Second Acts: She went from selling cars to nursing
Plus: Teen Talk; Charlotte's top news of the week: Masks required again in Charlotte-Mecklenburg; Anne Springs Close dies at age 95; UNCC rebrands to become 'Charlotte'
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A vision of herself in scrubs inspired Tracey Gabriel to switch from car sales to nursing; ‘you can do anything you set your mind to’
Do you ever daydream about starting fresh, with a new career or a new calling you’re passionate about? In this occasional series — “Second Acts” — we’ll introduce you to Charlotteans who who decided to make huge life changes to follow different paths in pursuit of their dreams. Have a Second Act story of your own to share? Email us!
Tracey Gabriel, shown here during a shift as a Novant nurse, cares for postpartum mothers and babies as well as post-op GYN cancer patients. It’s a big change from her previous career selling cars. (Photo courtesy of Tracey Gabriel/Novant Health)
by Cristina Bolling
Tracey Gabriel spent the first eight years of her working life in the least-trusted occupation. Her second act put her in the most-trusted one.
Gabriel was a car saleswoman going through a divorce with two young sons when she made a decision: She needed to find a new career that would be stable, both for her and for her boys.
A vision of herself in scrubs kept running through her head. So she summoned the courage to take a new job at a hospital and enroll in school to get a nursing degree.
More than a decade later, she marvels at the joy she still feels driving home from her shifts as an overnight floater nurse at Novant Health hospitals, and how even a cancer diagnosis has helped her be a better caregiver. And she offers advice to others who might also be feeling a nudge to a new career life.
Gabriel, 46, talked to The Ledger by Zoom recently after just a few hours of sleep following an overnight nursing shift. The conversation was edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: Car sales to nursing is a sea change. How did that come about?
I was going through a divorce and I had 2 small kids. I was in my early 30s, and my kids were 3 and 5. I decided I needed something more stable for them. Car sales is not stable — it’s commission-based and it’s a lot of hours. I needed more control. I do believe strongly in Proverbs that says “Man plans his way, but God directs his steps.” I had a vision of myself in scrubs, sitting around with nurses, and I thought, “I would love to do that. I would love to take care of people.” I got into the hospital system by just becoming a registrar in the ER, and through that learned I wanted to become clinical. So I decided to go to nursing school.
Q: Let’s talk a little about how you took your vision and made it real. What were your first steps?
First, I spent about 6 months in the clerical position of registrar in the emergency room of what was then Carolinas Medical Center (now Atrium) University, and I decided I wanted to do something clinical.
I moved up to maternity at that point to be their secretary because the hours there worked for me to go to school for my RN (at Central Piedmont Community College). Just the confirmation of being in labor and delivery and then mother-baby, being their secretary and CNA (certified nursing assistant) — that was the confirmation I needed that I was supposed to be a labor and delivery nurse.
Q: How did you manage school as a single mom with young kids and a job?
It was a careful balancing act. But I truly believed that that was where I was supposed to be. It didn’t come without tears and many moments of wanting to give up and a lot of encouragement from the others nurses I was around, when I would come to work just completely worn out, burned out, wanting to just throw in the towel. Going through a divorce had its own emotional stressors. I felt like I was being pulled from all sides.
Thank God for my parents, because my mom would take the kids, and their dad helped as well. That little village was so critical. That’s what I would encourage anyone to do if you’re looking at this as a possibility. You can do anything you set your mind to, your heart to, and if you have that village to help you it makes it all better.
Q: Have you noticed any similarities between car sales and nursing?
Everything has a season, and I think in my 20s I learned a lot about people-relations. I notice the way I talk to people now in healthcare, and how I can be very diplomatic and matter-of-fact with them — it came from the car sales industry. I find that some of it has crossed over. I learned how to sell myself. That’s one thing — selling myself and selling my business, or the hospital, is huge, and customer service is huge to me. With my patients, I’m extremely aware of what their needs are and how I can give my best customer service to them even in a patient care setting.
Q: What advice would you give to someone looking to make a big career shift like you made?
I would say don’t wait. I would say go for it. The hardest part is getting started. Once you get started, it goes by so fast. Everyone told me nursing school is going to go by in a flash. You forget the pain. It’s kind of like labor: You don’t remember the labor pain, but you do get the joy of the baby.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve left work and felt, “Wow.” I’ve had so many moments of really strong connections with my patients. In 2018, I found out I had Stage 3 metastatic melanoma. I needed to stop doing labor and delivery nursing because it was so physically demanding, so I started doing the post-op floor. That has been such a blessing. I have made so many amazing connections with patients who are going through cancer. I’ve been asked to pray with some of my patients, and it’s just been a complete blessing. That’s why I know God does put you at the right place at the right time if you trust Him.
