About Us

The saturated job market shouldn’t control your career options.

That’s why we created The Happy PharmD – to help pharmacists transition into new careers.

Our coaching clients love their new careers for the higher work satisfaction, more work-life balance, more focus on patient care, and less metric-driven work. They care about patients, how work influences their family and friends, so they don’t want to settle with a “job”, they want a career they love. 

By using our Career Coaching Programs our pharmacist clients find their dream career. Doing what we love fringes on working with pharmacists towards an Indispensable career and in turn, improving our profession, one pharmacist at a time. That’s why Happy PharmD is dedicated to finding pharmacists who really care about their work – those who value their patient care, value doing work that matters, and who also happen to be genuine human beings.

When I’m not drawing monsters with my girls or watching anime, I’m experimenting on career development, helping pharmacists create inspiring careers and lives.

Alex Barker, the Founder

Alex Barker is the CEO and Founder of The Happy Pharm D, a nationwide coaching firm guiding pharmacists to inspiring careers and more fulfilling lives.

Alex is an accomplished public speaker, a published author and teacher. Since 2017, his coaching program and career development seminars have guided over 2,000 pharmacists into new jobs and roles they love. His book Indispensable: A prescription for a fulfilling pharmacy career, has motivated countless pharmacists to love pharmacy again.

Alex is a husband and the proud father of two daughters. He loves drinking coffee and eating good guacamole (though not at the same time). When he isn’t working, which happens occasionally, he plays Nintendo, Dungeon & Dragons, and reads comics.

The Happy PharmD was born out of a burdensome, burnout, and grateful hope for pharmacy. Alex Barker, PharmD started his career with the same hopes pharmacy students hold when graduating: I hope I can find a decent job.

After his residency, he worked as an ambulatory care pharmacist at the Veteran’s Affairs Administration. He discovered three things:

  1. He didn’t love his job
  2. He was bullied
  3. He felt like a failure as a pharmacist

This almost stopped him in his tracks as he struggled with burnout, bullying, and feeling stuck. But he decided to use his creative energies to build businesses on the side. After quite a few failures and lessons learned, he discovered coaching and decided to hire coaches. He thought,

“If someone else knows how to accomplish my goals, why wouldn’t I invest to fast-track my progress?”

He received feedback from his coaches that he would have a natural talent for coaching. After multiple classes, coaching over 150 people and helping them achieve life, career, and business goals, he realized that pharmacists probably felt the same way he did when he started his career: confused, frustrated, dissatisfied with pharmacy, unable to find fulfilling work and that they would benefit from coaching to achieve their career goals.

After over 300 phone calls with pharmacists, dozens of pharmacy manager interviews, and questioning hiring executives and association leaders, Alex discovered that pharmacy had a gaping hole: How to create a fulfilling career in pharmacy. Most pharmacists told him they felt dispensable, like at any moment their hospital could close or their manager would fire them. They felt like the medicine they dispensed: disposable, replaceable.

Alex mapped out The Happy PharmD path, based on his coach training, experience, and the pharmacy job market, to help pharmacists create Indispensable pharmacy careers. Fast forward to today, The Happy PharmD has grown to over 20 team members, including 13 pharmacist career coaches. No one has a crystal ball on the pharmacy job market. But that won’t stop us from helping pharmacists, like you, to stop the guessing game and instead intentionally build a career where the job offers come to you.

“Alex’s dad and I have always believed that his creativity and smarts would give him success in anything he chooses to do, but he has far exceeded what we dreamed of.

Alex is a good boy.”

-Kim Barker,  (Mother)

Meet the Happy PharmD Coaches

 Alex Barker

Alex Barker

CEO

Liz Donovan

Liz Donovan

Happy PharmD Coach

Meet the Happy PharmD Support Team

 Alex Barker

Alex Barker

Founder

Sarah MacGregor

Sarah MacGregor

Chief Operations Officer

Nicole Keenan

Nicole Keenan

Client Success Advocate

Terricita Rice-Gilmore

Terricita Rice-Gilmore

Career Advisor

Eugene Choi

Eugene Choi

Career Advisor

Brandon Ausbrooks

Brandon Ausbrooks

Marketing

 Merge Somes

Merge Somes

Operations Director

John Jesner Palmes

John Jesner Palmes

Social Media Manager

Karl Inte

Karl Inte

Video Editor

Meet the Happy PharmD Career Path Experts

 Alex Barker

Alex Barker

CEO

Jackie Boyle

Jackie Boyle

Academia, ambulatory care, & professional organizations

Eric Moody

Eric Moody

Independent Pharmacy Manager, Community

Morgan Greutman

Morgan Greutman

Medication safety, regulatory affairs

Janan Sarwar

Janan Sarwar

Association management

John (Chris) Baechle

John (Chris) Baechle

Specialty

Denis Kitayama

Denis Kitayama

Informatics

We have a few values that guide us…

Integrity
We are authentically transparent; We own our mistakes.
Grit
Long-term passion and perseverance for goals.
Disrupt
Move fast, break things. Progress over perfection. We aim to disrupt how pharmacists achieve fulfilling careers. 
Results First
Our decisions and goals are driven by data.
Fun
We aim to make all experiences exciting.
Resilience
Our work environment supports well-being.

SUCCESS STORIES

Hear what our past clients have to say, in their own words.

ONLINE COURSES

We've got everything you need to jumpstart your career journey.

TALK WITH US

We're excited to hear your story and figure out what your next best step could be.