Twenty years ago, IVAClar introduced IPS EMAC

Barbara: Twenty years ago, IVAClar introduced IPS EMAC and we all know how that has turned out. Hi voices, of Venures. Barb Warner here and I would like to personally invite you to IACLAR'IPS Emacs panel discussion which is on Friday, February 22nd, starting at 3:00 at the LMT Lab Day in Chicago. I will be joined on stage with Jessica Barrell, Stephanie Goddard, Mike Roberts, Jed Archibald and Dr. Ken Malamn as we dive into the world of vmax. After the panel discussion, Ivaclar will be hosting a happy hour to commemorate this 20 year milestone. So amazing. So. So please join us by registering@labdday.com IVACLAR and I cannot wait to see everybody in Chicago.

Elvis: Welcome M to Voices from the Bench, a dental laboratory podcast. Send us an email@info voicesfrohebench.com and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.


Alvis says he has not worn a coat in Florida since November

Greetings and welcome to episode 357 of Voices from the Bench. My name is Alvis.

Barbara: And my name is Barbara. And it is like frickin 40 degrees in Florida. We got.

Elvis: And you're outside right now?

Barbara: I'm outside right now.

Elvis: Don't you need a heavy winter coat? Scarf, gloves, boots? Isn't that how you florida people handle 40?

Barbara: All might laugh at me, but I have not worn a coat for The only time I ever wear a coat is in Chicago. Sure, I go from my garage to my car, into the lab, back to my car, maybe I go to the store, but I don't give two. So I just wear a sweatshirt or a sweater and call it a day.

Elvis: It's 40 here in Indiana, so come on, for once we've matched.


It actually snowed in Florida, but not where I live

Barbara: Yes, well, you sent me a picture of the snow today and I was pretty impressed because it actually snowed in Florida, but not where I didn it.

Elvis: Really?

Barbara: Yes. Eight inches in Pensacola. That's freaking like rock star snow.

Elvis: Did you get any snow? No, sorry. I don't know what Pensacola is.

Barbara: It's about eight hours north of me, but it's pretty sweet.

Elvis: Eight hours north and you're still in your state?

Barbara: Yes, sir. Yes, that's where all us girls went on, our girl trip. So you go like five hours north and then two hours west, so yeah, I love it. Wow.

Elvis: You go eight hours in any direction in Indiana and you're two states's over.

Barbara: I guess, Florida'is a little bigger.

Elvis: There you go.


We're back from the Vision 21 meeting in Las Vegas

So we're back from the Vision 21 meeting. We're back from Vegas. This is our first time on the podcast since then. What a great show, I gotta say.

Barbara: We gotta give a shout out to the supplier of the year was Ivacar.

Elvis: Yes, ma'am. Well deserved.

Barbara: Laboratory member of the year was Helm Dental.

Elvis: Oh, great lab, great lab.

Barbara: And Danny Wong, I don't know if you guys know, but he got the merit award. And Philip Gold master CDT was a hall of fame award. So yeah, I really want to give a shout out to all those guys because.

Elvis: And let's not forget the CDT of the year.

Barbara: Oh, what?

Elvis: Michael Waley. I know, I know you're good friends with him. You guys wrote tests together.

Barbara: Yeah, yeah, we were the A team.

Elvis: Yeah, I remember. He's now a master. We talked to him at Chicago last year. Very well deserved for everybody.

Barbara: Yeah, great meeting.

Elvis: Yeah, shout out to everyone that puts that meeting together again, again. Just great content. Way too much fun in and around the meeting. It's just a great time. Highly recommend everyone to check it out every year. It's a great way to start the year.

Barbara: Oh yeah, and Joe, we love you, Joe. Congratulations.

Elvis: Joe Young is now president.

Barbara: Yes sir.

Elvis: May we all make it through the year.

Barbara: Okay, they had little bobbleheads all over the place and they were taking picturesh that was on social media on the way home on the planes and you know, you name it, it was really fun. Shout out to Paula and Morris and Denise and all the people that made that app and that was a really, really special day.

Elvis: What a great time.


LMT lab day Chicago takes place February 20th to 22nd

But hey now the countdown's on. We're about a month out from the biggest show of the year here in the US LMT lab day Chicago February 20th to the 22nd. And of course, no secret, we are once again set up and recording in Ivaclar's grand ballroom all weekendop. So it's really exciting cause we're building up to see everyone posting online all the presentations that they'll be giving or just presentations that they're looking forward to. It really looks like there's something for every kind of dental technician this year.