Q: How is your health now?
It’s great. It’s actually better than it was 6 years ago. I‘m happy to say I recently lost 31 pounds over the last 8 weeks. I’m on a program, and I’m excited, and I’m cancer-free. I’ve had clean scans and I’m blessed.
Cristina Bolling is managing editor of The Ledger: cristina@cltledger.com
Previous articles in our Second Acts series:
“Taking the plunge from finance to iguanas” (Aug. 14)
“A ‘recovering trial lawyer’ becomes an author and podcaster” (Aug. 7)
Today’s supporting sponsor is Soni Brendle:
Teen Talk: Build your vocabulary
Impress and delight the young people in your life by using the words they use. The Ledger shows you how in this occasional Saturday feature.
Today’s phrase: “Hits different”
Definition: When an experience or a thing is better than how it is typically, or affects you in a different way. Can also be used to emphasize something that’s extremely enjoyable.
Used in a sentence:
“This Taylor Swift breakup song hits different now that Tyler and I ended things.”
“‘Wicked’ hits different live onstage than it does listening to the soundtrack in my car.”
“Wow! This is my first time trying boba tea. It really hits different!”
Ledger analysis: The term can also be used to describe something that’s not as favorable now as it was previously, but the teens in our lives tend to use it with a positive connotation.
— Cecilia Bolling, age 16
This week in Charlotte: Masks are back on; Greenway founder Anne Springs Close dies; New name for UNCC
On Saturdays, The Ledger sifts through the local news of the week and links to the top articles — even if they appeared somewhere else. We’ll help you get caught up. That’s what Saturdays are for.
Education
Schools, masks and Covid: Local private and public schools either started back last week or are readying for a return next week, and local school boards and administrators are issuing decisions about whether students will wear masks. Mecklenburg Area Catholic Schools told parents this week that they won’t require masks, though they seemed ready to back down late Friday after the county said it would change its rules to explicitly cover private schools. The Union County school board voted 7-2 to not require masks. Masks will be required in other area school districts including Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Rowan-Salisbury, Lincoln and Gaston. Meanwhile, there are six Covid cases among Ardrey Kell High School’s cheerleading team that health officials say are connected, and the Independence High School football team has five Covid cases.
Goodbye, UNCC. Hello, Charlotte: (Charlotte.edu) UNC Charlotte has undergone rebranding and now will be known simply as “Charlotte” instead of UNCC. The university unveiled a new “All-in C” logo that contains the letter C with a pickaxe, and it changed its website URL from uncc.edu to charlotte.edu. Email addresses are expected to change in 2022.
Politics
Lucrative radio job: (Wednesday 🔒) Senate candidate and former Gov. Pat McCrory’s pay from being a part-time radio host with WBT was more than the yearly salary he earned as governor, according to new financial disclosure forms.
Redistricting outlook: (WFAE) Republicans are still expected to have an edge in North Carolina’s General Assembly after redistricting, as new census numbers released this month could make it tough for Democrats to pick up seats.
Local news
Anne Springs Close dies: (Observer) Anne Springs Close, the founder of the Fort Mill greenway that bears her name and the matriarch of the powerful Springs family, died Thursday at age 95. She died three days after she was struck by a falling tree limb on her property. She ran in the New York marathon, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in her 80s and was an Olympic Torch runner in 1996. She was the last living person to have flown across the Atlantic Ocean aboard the German airship Hindenburg.
Mask mandate FAQ: (Ledger 🔒) The Ledger breaks down the requirements, exemptions, loopholes and enforcement of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg mask mandate announced this week in this members-only special edition.
In other mask news: (WBTV) Boards in Matthews and Davidson agreed Thursday night to sign on to Charlotte’s and the county’s proclamation requiring masks in indoor places. The mask requirement took effect in Matthews on Friday at 5 p.m. Davidson’s went into effect immediately.
Ballantyne’s growing Asian community: (Ledger) A Ledger analysis of new 2020 Census data shows that 20% of residents in Ballantyne-area census tracts are Asian, compared with 6.4% of the county’s total population. The community is home to a large Indian population, many of whom hail from southern India, which is rich in workers with computer engineering degrees.
Business
Home sales fall again: (Canopy Realtor Association) The number of homes sold in Mecklenburg County in July fell for the second straight month, compared with a year earlier, according to new figures from the Canopy Realtor Association. But it’s hard to say if the lower sales figures represent a longer-term slowdown, because they are being compared against numbers from last summer, when pent-up demand sent the number of deals soaring. The median sales price climbed 17%, to $355,000.
