“Prudence” is a word rarely used in our present day. It’s an ancient word, meaning simply to “see ahead.”

“It may sound strange, but I can tell you that at age 11, I decided I wanted to be a pharmacist,” says Mark Gonzalez, one of PCCA’s many clinical compounding pharmacists that compose our Clinical Services department. Though this is not the first thing Mark tells me about himself during our conversation, it wholly encapsulates what I found to be irresistibly compelling about him: his ability to look ahead and his persistence to get to what he sees.

Mark is a first-generation American, and his story is consummately American in that his parents immigrated to the United States for opportunity and prosperity. They traveled from Cuba in the 1960s, finding themselves in California. There, they became business owners, first opening a grocery store. And it was in that grocery store that Mark learned values that are ingrained deep in the bedrock of American character.

“I learned about hard work,” Mark says, smiling through the memories. “I learned how to treat people fairly, how to treat them well. And I remember, one day, seeing a book my mother owned about how medications work in people. I read it, thinking to myself, ‘Wow, this would be cool.’” He laughs at the simplicity of that thought and mentions how strange it was to have the revelation of his future profession so young.

But the journey to becoming a pharmacist was not one that Mark traveled easily. And travel, you quickly find when speaking with him, is something that is essential to who he is, whether it’s easy going or not. For the man whose life goal is to visit 100 countries, journeying is an important element in a story that has seen Mark touch all 50 of the states in what he endearingly refers to as “our country,” never “the country.” For him, it’s something owned by all of us collectively.

The people he met on his way to becoming a pharmacist were just as important as the places he found himself, but not all of them were encouraging.

“I went to one of my teachers and said that I wanted to take an AP chemistry class because I wanted to be a pharmacist,” Mark says. “I remember everything about that moment, the time of day, where I was standing. My teacher looked at me and said, ‘You know, Mark, you will never be a pharmacist, so I don’t think you should take this class.’ But I also had another teacher, one I am still in contact with today, who always encouraged me and pushed me. And in the end,” he says, “those people made me a stronger person. They helped me deal with discouragements or great moments that come into your life that prove you have to be grounded in yourself and in your dreams.”

Mark’s dream of being a pharmacist continued when he was 17 years old and asked his parents if he could leave their store so that he could work in a local pharmacy. With his parents’ blessing, he went and spoke with the pharmacy owner, and there he was employed as a box boy.

“I asked him to share with me everything he knew,” Mark says, “and he took me in, becoming one of the most influential people in my life. He became my mentor. He did so much for me, kept me on track because he knew what my goals were, and he showed me how to accomplish them. He helped me apply to Midwestern University’s Chicago College of Pharmacy. I was accepted, and during my first week of school, I got a call from the administration office saying they needed me to come in. When I got there, I found that they had a box waiting for me.”

Mark takes a deep breath, remembering.

“In that box were over fifty letters from customers that used my mentor’s pharmacy. He had asked them to write letters of recommendation to Midwestern urging them to accept my application to the pharmacy school. People in my life, people that I don’t deserve, helped me to get where I am. And that is part of what led me here to Clinical Services at PCCA,” Mark says. “Because so many people invested in my life, it’s my job to invest in other people’s lives. My mentor told me that the reason he did what he did was because he wanted me to be a good pharmacist — all of that time and energy just because he wanted to see me succeed.”

While at Midwestern, Mark learned about compounding and wanted to incorporate it into his own pharmacy. He became a PCCA member and was a regular user of Clinical Services. When he found that the Clinical Services phone lines closed at a certain time of the day, Mark asked if PCCA would consider extending those hours. PCCA could have simply said they would. But instead, seeing Mark’s enthusiasm, they gave him an opportunity.

“They said, ‘Why don’t you become a consultant?’ and I was blown away. I accepted and became a consultant in 2001. I’ve enjoyed helping pharmacies since then, enjoyed helping patients get the personalized medicine they need. Helping people.” Mark did this part-time for 16 years while running his own pharmacy in California before joining the Clinical Services department full-time in 2017. As he recalls this journey, he stops, his eyes widening in realization, “Wow, today is actually my four-year anniversary of working full-time in Clinical Services.”

I smile, seeing the joy on his face. I say, “They call that ‘serendipity.’”

This is Mark Gonzalez.

A first-generation American who believes deeply in the country that he believes belongs to all of us. A member of PCCA’s Clinical Services team who has personally fielded over 100,000 calls during his time helping pharmacies and their patients, all because, when he was a little boy, he saw clearly the place he wanted to end up. He is a man who has seen almost all of the United States, too, and hopes one day to see the rest of the world. Not just because he loves travel, but because of a singular thread that runs through the story of his life — he travels the world not because of the places, but because of the people who occupy them.

“People,” he says. “People are what make those places special.”