Barbara: There's always something for every dental technician. That's what we love about lmt. It's just amazing.

Elvis: Yeah. So be sure to check out the amazing lineup that's happening at the Ivaclar Ballroom becausee it's not just us. I mean, we're not the only people taking up this whole ballroomber car is going all out. So when you come, make sure you stop by and you say hi and let's get you on the podcast. You know, I mean, isn't that the point?

Barbara: That's the point. Well, that's our point. Anyways. Yes.

Elvis: And of course, thank you to Ivalar for hosting us again for our third year.

Barbara: Thank you, Ivaclar. Unbelievable. Oh, yeah, and let's not forget, about the meeting before Lab Day Chicago. Calab. Calb. I do love Calab. we're going to be recording during the cocktail hour on that Thursday night. So if you're not a part of the Calab, do you and your business and yourself a favor and register@cal-llab.org. i think I got that right. Right.

Elvis: Yep. Today your dashes. Yeah.

Barbara: And go to the one or if Jeff drunk, I think said the meeting of the year. So let's do it. Register, guys.

Elvis: It's definitely a great meeting. And since you're already in Chicago, why not look into.

Barbara: Yes, let's do it. Oh, this week. Go, go, go.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Elvis: So this week we meet one of the owners of Utah Valley Dental Lab, Jim Thacker. So Jim got into the lab business by marrying the only daughter of a lab owner. Now he started off doing finances, but of course Jim started taking on additional roles and doing more and more as you do in small businesses. But at the time, Jim was only one of 26 employees. Now Utah Valley Dental Lab is up to 123 employees. And get this, 40 of them are owners of the lab.

Barbara: Yeah. That's awesome.

Speaker C: You heard that righteah.

Elvis: So Jim talks about learning about the dental lab, how they run a lab known for high end aesthetics that still mostly does hand waxing.

Barbara: Crazy, right?

Elvis: And how he grew the business through referrals and education. So join us as we chat with Jim Thacker this February.


Adite will be exhibiting at Lab Day Chicago showcasing cutting-edge dental technology

There are a lot of vendors to visit, at Lab Day Chicago. And one you don't want to miss is Adite at booth E26. They will be showcasing their exciting new products and cutting edge solutions in digital dentistry. Attendees can explore hands on demonstrations of Biomix stain and glaze techniques, something many guests have mentioned on here before. Along with some of their other innovative technologies, Aite will also host engaging lectures and Grand Suite 2 that's in the East Tower, covering topics such as EZ near 3D, Prozur digital dentures and their Adite cloud design service. And even before you go, you can stay updated by following aiteort America on all social media platforms. And don't miss this opportunity to see how ADITE is shaping the future of dental labs. Tell them you heard them on Voices from the Bench and we appreciate your Support of the podcast Adite Voices from the Bench, the Interview. Barb and I are super excited today we get to talk past podcast guests because I think we talked at Calab.

Barbara: Yes.

Elvis: Finally ready to get you back in deep into the podcast. Jim Thacker.


How are you, sir? I'm well, how are you guys

How are you, sir?

Speaker C: I'm well, how are you guys?

Barbara: Y are good.

Elvis: Doing fantastic.

Barbara: I'm goodic. I don't know about Elvis. Elvis was late, but it is that.

Elvis: Time of the year, so.


Jim, owner, Utah Valley Dental Lab, says there are 40 owners

Jim, owner, Utah Valley Dental Lab Welltty big. What?

Speaker C: Yeah, I'm an owner. Yes. One of 40. O okay, yes. But yes, you say out of 43 or 40. What did you say 40?

Elvis: Yeah, there's 40 owners.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's 40. There's 40 owners. We're a little different. We're a little bit different, so. And we can get into that.

Elvis: Yeah, I'd love to find out how a Lab runs with 40 opinions going.

Speaker C: On at one time. There's only one opinion that matters. Yes.

Elvis: Yeah, there you go. So thanks for joining us.


Utah Valley Dental was founded in 1962 by your wife's grandfather

Let's start off how you got into this dental lab business.

Speaker C: Oh my goodness. I married the right girl, I think. I think there's a lot of family business stuff going on for. Most of us. And I married the only child of a dental lab owner, so the company was founded in 1962 by my wife's grandfather. So the company's a lot older than I am and I've been here for 20, almost 25 years now and it's been a fun ride.

Elvis: So has it always been called Utah Valley?

