Business Niner builds foundation for finance career

Since she was 16, Abby Gordon ’25 has worked at Cannon Pharmacy in Kannapolis, juggling her shifts with high school classes and college courses at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College and UNC Charlotte.

As she graduates from Charlotte in August with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree, Gordon leaves with confidence, connections and the knowledge she has built through work and school.

“Abby started her first job with us as a cashier in high school, was performing technician duties before the age of 18, and is one of the best pharmacy technicians I have had the pleasure to develop,” says pharmacist Ryan Armstrong, Gordon’s supervisor. “She has always strived to learn everything I could teach her. She went from being shy and worried about making mistakes to helping solve complicated workflow problems and being a leader on the team.”

When Gordon first started classes to earn a finance major and economics minor in the Belk College of Business, she found the University’s size intimidating. Living with her family in a pastoral part of Mooresville — with a circle of friends who had been by her side since grade school and work associates who had become familiar colleagues and friends — she was nervous about stepping outside those close circles.

“I would park in the same parking deck because it was the only way I knew how to get to my classrooms,” she says. “Honestly, there were so many closer parking lots, but that didn’t matter to me as long as I knew where I was going.”

She had previously chosen RCCC for her first two years of college to help out at home, as her father recovered from a traumatic brain injury. Community college funding during the COVID-19 recovery paid for her community college classes, which helped family finances. She also wanted to keep working at the pharmacy.

“I had been accepted at UNC Wilmington, and I did go there for a week,” she recalls. “As soon as I was there, I just knew instantly that was not where I was supposed to be. And I also missed my job.”

New horizons

At Charlotte, she has found that her business classes and the faculty teaching the courses have continued to open up her horizons. They have strengthened her trust in her abilities.

“For my major, I needed something broad, because I wanted options in my career,” she says. “That is how my finance major came about. My father also has a degree in business, and that was an influence. I want to potentially own a business one day or just be involved in a business. I am interested in understanding financial markets and economic trends to drive business decisions.” She has fed her fascination with money and math as she crafted her course load, and she’s earned spots on the dean’s and chancellor’s lists.

Faculty influence

Favorite faculty include finance Senior Lecturer Thomas Marshall, who previously had an extensive career in insurance and risk management, and adjunct faculty Christy Foster ’97, ’24 DBA, who currently works in financial services.

“I remember how Thomas Marshall really wanted his students to do their best,” Gordon says. “He had so many resources and so many people to come in and talk to us. It was a very big eye-opener, and we learned so much from that. He helped us see different things we could do with our careers.”

Similarly, Foster grounded class lessons in real life. “She stood out because she set us up for the real world,” Gordon says. “For example, at the end of the semester, she did a lesson on how to interview for a job. That was just so helpful. Also, every day she walked in, she checked in with students and knew things that were going on in their lives.”

Foster found Gordon to be a strong scholar. “I had the pleasure of teaching Abby in my commercial bank management course, and I saw firsthand her work ethic, quiet strength and commitment to learning,” Foster says. “These are qualities that will no doubt serve her well in her career.” 

Making connections  

Participating in Greek life also extended Gordon’s comfort zone, as she joined Zeta Tau Alpha. “It was something that I wanted to do because I wanted to push myself a little bit,” she says. “Zeta aligned with my values of helping people, and it was nice being able to meet new girls with the same goal of working towards our philanthropy focus of breast cancer awareness. That definitely made me a lot more comfortable with the campus as a whole.”

Gordon is most influenced in her employment search by her experiences at Cannon Pharmacy. There, she finds encouragement from the team, particularly from co-worker and friend Karley Wood, one of her main champions and inspirations.

“I’ve grown up working in a place where everyone feels like family, and we’re very close,” Gordon says. “At Cannon Pharmacy, while my job is not finance-related, I still learned a lot about how a business is run. I will be so sad to leave. I’m also so excited because I know that I am definitely at the point where I need to grow. Seeing the growth that a small company can have through expansion would be something that interests me. I want to be able to grow with that company.”

Amidst all the changes and challenges in her life, Gordon has drawn courage and compassion from her family’s experience with her father’s injury and how the family and community pulled together throughout his recovery process.

“It made me realize you don’t know what other people are going through,” she says. “I try to make sure that I treat everyone with kindness and respect. It also taught me that not everyone gets a second chance like my father did. It makes me want to live my life to the fullest.”