Pharmacist buys Cathlamet business

Nearly five years ago, Chris Wuestefeld came to Cathlamet to work in the Cathlamet Pharmacy as the Pharmacy Manager. The business was one in a chain of Hi-School Pharmacies.

"Steve Oliva, the CEO of Hi-School Pharmacy suggested that I move to town and become part of the community," Wuestefeld said. "Oliva is very pro small town; he's from a small town. He's a very interesting man, a self made multi millionaire who made an empire."

Last year, Wuestefeld, his wife Amity and their two sons, Eric and Ian, relocated to Cathlamet.

More recently, Wuestefeld bought the business as stock in the company.

"It was a big deal," Wuestefeld said. "Before it was a corporate store and we didn't have much say. We've made some changes up front and we're trying to get closer to the look in the gift store that former owner and pharmacist Roy LaBerge had. Hopefully we can find some success with that."

LaBerge has passed on some of the things he has learned about retail, about minimum purchases and shipping, saving them a lot of heartache, but Wuestefeld admits they have still made some mistakes. Going to a recent trade show in Las Vegas was eye opening and overwhelming.

The pharmacy area will remain largely unchanged, but eventually Wuestefeld hopes to remodel and move it towards the front where they can combine the cash register area.

Wuestefeld is a German name and Chris admits that even he can't pronounce it correctly. He has opted to simply pronounce it woos-ti-feld. It has an umlaut and all he knows is that his great grandma was the last member of his family he ever heard say it correctly.

When asked where he was from, Wuestefeld hesitated. His father was an engineer in nuclear power and for the first 11 years of his life, they never lived anywhere longer than two years. When he was 11, they moved to Richland when his dad began to work at Hanford. He went to high school in Richland and eventually got his Ph.D from the Washington State University College of Pharmacy.

"WSU got rid of their bachelors program," Wuestefeld said. "My sister got a pharmacy degree before I did, the last of the bachelors. She liked it and she's kind of the one that got me into it. While I was waiting to be accepted to the program, I was taking a lot of math and science classes, so I knew it was either going to be pharmacy or microbiology."

Wuestefeld met his wife during a somewhat aimless period between high school and college. He'd been taking community college classes here and there, eventually earning his AA. It was during one of those classes, learning to cast with bronze, that Amity came into view and changed things. Amity's mother was taking the class and had asked her to come in one day so that she might make a bronze cast of her.

Suddenly, painting houses and working in a furniture store wasn't enough, so Wuestefeld went back to school in earnest.

These days, Wuestefeld has come to enjoy being on the front line of health care.

"I like being asked questions," he said. "People will come to me first sometimes and things can be resolved before it turns into something. Sometimes I have the right answer, but I will admit when there is something I don't know."

He remembers one time in another store when a man came in looking for crutches.

"You'd think that someone would know that if a bone is sticking out of their leg that maybe something else should be done," Wuestefeld said. "I had to scare him, tell him that if he gets a bone infection he will have to go to the hospital and have an IV, antibiotics."

Still, the man argued with him. If he pushed the bone back in it looked fine, he said. It wasn't dirty.

Wuestefeld shook his head.

"You should really go to the emergency room right now," he told the man.

"Being in a community like this is even better," he said. "I've worked in places where people weren't very nice."

One more great thing about taking over the business is that he can come and go as needed, no longer at the mercy of the corporate clock. There was a time, in a different place, where he would have to clock out, even if there were still 50 prescriptions to fill.

"It was unnerving," Wuestefeld said.

Now he can stay until everything is done and he can take the time to create a space in his own vision. And he can walk to work. He loves that.

Amity has begun working in the front and eventually, though they don't know it, Eric, who is in 7th grade and Ian, who is in 5th, will join them in what has become the family business.