held on-site at the University of Minnesota Rochester campus.
“It worked out perfectly,” Waldof said. “The classes were rigorous. I learned a lot, because you already had to have a business degree in order to get in.”
Having already navigated a long career in business, her classes reinforced the real-world experience she’d earned over decades. They added a sense of understanding and mastery in many areas that she’d learned on the fly or had intuited along the way.
“The Labovitz School of Business and Economics is not easy on you,” Waldof said. “It's a pretty tough school, and I got really good comments on my papers.” The courses weren’t in creative writing, but the process reminded her of another lifelong goal she wished to accomplish: to write a book.
Teresa Lynn Wilhelm Waldof at the Minnesota book awards event with her editor, Beth Wright. Photo submitted: Dean Waldof.
One of her instructors at LSBE was Steve Castleberry, PhD, a professor of marketing & business ethics, who also has a background in publishing. She approached him one day after class and shared her idea for a book about her grandfather, Wilhelm, who had created the uranium that was used in the Manhattan project. Castleberry’s response? “Well, you should just do it.”
She had the story, the sources, the connections and the desire to write the book. Now, with the encouragement she’d received from her professors at UMD, she had the push she needed to begin the epic task of writing the book.
In 2012, she dove into research. “I was at the archives at Iowa State University a good portion of that summer, getting documents out of the special archives with the original documents that are probably still radioactive,” she said.
Waldof spent the following years collecting data, poring over materials in libraries, archives and family storage spaces, all the while aware of a clock that was ticking. “In 2015, I really hunkered down and decided to get this done,” Waldof said. “I had a sense of urgency because my father and my three aunts … I wanted to get it done before they died.” In January 2022, her work was complete, and she published her debut book Wilhelm's Way: The Inspiring Story of the Iowa Chemist Who Saved the Manhattan Project. She made her deadline; both of her parents got to see it in print.
The book soon became a finalist for the Minnesota Book Awards, and as she neared the awards ceremony, she realized it was time for another new beginning. So, on April 30, 2023, Waldof retired from the corporate world. On May 2, Wilhelm’s Way received the Minnesota Book Award in the general nonfiction category.
“Winning the Minnesota Book Award was such an honor. Unbelievable,” Waldof said. “I was self-published, which made it even, I think, a bigger achievement: My first book, self-published and I win this award. I just am over the moon.”
In some ways, the award was a symbol of the end of Waldof’s corporate life, but it also marks the beginning of her next career as an author. Her journey exemplifies the importance of chasing “the opportunity to go and fulfill personal dreams,” she said, “no matter what stage in life you're in.”
“Here I am in my sixties, I'm becoming a writer, which I would not have done if I hadn't gone to get my MBA, and I would not be a Minnesota Book Award winner. I'm sure of it,” Waldof said. “Having that opportunity to get my educational dream fulfilled helped to parlay the skills I learned during that into a new dream of becoming a writer.”
Header image caption: Teresa Lynn Wilhelm Waldof’s (MBA ’09) book Wilhelm’s Way earned the 2023 Minnesota Book Award and was the summer 2024 Alumni Book Club read.