Speaker C: It has, it has. Since its inception, yes.

Barbara: How did she convince you to go and work for. That's my first question.

Speaker C: Like, how could you be so foolish?

Elvis: Is that what you're saying?

Barbara: Kind of.

Elvis: How much did she lie to you?

Speaker C: There wasn't any lying. I mean, I was actually. I worked for Wells Fargo bank for four years prior to coming to the lab. I, I have a bachelor's degree in finance and so my background is banking and I was brought on by my father in law to really replace my mother in law who had been paying the bills and things. And we were small, smaller lab than we only had. I, I was the 26th employee and so yeah, it was, it's been a fun opportun.

Elvis: Wait a minute, wait a minute. From the early 60s to 20 years ago, you're the 26th employee?

Speaker C: Yeah, well, yes, yes. Not total employees, but yeah.

Elvis: Oh, I see. Okay.

Barbara: Where are we losing you, Elvis? Serious?

Elvis: everywhere.

Speaker C: Stay with this, stay with.

Elvis: Catch up. I'LL catch. So you came in just to do the numbers?

Speaker C: Yeah, I came in to do bookkeeping and custom you what teeth were things like that? No idea what teeth other than that I had them. That's about all that I had. I was just brought in to be run the business side. I don't think there was ever any intention to have me run the business, just be the CEO or anything like that because I'm not a technician by trade. But doing this for a while, you learn a lot along the way and the business has grown to the point where it's not necessarily taking a technician and putting them in charge. So there's a lot to the business and I'm excited to be a part of it.

Barbara: You know, that's so true because that does happen a lot. It happen in the lab that I'm from, where you do, you take your best technicians and you put them in a manager position or even a higher up and that's not necessarily the best bough for them. And a lot of companies now are going with non technical leaders.

Speaker C: Well, absolutely. I mean I remember talking to Jim Caruso at the vision meeting a couple of years ago and he's saying he never makes his technicians, his managers. His technicians oftentimes are best doing exactly what they're doing. It. It's the most important use for him. And you know, a lot of this is about getting people and the personnel and the resources you have on the right seat on the bus and doing what they do best and try to offer them all the support you can.

Elvis: So when you started, was grandfather still there?

Speaker C: Oh no, no, grandfather was not there. He passed away in 2001.

Elvis: Okay.

Speaker C: And he had already retired and I had worked, I worked with my father in law for a number of years and he late 90s he started to, well, I guess I shouldn't say late 90s pro, probably getting around 2010. He started cutting back and things and doing less and less and he, he's pretty much retired right now. But he's still a great resource for me and a big part of our culture to this day. So we keep in touch.

Barbara: You didn't always stay in finance though, did you? Didn't you move up the ladder pretty rapidly?

Speaker C: Well yeah, I mean it was mostly you know, it was a smaller lab. I had multiple hats, you know. Yes, I did run the books and did the payroll and all that kind of stuff. Anything that was not related to actually making teeth. but I did some ordering and different things associated with the business. But I kind of worked my way up and I started talking to customers. I was kind of a scheduling coordinator as well. And there's still people to this day that will call me and schedule cases and whatnot. But, yeah, it's just, whatever needs to be done, you know, it's just like any other small business that you do what needs to be done.

Barbara: I agree.


So when you were dating your now wife. Did she even hint at what the family was doing

Elvis: So when you were dating your now wife.

Barbara: Oh, here we go.

Elvis: Did she even hint at what the family was doing?

Speaker C: Well, what they were doing, it's like. It makes it sound like it's the mob or something like that. Elis'what's going on?

Barbara: Did she say we make teeth?

Elvis: Yeah. I mean, to the outside person, it's.

Speaker C: It is.

Elvis: I mean, we do some strange stuff.

Speaker C: Yeah, I would say so. It's ##ew. That I knew that they had a dental lab. My wife did pick up in delivery and did some, various janitorial tasks and whatnot. Know I had gotten my degree in business and finance and you know, this wasn't my path, but, you know, when you marry into a family that has a. Like I said, I married an only child, sometimes you just have a little voice in your head telling you that I'm gonna end up in the family business one way or the other. But it's been something that's, been a real blessing in my life. I've been very grateful and has served me well. So hopefully they feel the same about me.

Barbara: Aw.

Elvis: That's next episode. Next week's episode. We talk to them.

Barbara: Yes. Is your wife still there?

