by Seth Humble

The time reads 9:05 a.m. on Andy Glasnapp’s Seiko watch. We shook hands thirty seconds ago and already he’s telling me about the fishing in Karluk, Alaska. An enameled pin that reads “PCCA – 25 Years” dangles from his lanyard, catching the halogen light over a tidy desk. Andy is a Clinical Compounding Pharmacist at PCCA, and if you’ve ever wanted anyone to walk you through the topographical vascularity of the Alaskan wilderness via Google Maps, then look no further.

Andy brings up the map of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge and hovers his cursor over the blue expanse of Skilak Lake. “What you’ve got here,” he says, with the excited lilt of the piqued hobbyist, “is a little river that snakes up this way, and about 10 miles upriver, there is a lake. And to get all five species of salmon, you’ve got to have a lake. If you want Reds, the Sockeyes, which is what we fished while we were there, that and Silvers — you need a lake.”

Andy tells me about Seward, Alaska, next, a “huge little town” that serves as a port of access for cruise ships. “They’ll take you right up to the glaciers and that,” he says, his eyebrows lifting over the rim of his glasses. “That is really cool.” He talks about grizzlies, seals, fog-bathed Denali, and then, without missing a beat, he mentions all the compounding pharmacies that serve the people of Alaska. He recalls each of them by name, pointing out where they are located on the map and the regions they serve. They are, in his mind, a part of Alaska as much as the mountains, roving hills and little creeks.

I’ve known Andy Glasnapp for sixteen minutes at this point, and I can already say with absolute certainty that he cherishes nature, people and information. He especially loves information. That’s clear from the formula reminders he writes in his well-worn copy of the PCCA product catalog, or in the way he explains the migration patterns of Alaskan trout and the shrimp-gorged seagulls in the Gulf of Mexico. More than the information itself, he loves to share it. Andy delights in knowledge’s ability to empower. He glows as he recalls these things, giving credence to the age old truth — knowledge is power.

Andy rolls through inquiry after inquiry from compounding pharmacists around North America. Call to call, Andy’s questions are patient but also rapid fire, flowing easily from a well-practiced mind. His responses come not as singular declarations, but in the form of options that the pharmacy can choose from to best assist their patients’ needs. Andy Glasnapp is interested in answers, but it’s the questions that fuel his mind.

Our first call of the day is a formulation issue; an allergy patch isn’t quite working for a patient. Andy, after reading over the pharmacist’s question in his queue, leans back in his office chair like a captain who has just charted a course for a journey he’s made a thousand times. Confident, he picks up the phone.

Four minutes later, the call is over. The pharmacist has heard her options and ends their brief time together with repeated thank-you’s.

The next call is tougher. A 15-year-old girl is struggling with daily seizures. The seizures are now so regular that the patient requires the insertion of a gastrostomy tube. The pharmacist takes Andy’s council, wanting to know his thoughts about using oil- or water-based solutions when dealing with the tube. Andy plows through online academic articles and personal notes alike, and he ultimately provides a selection of potential solutions. When the call is over, Andy says, “It’s difficult sometimes — especially with kids. You want to cure people, but sometimes pharmacy is about doing the very best that you can. Sometimes that’s all we can do.”

A little later, Andy’s call lands in Kentucky, where a pharmacist needs to know if two particular medications, when combined together, can cause blood thinning in a canine. The dog has a surgery planned, and compromised blood clotting can be a serious issue. Andy searches his repository of resources, digging around the nooks and crannies until he finds his “eureka” moment, which he shares with the pharmacist. The challenge met and conquered, Andy’s countenance shines with satisfaction.

From over the phone —New Jersey to Connecticut to a half-dozen other places — Andy whirs through compounding challenges, always following the same pattern:

Observe.

Question.

Hypothesize.

Analyze.

Conclude.

"The scientific method, that’s my thing. And where people get tripped up is when they don’t ask questions,” Andy says. The very notion of failing to ask questions sends a wave of visible nausea over his face. “That’s what folks fail to do when they get hit with a challenge — they focus on the problem and the anxiety, and they stop asking questions.”

I give Andy a question of my own: “Where was home growing up?”

“Iowa.” He crosses his arms over his chest, reclining back in his chair.  The word conjures the ghosts of a hundred memories that pass over him in less than a heartbeat. “Lytton, Iowa.”

I know that look. It’s the familiar, slanted gesture the small town escapee gives when someone asks, “Where are you from?”

“It’s a small farm town in the middle of Nowhere, Iowa,” he says. “Corn, soybeans, cattle. Family farm, 1,200 acres, 1,200 head of cattle. I started running a four-wheel-drive tractor when I was 7 years old.” He talks warmly about the family farm and lovingly of his older brother and nephew who now thresh the ground his father once toiled over. A wistful smile creeps up as he gives me the rundown of a childhood spent among field, fowl and the soft, strong bonds of family. “That’s part of why I got interested in compounding,” Andy says. “I had a sister who was a pharmacist, and that was interesting. And it was better than working in the heat outside or the cold of winter, and it sure as heck smelled better. I was working in a pharmacy for about a year before I found out about compounding. And that really connected with me.”

Andy draws up in his chair and leans in. “Where I’m from, you don’t run to the store and just grab what you need. You take what you have and you make it work. You find a solution for people. It’s very attractive to me as a person to fix things, solve problems. I’m interested in what works — which is a great way to help people. That’s what I’m in this for, to genuinely help people. 

“My dad told me one day, ‘You can be a pharmacist, but I need you to be a special pharmacist.’ And that was the challenge he gave me: Be something different,” Andy says. “My dad, in his mind, wasn’t just a farmer. What he did, at our family farm, fed the world. I didn’t understand what he was trying to teach me with his words until years later. I could be a pharmacist, but being a pharmacist had to mean more to me than just the job itself.”

With every story, Andy finds a way to inject truisms, snippets of information and asides detailed with the tidbits of farm life few folks outside the American Midwest still carry. Andy bails up his personal ethos in the belief that doing things the right way and helping people is his main reason for being in the field of pharmacy.

“Lots of people want to come in, make a buck, no matter the cost. No,” he says, lightly hammering his fist onto the table. “You do it the right way, for the right reason. Ask the questions, observe. Help people. If you’re not doing that, then I just don’t know what to tell you.”

This is Andy Glasnapp.

He’s a Clinical Compounding Pharmacist who has served at PCCA for 25 years and more. He loves to fish in the fall when the redfish come swirling to the warm surface in the Gulf of Mexico. He’s a man who revels in the bittersweet nostalgia of a life spent growing things in an Iowa town most of you have never heard of. And he cannot help but relentlessly chase after questions — not just for the reward of an answer, but for the love of the question itself.