Paul D. Koeller

Paul is the son of Paul E. Koeller, an employee in the G. Heileman Brewing Company for more than 40 years. Paul spent the first 21 years of his life living in La Crosse during his father’s employment with the brewery. Paul is an avid researcher and has published several newspaper travel articles and several computer related articles in technical magazines. Paul decided to do research and write a history of Heileman’s as a tribute to his father. He connected with Dave DeLano who worked for the company from 1973 to 1996 and was its corporate credit manager as well as resident historian. Both men were planning to write their own history of the company, not knowing of the others’ plans and not knowing each other. After they met they decided to collaborate and spent their time conducting interviews and finalizing the 400 page manuscript that documents the history of Heileman’s and the people that helped to make the company—Brewed with Style—the Story of the House of Heileman.

Through pledges and proceeds of this book, Paul and Karen Koeller established the Paul D. Koeller Scholarship. The purpose of this endowment fund is funding scholarships for UW-La Crosse students who are current employees or former employees or descendents of current or former employees in the brewing or baking industry in La Crosse previously or currently owned and operated by G. Heileman Brewing Company, or its successor, City Brewing Company, or any of their subsidiaries.

Paul has been with IBM in Rochester, Minnesota, for over 26 years in operating systems design, implementation, team leadership and project management. He has been a team leader and project manager of a software component that had some of the worst quality on the operating system and took the component to where it is recognized by IBM as being a high quality, responsive, high morale component that delivers function on schedule with reasonable risk and cost. Paul has received numerous IBM awards for project management, team leadership, technical achievements and invention activities.

Paul D. Koeller—1977 UW-L Bachelor of Science Degrees in Computer Science and
Mathematics/Statistics
Karen Runerson Koeller—1976 UW-L Bachelor of Science Degree in Recreation Program
Leadership