Speaker C: No, no, she's not. She's not involved in the business. She's not particularly interested in it. She actually quit going to, business meetings with me a couple of years ago. She's like, out. You just do your thing. And. And my mother in law'the same way. It'it's. they just, you know, they're not. They're like, they're fine having. Having us run the business and, and they don't really. They don't really want to be involved. And that's okay.

Barbara: That's how my mom was.

Speaker C: Creates balance at home.

Barbara: Ah.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Barbara: My mom was.

Speaker C: Do she want anything to do with it? Huh?

Barbara: Yep. She was like, I'm out.

Speaker C: Yep.

Elvis: It almost sounds like they wanted her to go in the business. Unless you could find a sucker.

Speaker C: Right. Well, it's funny because it was my wife's grandfather that founded it and it seemed to travel to son in laws. So I'm eagerly watching to see who my daughter gets in a relationship with and marries eventually. Yeah, but now we'll see.


You went from 80 to 120 employees during the COVID pandemic

Elvis: When you started your're 26th employee, when did growth happen? I know you're a lot bigger.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. We have about 123.

Elvis: Holy moly.

Speaker C: Right now, we have an interesting journey. We were a lot like a lot of dental labs were are small local lab and we took care of local dentists, did, pick up and delivery, crown, a bridge, dentures, all that stuff. And we did that mostly for local labs. But then in the late 90s, we had one of our dentists who was older and his son joined the practice and started doing all of the general dentistry and the practice. And he saw that as an opportunity to start doing some different kind of work. He wanted to do life changing dentistry. He wanted to do the fun stuff where you're changing lives.

Elvis: Sure.

Speaker C: And he decided that he wasnn to start taking some of those aesthetic ve video courses. Late 90s said it was packed live specifically, with Dr. David Hornbrook. And the dentist came to us and said, hey, I'm going on a journey and I'd like you to go with me.

Barbara: I did not know that, Jim. Really?

Speaker C: Yeah. Dr. Roy Hammond.

Barbara: So it was that Dr. R.O. utah that got you guys involved originally?

Speaker C: Yep. Wow. Y and so what did you say?

Barbara: Hell yeah, I'm in.

Speaker C: Well, we said, sure, let's, let's see where this goes. He's like, I'd like you to go with me. And so we went with him to the courses and we started making connections and friends and we had some amazing technicians and people that started building relationships and we started acquiring, dentists all over the country. And you know, we started getting more and more aesthetically demanding doctors. Our fees went up, because we had to take care of our technicians that were taking care of these doctors. And we started pricing out local dentists that were re taking insurance and everything else. And we just slowly started growing and we probably took us to o let's see. we've just had steady growth in a few big spurts in the early 2000s. And then we had and then Covid, we just exploded. We grew 60% during COVID Our revenues Give that up. How did youe. Yeah, we went from 80 to 120 employees during the COVID pandemic. And it was an amazing time for aesthetic and fee for service dentistry. And we've been very fortunate, to come out.

Elvis: Well, is that because Utah Never shut down or something or.

Speaker C: Well, well, when you have a national client base. I mean, obviously, when the pandemic, started in March of, 2020, there were the first states that went offline. And they were a lot of the states with higher population densities, where they had bigger health concerns and the ability to handle the load. So there were states like California and things that were some of the last to come back online. But we were down for about eight weeks, just like everybody else. And when it came back, it was an absolute tsunami of work. Were. We had no idea. We thought, you know, we had a whole plan in place for who wasn't coming back and how we were gonna scale down and. And deal with the new normal. And the new normal being ended up being something really different than we expected.

Elvis: So instead of just bringing them back in waves, you just brought everybody back all at once.

Speaker C: Well, we did bring them back in waves. I remember very well taking my model room and saying, look, you guys are gonna be the first to go, but you'll also be the first ones back. And so m. And that's how it happened. And we ended up at least offering positions to everybody, who had been furloughed during that, pandemic. Cause we just kept on working. And then when people ran out of work, they just left. And we were fortunate enough to get a PPP loan and keep things going.

Barbara: Yeah, that's what we did.

Speaker C: It was an amazing experience.

Barbara: So when that happens and it comes back, like you said, with a tsunami, like, how do you keep up with the volume? Bring everybody back. And then you probably had to find more ceramis. Correct. How the heck did you manage?

Speaker C: We did, it was a combination of things. We first of all worked a lot of overtime and got a lot of people going. It gave opportunities for people who were, developing to, step up and do new things. And we had to train new people. Things, we had.

Elvis: Didn't let you make a crown, did they?

