2025 Election
Thomas Wackerle
Board of Directors (2026-2028)
Thomas Wackerle, MD (Austria), CPhT-Adv, CSPT, CTDP
Lead Pharmacy Technician
Boston Children's Hospital
Boston, MA
Thomas Wackerle, MD (Austria), CPhT-Adv, CSPT, CTDP ([email protected]) is a lead pharmacy technician at Boston Children’s Hospital. He was born and raised in Innsbruck, Austria, where he attended Innsbruck’s Medical University before immigrating to the US, choosing to explore pharmacy as an area of practice stateside. Totaling over a decade of combined experience in community and hospital pharmacy, Wackerle currently works for Boston Children’s Hospital. In various functions, he oversees technician operations of two satellite areas, the pharmacy’s "White Bag" program, serves in technician leadership and on several work groups and committees, including those governing USP compliance and departmental policies and procedures. Additionally, Wackerle takes a strong interest in process improvement. Following his passion for teaching and professional advancement—holding numerous advanced credentials and professional certificates himself—Wackerle teaches pharmacy students at MCPHS University Boston and participates in technician-focused committees as a subject matter expert with the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board, as technician committee member of TPTS, ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists), and the Massachusetts Society of Health-System Pharmacists (MSHP). Wackerle passionately contributes to the growth and development of the profession as member of state and national technician communities and through his participation in technician committees and advisory groups with ASHP and TPTS, such as previous member and chair of the ASHP Pharmacy Technician Forum Professional and Career Ladder Development Advisory Group (2021-2023), past member of the ASHP Pharmacy Technician Forum Executive Committee (2023-2024), and current member of the TPTS Practice Advancement and Advocacy Committee. Recently, Wackerle received honors for his dedication to the profession as the 2024 MSHP Pharmacy Technician of the Year.
Statement of Philosophy
Proudly, I see our profession’s evolution to a highly competent, skilled workforce from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds that successfully, but often invisibly, shares its industry importance as allied health powerhouses. Technicians thrive in executive positions, including directors and seats on pharmacy boards and national healthcare associations. Many serve within their institutions as administrative leaders. I see a trajectory to many potential technician futures in new, emerging fields of pharmacy practice. With TPTS, we can publicly redefine and elevate our profession, create recommendations to lawmakers about standardizing licensing and credentialing requirements and procedures, resulting in easier transferability of licenses, true freedom regarding US-wide practice, technician mobility, and heightened professional recognition. Establishing successful relationships with state pharmacy boards will aid in a deeper understanding of the technician community, promoting technician-empowering legislation. Collaborating with ASHP, legislation recommendations on widening technicians’ practice abilities and identifying pharmacist roles that can be executed by technicians can be realized—a win-win. We must develop a well-defined criteria catalog to aid technicians in career advancement and make skills more universally marketable to and assessable for employers. I humbly recognize the full magnitude of the office responsibilities, and I see time and efforts invested in the representation of my peers’ interests as highly rewarding and well spent. I see great opportunities to raise awareness for our profession and TPTS’s efforts, and vow to work tirelessly on advocacy and professional relationship efforts. I will gladly explore opportunities for active media involvement of TPTS and its members in public technician campaigns, explore collaboration opportunities with educational institutions strengthening TPTS as a source of truth for technician-related information and education. I intend on facilitating the creation of an advocacy register so that projects that necessitate persistence in prolonged advocacy and lawmaking efforts can successfully span across more than one board term, ensuring successful follow-up and completion.