Fast-growing companies: (Ledger 🔒) Nearly 40 companies in Mecklenburg County were named to the Inc. 5000 list of the country’s fastest growing private businesses. The five fastest-growing locally were QC Kinetix, Carewell, Aruza, Valeo Groupe America and Elevate Digital.
Wells Fargo’s about-face: (Ledger) Wells Fargo has done away with a plan to eliminate personal lines of credit, after consumers, lawmakers and advocates said nixing the service would hurt customers’ credit scores.
Good reads
Composer with N.C. connection: (Winston-Salem Journal) The French-born composer of the well-known Olympics theme music is buried in North Carolina’s Yadkin County, 90 minutes north of Charlotte.
Remembering those who served in Afghanistan: (CNN) With the U.S. pulling out of Afghanistan, WBTV chief investigative reporter Nick Ochsner writes about his father, a Green Beret killed there by roadside bomb in 2005: “As the son of a soldier who gave his life in service to America and to the Afghan people, my thoughts on the end of American fighting in Afghanistan are complicated. But mostly, I come back to the same conclusion: My dad’s sacrifice was worth it 16 years ago. I’m not sure I could say the same if he died there today. That makes me sad. And angry. And it should make you sad and angry, too.”
Worries about home: (Axios Charlotte) Afghan immigrants in Charlotte say they worry about their homeland and how their relatives will fare under the Taliban. “I want us to stop treating Afghan refugees as anything but people trying to escape death and destruction,” one of them tells Axios Charlotte’s Michael Graff. “They deserve more than what’s happening right now. They deserve more than a regime being put in place that was torturing and maiming them.”
The K-8 vs. middle school debate: (The Hechinger Report) The national education journalism non-profit The Hechinger Report visits Ashley Park PreK-8 in Charlotte to take a close look at the merits of K-8 “elemiddles” vs. traditional middle schools.
The fate of the brick-and-mortar Levine museum: (Charlotte magazine) Charlotte historian Pamela Grundy was hired nearly three decades ago to curate the first exhibit at the Levine Museum of the New South. Now, with the museum planning to sell its building uptown and turn to a “flexible” location model, Grundy warns that much will be lost. “If a new corporate tower rises at Seventh and College while our city’s most important historical institution scatters its artifacts to the winds, floats from space to borrowed space, and exists primarily in the fragmented, ephemeral online world, it will be a huge step backward.”
From the Ledger family of newsletters
NoDa development worries: (Friday 🔒) Concern seems to be growing in NoDa that the increasing number of large apartment complexes is eroding the neighborhood’s artsy and eclectic vibe. Neighbors say they don’t want to be the next South End with a “frat house” atmosphere.
Overcoming the ‘stigma’ of riding the bus: (Transit Time) Buses are a relatively easy and inexpensive way to address many of the Charlotte region’s transit challenges. But it’s tough trying to get people to ride them.
Ways of Life (🔒): The family of Matías Rosado, a kind-hearted and promising 19-year-old from Waxhaw, shares the tragic story of Matías’ battle with depression and suicide in the hopes that other parents will be spared their pain.
Brunch news: (Monday) Popular breakfast and brunch restaurant Snooze A.M. Eatery is planning to open a location in SouthPark, at the corner of Sharon Road and Morrison Boulevard in the new Apex SouthPark development. Its two other Charlotte locations, in Plaza-Midwood and South End, regularly have waits of 90 minutes or more on the weekends.
Mask production: (Wednesday 🔒) It’s been a rollercoaster 18 months at a North Carolina textile coalition that kept furniture and textile manufacturing businesses busy at the start of the pandemic with face mask orders. Orders tapered off last winter but are picking back up with the new face mask mandates, including a major order from the state of North Carolina for clear face masks for preschool and daycare workers.
Providence Road townhomes: (Wednesday 🔒) A developer filed plans with the city for 17 townhouses on Providence Road near Shalom Park.
Testy press conference (Wednesday 🔒): Charlotte reporters asked some tough questions of county leaders at a news conference on the mask mandate on Monday.
Back to school shopping (Wednesday 🔒): A new Deloitte survey shows that back-to-school shopping is taking place earlier than usual this year and that parents are spending more on computers, gadgets and online academic enrichment.
Aviation museum readying for takeoff: (Monday) Plans are moving ahead for a new Carolinas Aviation Museum, which is expected to open in 2023 on 10 acres on the northeast corner of Charlotte Douglas International Airport. The museum will include a new main gallery with a STEM innovation center and the renovated historic Southern Airways Hangar, which is now used for storage of the “Miracle on the Hudson” plane that landed in the Hudson River in 2009.
Ballantyne bar cited: (Friday 🔒) The Grape & Agave bar, located in a Ballantyne shopping center, turned up on a list of N.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control violations for serving alcohol past the 9 p.m. Covid curfew back in January.
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