Speaker C: No, no, no. That'that wouldn't be good for the brand. but, you know, we know we had, at the time Kent Coli was working for us, and he was able to, yeah. Find some people that through were some recruiters and things that, we brought in from the outside and, you know, and also through different means. There's a lot of people who know who we are, and we get a lot of inquiries for, people who have their own labs and they're tired of the grind of having to run a business and make all the teeth and everything else. And so we were fortunate to get a nice group of people together that really work hard and step up. So.

Elvis: So you were able to find technicians throughout the country and get them to move to Utah?

Speaker C: Yeah, there was probably two or three that I could think of. Right. Three of them that I could think of off hand. But most of our talent is homegrown and it, we like to develop and train people and a lot of people we just turned from waxerss into ceramis and just gave them opportunities to do more and be more. So it's been good and it's been a great, great time for opportunities for our team.


There really are no dental laboratory technology training programs in our area

Elvis: What does your training look like? Do you have a program or do you just over the shoulder?

Speaker C: Well, there's a lot of on the job stuff. Sure. obviously, because there really are no dental laboratory technology training programs certainly in our area. the last one left a number of years ago.

Elvis: Yeah.

Speaker C: And you know like, it's like any schooling where you, you have to come out of there and then you have to learn a real job. You know, teach you, they teach you principals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not going toa have people coming out of school making you know, three dollar veneers right out of the gate. But you know, there's a lot to it. It's a highly artistic profession. these people don't. And people like this don't grow in trees. And we're grateful for the people we have. But as far as our training goes, we do have a combination of on the job like we, you know, we'd like everybody else, we'd have people start out in the model room. If they show that they're good with their hands and everything else and they have the, we have them try waxing and see if they have the aptitude, see if they have the aptitude for CAD designing. And we try to just get them into different tasks and let them understand the workflow and just keep continuously promoting the best people. So yeah, just, it's, that's kind of how we do it and it's fueled a lot of our growth. But we do also have some formal training programs as well. We have a technician who used to have a school where he was training techs and we've, we've set up an operation for him to start developing waxerss and things because we still do a lot of waxing and pressing.


60% of our anterior work is hand waxed according to Justus

Barbara: I was going to ask you that when you said the waxing. So yeah, you guys are still doing A fair amount of hand waxing?

Speaker C: Oh yeah, tremendous amount. if we have time we'll get into our business model a little bit. But you know, I was talking to Jed Archibald the other day and he said something really interesting. He said, you know, if you ever want to have ceramists, really great ceramists, they kind of need to wax first because they learn how to use their hands and see things in that three dimensional world and Understand contours and everything else. And then because right now even waxing is becoming a dying art. In Lost art everybody's starting to use CADC cam and even we do a lot of milling of wax now and we'll go ahead and press it. I'd say probably 60% of our anterior work that we do is hand waxed.

Barbara: Wow, really?

Elvis: That's gotta be rare these days.

Speaker C: It is with milling and stuff and yeah, we, you look at how a lot of labs, it's gone all milling and CADC cam and we've done the same. But there's a lot of stuff that you've got, a lot of the more aesthetically demanding stuff you still have to wax and press or mill wax and press, just to get the aesthetics that you want. I mean there's a lot of cases. The CAD cam stuff is most certainly adequate and good enough but our clientele off times wants something a little bit more.

Barbara: That's fascinating because we're doing the same thing. So we do some CAD and then we mill the wax and then you know, especially for diagnostics. But I would assume you guys are doing a lot of very thin prep cases and.

Speaker C: Yes, yes, thin veneers are all the rage right now.

Barbara: Yep.

Speaker C: U, and we do all of ours with pressable ceramics and, and they're really, really thin. And you know the CAD cam world hasn't quite caught up to like we don't like to get for example somebody's doing a really conservative prep veneer or a no prep veneer. We'd like to have Dr. Send in polyvinyl impressions at least for the master impression Justus. It helps the, they can see the margin, you know, there. Especially when there is no margin because it's a total no problemh. Yeah. and so we found that we still do some of those old school techniques and you know we adapt based on what the doctor wants.


How do you become known as the place that does hand wax thin veneers

Elvis: I remember you saying that you got a lot of these high end clients go into a course that that doctor introduced you to but obviously you must have done something to Market to them. How do you become known as the place that does high end hand wax thin veneers? I mean what is your marketing like?

