The little pharmacy that could

How long have you had the business?

I came here in the summer of 1977. There had been a previous pharmacy here since 1937. That owner retired and sold it to my wife and I.

How is the economic downturn impacting your business?

You see more people thinking twice about, are we getting the value out of the medication to part with the dollars. Pharmaceuticals continue to increase in price. And regulations continue to proliferate.

What are the challenges of leadership during these tough economic times?

We've seen an expansion of the retailing base, which has meant a shift in pharmacy from a lot of locally owned pharmacies to big box stores coming in.

How do you combat those big box store discounts?

It is tough. I am blessed to have an excellent staff that has been with me for quite a period of time. They are knowledgeable. They are highly service-oriented. They are people people. Step two is providing services that others don't have to offer, and third is to feel that we always need to do something to add value to what we are providing. We never believe in just selling a person a prescription. We should be contributing something in the way of pertinent advice or making suggestions to a physician or caregiver.

Is it tough to attract new customers because of the bigger stores, and how do you do it?

There has been almost like a panic-like spread of pharmacies. We have a lot in this town. Traditional means have been advertising, but advertising is a challenge for a small business. We tend to get our word out through professional groups, speaking engagements with community groups. For now, we still rely heavily on word of mouth. We've just established a Web site (packpharmacy.com) and we look to develop that a lot more.

How do you move your business forward?

I think in our case, we have tried to excel with special services and satisfying special needs over the years. Some of these things have grown to the point where they have become general business for everyone else, but we were the first to do it. We always have something new that we are doing, a new innovation. I think we are able to maintain a high degree of personal contact with patients.

What lessons are we learning?

I think if you survive in small business, being blindsided is a way of life. There are always surprises. A successful small-business person is a problem solver. The ones that last face new challenges and greet them.

How do you keep your employees and yourself motivated?

One of the things that helps us is humor. Another thing is faith that you are doing good and good will result from it. And, I think the biggie is in serving people. Most of us are people oriented and we're doing good and helping people. It is not a business, it's a profession.

How does the current economic downturn compare with other challenges you've faced in your career?

Starting a business in 1977, that was the same time we had inflationary rates exploding to 14 percent and interest rates to 21 percent, and unemployment was much higher than it is now. That was a heck of a time to come in as a business, but providing a worthwhile service that people appreciated just offered us a way to grow. So after 10 years, we were able to construct this new building. ... There is a high degree of uncertainty today because our solutions are not going to come from the marketplace or individual choices, but they are going to be heavily influenced by Washington. That puts it out of our control. This sense of wondering what's going to come our way.

What are the major changes you have seen in the industry?

It has been a shift to both the high tech and high touch. We take advantage of all the latest technology, but we use that to give us more time to work with our patients, to solve problems for them, to educate them, to have a better understanding of them so the information that is given is relevant. There had been a decline in the 1970s in the amount of pharmacy compounding, where the pharmacy actually prepares the medication, but it has rallied back. For us it is a significant portion of the work we do.

Any new plans for the pharmacy?

There are always some major trends in the compounding services. There has been a lot of talk about Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement. That is something we started doing in the mid-1990s, but we will probably see some more demand for that. That being said, doing that service requires a lot of education, a lot of experience and expertise.