Sitting in a new apartment in the middle of an Ohio winter, Louisiana-native Nicole Dudley had just made a major life change. The IV pharmacy technician had just moved 1,000 miles away from her hometown for a job with Omnicell.
She was used to traveling for work, but those moves had always come with an end date. Typically, they were 13-week assignments: stay in a hotel, finish thecontract, head home. This time, home meant a new apartment in a new city, far from family and friends, with many of her belongings still back in Louisiana. Anyone who has made a move this big knows it is rarely a one-trip process.
Nicole describes her path to Omnicell as a calling: not something dramatic, but a quiet intuition that let her know this was the right next step, even before the details were clear. Having been introduced to the company back in 2012 when her hospital made the switch, it had been on her radar for a long time. But while she was on assignment in New Hampshire, she felt the urge to apply to an open travel position with the company.
“I applied that night when I got off [work]. The very next day, I had a phone interview, and by the weekend, I had a job with Omnicell as a [traveling pharmacy technician].”
Though it was a travel role, it was based in Cleveland. So, when her assignment in New Hampshire ended, she got on a plane and moved to Ohio.
“And of course, you know, you come and you join a new company. And of course, everybody's nice, right? So I'm just like, okay, well, this is great. You know, everybody's nice, they're friendly. My manager is in a whole other state.”
She did not want to ask for too much too soon. But when her manager realized she had already relocated and started working before finishing the move, they went out of their way to help her arrange travel plans, along with a few days off so she could go back, pack up, and return properly.
“I had only been with the company at that point seven days officially, and they've done all of this for me. They didn't even know me. I packed up my SUV to the brim and I moved. It was loaded, and I drove 16 hours back to Cleveland.”
Despite every reason to second-guess the decision, when asked whether she had any doubts before joining, Nicole’s answer was simple:
“I had none. None.”
For Nicole, those first few weeks at Omnicell set the tone for everything that followed. The support she experienced during her move wasn’t just a one-off moment, but the beginning of leaders continuing to invest in her growth and encourage her ambitions.
As she gained experience with Omnicell’s products, Nicole quickly found that she was most energized when she was helping other people learn them too.
“Let's just say I'm on site and one of the employees may have a question about the device. And that was my opportunity to just share everything, you know, like, okay, well, this is how it operates. Oh, would you like to come inside and see? Oh my goodness, really? And I'm like, okay, well, this is how the auto packager works. You know, this is how you pull out quick picks. So, when I started doing that, whenever they had questions, I was like, I'm going to be a trainer.”
For Nicole, motivation ran deeper than career progression. After 16 years as a pharmacy technician across retail and hospitals, she wanted to pass on what she had learned.
“I have a wealth of knowledge and experience during my 16 years as a technician. I want to give this to the next generation. So that is why, that is what brought me on that path to becoming a technical trainer because I want to give this to somebody else. I don't want all of this wisdom, all of this knowledge to just stop with me. I want to give it to somebody.”
In many ways, the role felt like a continuation of what had drawn her to Omnicell in the first place: being part of an environment where people invest in one another’s growth.
When she brought the idea to her manager, she found the same level of support that she had experienced in those first couple of weeks at the company. Because she was still new to her job and not yet eligible for promotion, she was encouraged to apply for open positions anyway, partly to build interview experience and better understand the path ahead.
“By the time I was done with my interview, I was like ‘Oh my gosh, yeah, this is what we're doing.’ And so it actually took me two more times before I got the job. I always say the timing has to be right.”
Nicole also studied the people already doing the work she hoped to do.
“When I had to go to [certification trainings], I'm looking at the trainer and how she's presenting and how she's interacting with the participants and all of those things.”
Even before she officially stepped into the role, Nicole approached the process like someone already preparing to grow into it.
Now a hybrid trainer who can train employees across multiple specialized technologies, Nicole sees her role as both technical and personal. It is about knowledge, but it is also about service.
Nicole’s drive didn’t start or end with her role at Omnicell. Alongside her work, she has always been someone who embraces learning, side projects, and new challenges, whether that’s running a business, hosting a podcast, or staying deeply invested in her creative and educational goals outside her day job. That entrepreneurial mindset shows up clearly in how she approaches training: with intention, energy, and a genuine desire to help others succeed.
“I’ve always believed in doing the best I can with whatever I’m given.”
Combined with leaders who encouraged her early ambitions, even before she formally qualified for a promotion, that mindset helped turn a difficult relocation and uncertain beginning into a role she truly loves.
When asked what advice she would give someone who wants to become a technical trainer, she starts with mastery.
“I tell them to go above and beyond. And when I say go above and beyond, what I mean is don't just learn the device to do your job, learn the ins and outs of the device, learn the mechanisms of the device. You know, get familiar with your solution advisors to glean from them and get all of the knowledge that you can, because it's one thing to just know the basics of the device to do your day-to-day, study the device inside out because if you're going to be a trainer, you have to know those things.”
Then she turns to something even more important.
“I will say if you don't love what you do, if you're not passionate about what you do, I don't think there's any way you can do your best. You have to have a heart for others. We are there to serve our customer. I serve not only the customer, but I serve the employees of Omnicell. Love what you do.”
She offers similar encouragement to pharmacy technicians looking to grow their own careers.
“So many people just stop at retail. They don’t know that there is a whole world out there that they can advance in.”
For Nicole, that larger world is still rooted in something simple: helping others.
“I love what I do. I love everything about this company and what it represents. I love that I get to wake up every day and help someone. Even if I'm training someone, it's helping them get better, to help the patients get better. It's a chain effect. And to be a part of that chain means a lot to me. I wake up every day and I log in knowing that anything I do [that] day is going to make a difference in someone's life. That's what keeps me going.”