Professional Achievement, College of Business, Leadership, and Ethics

Growing up in Indiana, the third of four children, Dr. Scott Rathgaber ’22 recalls that his parents, though they’d never gone to college, put a lot of emphasis on their children getting a good education.

“My parents always said education is the way to improvement,” Rathgaber said. “I owe a great debt of gratitude to my parents for instilling a love of learning in us.”

By the time Rathgaber enrolled in Viterbo’s Master of Arts in Servant Leadership degree program, he’d already had a lifetime of learning. It had been 30 years since he’d earned his doctoral degree from Indiana University Medical Center, which he attended after getting his undergraduate education at Wabash College.

Now chief executive officer for the recently merged Gundersen Health System and Bellin Health, Rathgaber began his medical career with a strong focus on serving patients one at a time as a gastroenterology specialist. He had no interest in the business side of medicine and no aspirations to leadership.

When Rathgaber came to Gundersen, the then-CEO Dr. Jeff Thompson started a learning community for younger doctors with leadership potential and tapped Rathgaber for the inaugural group. “By that point in my career, I’d go to a medical conference for a week and I’d learn three new things,” Rathgaber said. “But when I’d go to a leadership conference, I’d learn dozens and dozens of things every day. It was kind of interesting to do that.”

Rathgaber took on increasing leadership responsibilities at Gundersen, first as department chair, then as a board member, then as a vice president, and then in 2015 he was named chief executive officer.

When he took on the CEO role at Gundersen, Rathgaber decided to seek out a leadership mentor outside the field of medicine. He went to Sandy Brekke ’19, then director of the St. Clare Health Mission and working on her Viterbo’s Master of Arts in Servant Leadership. She gave him a copy of Robert Greenleaf’s seminal book on servant leadership and suggested he talk to Tom Thibodeau, Viterbo’s distinguished professor of servant leadership.

“I called Tom and said, ‘Hi, you don’t know me but I’m looking for a leadership mentor,’” Rathgaber recalled. “You know Tom. He said, ‘Of course, no problem.’”

They started meeting monthly, discussing the tenets of servant leadership. “It really resonated with me and aligned with what I was trying to instill in our organization,” Rathgaber said.

Although he was getting a master class in servant leadership from Thibodeau in their meetings, Rathgaber decided he needed a deeper dive, so he decided to enroll in Viterbo’s MASL degree program.

“I’ve always liked learning. Of course, I learned a lot from Tom from meeting with him, but I wanted to get everything that goes with that academic program. And how lucky are we to have that here. You can’t do that anywhere else in the United States,” said Rathgaber, who serves on Viterbo’s Board of Trustees. “What’s nice about the program is it’s not all-consuming. I had another job, but I was able to take classes on weekends, one or two at a time.”

In addition to his Viterbo Distinguished Alumni Award, Rathgaber has had a couple other recent honors. In May 2022, the American Hospital Association honored him with the Wisconsin Grassroots Champion Award, and earlier this year BizTimes named him one of Wisconsin’s 275 most influential business leaders.

Spend any time with Rathgaber and his deep humility and gratitude for the opportunities he’s had will be apparent. He still considers himself a student of servant leadership, but he did say “yes” to Thibodeau’s request to speak at the recently held 20th annual Servant Leadership Conference.

Sharing his experience with conference participants, Rathgaber wanted people to realize that servant leadership is a journey that has stops and starts, detours and U-turns, and nobody ever gets on a direct route to perfection.

If you ask Thibodeau, he’ll tell you Rathgaber is doing just fine on his leadership journey.

“Dr. Rathgaber is a scholar and a gentleman who treats everyone he serves with dignity and respect,” Thibodeau said. “During COVID, he worked side by side with his staff providing the support, leadership, and guidance the people on the front lines needed serving in difficult if not sometimes impossible situations.”

Rathgaber was quite surprised to be honored with a Viterbo alumni award. “My first response was, ‘Surely they have people who are more deserving than me,’” he said. “It’s very humbling and nice to be recognized. I look at it as an opportunity to heighten awareness of the great work being done at Viterbo. It’s an amazing university.”

2023 Viterbo University Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients main page