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Success Stories

It's a Small World

A man walks into a local pharmacy to have a prescription filled. Not surprisingly, he is not feeling well (hence the prescription). But his day takes a turn for the better when he reaches the pharmacy counter; the employee who takes his prescription order is not only thorough and professional, but very courteous and cheerful as well. As he looks through his wallet for his insurance card, a National College business card he had been given falls out. The pharmacy technician’s eyes light up–National College was my school, she exclaims!

That was the story that unfolded last winter when Rev. Gordon Price, a frequent guest at the Dayton Area Campus, visited the pharmacy at which 2006 graduate Sayuri Henger, CPhT, worked. Their serendipitous meeting was just another example of how the National “family” does indeed make the world a small place.

That’s doubly the case for Sayuri, a native of Japan who is now working and raising her family half a world away from where she was born. Sayuri, who came to the U.S. with her family as a young girl, found herself as a single parent with two teenage children just a few years ago. “I was working at a thrift store, and after five years, I was going nowhere,” she remembers thinking to herself. “There’s got to be something better.”

That’s when Sayuri visited National College, and after paying a visit to learn more about the college’s programs, she was so impressed she enrolled on the spot. She liked the diversity of the campus’s student body; and she liked her small classes that allowed her to develop good relationships with her instructors. Her classmates marveled at the “double whammy” she faced of not only learning complex medical terminology, but having to do so in a language that was not her native tongue. But Sayuri persevered: “It wasn’t too much of a problem while going to school,” she said.

Sayuri admits she had to make some sacrifices to attend National – working during the day, attending class in the evening. The support of her children was important to her success, she says. While Sayuri was nervous about taking the examination to become a Certified Pharmacy Technician (CPhT), her daughter had no doubts: “Mommy, you worked so hard, and you’re smart, I know you’ll pass.” Sayuri hopes her experience inspires her children to go on to college, and instills in them the lesson that education can be a path to a better life.

Today she enjoys her work in the busy pharmacy. She gets to interact with customers, apply her knowledge of pharmacy technology, and even tests her communications and business skills when she has to interact with insurance companies to try to resolve issues for her customers. What does she enjoy the most? Just being thanked for her help by a grateful customer – even more so when that customer is another member of the National family like Rev. Price!