The Business of
BLOUNT PHARMACY
Medicine
Building
Blount Pharmacy owners love
flexibility
Redefin
Shelters
entrepreneurship offers
K
aren Moss and Ann Magness
are a mother-daughter team
who own and run Blount
Pharmacy in Joaquin.
After years of schooling and working
at Brookshire Brothers Pharmacy, Karen
joined forces with her mother, Ann,
when they heard about what a golden
opportunity with the retirement of
pharmacy founder, Gene Blount, who was
selling the business in January of 2017. He
founded it in the 1980s.
In a short amount of time, Karen and
her mother attained ownership of Blount
Pharmacy and have been running and
improving the business side-by-side ever
since.
“It turned out to be a blessing,” said
Karen. “I wasn’t able to spend time with my
son, my mother or any other family. Both
of us are flexible now, it created a lot of
20 Business MATTERS | 2020 Spring Edition
STORY AND PHOTOS BY SHANNON JAMES
flexibility going into this together,” she
said.
Ann explained how she was ready to
retire until her and Karen decided to buy
Blount Pharmacy. Now she works part-
time and helps Karen keep the pharmacy
organized and on top of everything.
“If I have a doctor’s appointment, don’t
feel well - she will come in and cover for
me,” says Karen. “Doing it this way, instead
of working for a company, it’s a lot less
stressful,” Karen says. “It’s really hard
to call-in when you work for someone,
especially with child emergencies and
such.”
The flexibility of being an entrepreneur
has been a blessing for the family, she says.
“The last few years working the
pharmacy with my mom has been great,”
says Karen.
Karen and Ann decided to keep much
of the original Blount Pharmacy the way it
was when they bought it. Keeping the
original name was their way of making sure
customers knew they would be getting
the same personalized service Gene had
provided.
“It wasn’t becoming a new pharmacy,
we were just the new owners,” Karen says.
“We wanted to ensure that our customers
knew that this was the same old pharmacy
they loved and knew.”
Every now and then, Gene still comes in
and helps the ladies out.
With two full time pharmacy techs
and two pharmacists, Karen and Ann, the
pharmacy is well-kept, self-paced and as
a staff trying their hardest to maintain a
customer friendly service for their clients.
“I’d say Gene is happy with the upkeep
and how we run the pharmacy,” Karen says.
“He even allowed us to take our vacation
together last year,” Ann says. “He came
in and covered the pharmacy for us, no
problem.”
Karen says sometimes the pharmacy can
be a lot to juggle; trying to keep customers
happy, keeping up with prescriptions and
maintaining state and board evaluations,
but at the end of the day the pharmacy is
never behind on prescriptions or customer
service.
“You’re constantly juggling, who’s
in the pharmacy, what they’re there
for, making sure you get it for them
on time,” Karen says. “Customers are
always a top priority, especially those
who are very sick.”
With a steady line of customers and
a positive work environment, Karen
and Ann have plans to continue the
improvements of the pharmacy. Among
those is adding immunization service.