Speaker C: Our marketing is, you know we found that there's absolutely nothing more effective than peer referral. I mean there's nothing even close. we have a couple of markets, like we have a big customer in Atlanta and that working with that account for 25 years. You get all of the people who used to work there, whether it be former associates and former assistants and people talk and.

Speaker C: You know we have a whole family tree that grows in certain markets where you have key dental influencers that influence the market. But most of it is peer referral. lately we've gotten more into social media, but we also do a lot of CE courses. That's probably our biggest thing is a peer referral and using key opinion leaders. And we still work with Dr. Hornberg to this day producing live patient courses, where doctors will bring a patient and'll do live patient courses where we'll have 10 to 12 doctors each with their own patient and with a mentor and prepping 10 to 12 veneers. So you know, so they learn how to do that. We become the resource for that. As with everything else, we're in the relationship business and it gets us face when you do everything by mail order. It's nice to have FaceTime and, and get to know and work with some of these people and go to dinner with them and hang out with them and that's where we start building those relationships.

Barbara: Yeah, go into that course with Dr. Hornbrook, if you don't mind, because that was going toa be one of my questions.


You say you use a local dental school for these courses

Are you still doing similar courses like that? So where do you guys do that? Is that in where you guys are like close to your lab or do you travel?

Speaker C: No. Well, we used to do it on the road with Dr. Hornbrookuse. We did start in the late 90s with PACL Live and then, then we moved on when he started doing the Hornborough Group and he took it on the road and he went to Chicago and all over the country. Memphis and Nova down Fort Lauderdale and know just all over the country. Temple and Philadelphia. So yeah, all over the country. But we've kind of got to a point where we do everything local. It is a little bit tricky. There's some One of the reasons not very many people do live patients courses is because there's some hurdles that go with that in terms of licensing, for out of state.

Barbara: I was just gonna say.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And so we usually do it in a dental school, and that's how we have to do it. But we still have to go through and get certification from the state of Utah and other people to make sure that everybody's, teesr crossed and ies are dotted and make sure that if anything happens that we. We don't have the liability and things. But it's been, tremendously rewarding, to do these courses. And, we also sponsor a young dentist course, which has been a huge boost for us, where we take dentists who have been out of school for less than five years, and we have them work with Dr. Hornbrook and kind of establishes him as their guru and education leader. And we just keep, adding new people and adding new people to the list and been fun.

Barbara: You get, like, a young dentist or a new client, and they're prepp and veneers, and you have one of your techs go, okay, this guy needs help in a good way. Like, I know can help him. And then you kind of turn him on to Dr. Hornbrook and hook those two up and then.

Speaker C: Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I mean, Barb, you've known this forever. I mean, how many, how many, veneer courses have you personally given over the phone? Yeah. To a dentist, it's like you didn't go to dental school, but you're the one to telling the doctor everything that you need to make a predictable and successful case. And, and so, you know, that gives us a leg up and we have that resource to be able to, call on to get people doing things the way we want it done. Because when you do the kind of dentistry that we do, it can get a little tricky sometimes with dentists, just making stuff up and, they think they've done enough and they want. They think that all they have to do is use a good lab. But the truth is, they don't have the training from dental school or wherever, to do things in a predictable way.

Elvis: I'm curious. You say you use a local dental school for these courses?

Speaker C: U.

Elvis: So 10 to 12 dentists show up with a patient from all over the country.

Speaker C: Yep.

Elvis: That's crazy to me. What? Patients traveling with their dentist. I mean, I just won that.

Speaker C: Well, they're usually the patients that are coming with. It's usually, parent or a sibling or a spouse. Yeah. Or an assistant or a friend. Office person. that can be. Because that's really. For a dentist that's doing aesthetic Dentistry, the best marketing they'll ever spend is taking care of someone who's smiling at them at the front desk.

Barbara: So true.

Speaker C: And it's like, look, hey, you know, you know, Judy, come on in here and show them your veneers, you know, kind of thing. Let's show you what we can do. And so there's a lot of that stuff going on. We also, if a doctor has a patient that maybe can't afford to do, you know, 10 veneers and pay the normal fee, they say, look, you can pay for half the fee and two trips to Utah and you can get yourself a new smile and and're you're in they part of a teaching environment. So.

Barbara: And you know, it's worth that I won'I don't want to say discount, but it definitely is a training environment. And so, you know, you spend a fair amount of time in those environments. I can recollect because I've been to Dr. Hornook's courses where it's worth it to have somebody compromise a little bit, monetarily to have that experience and be able to train them and have them sit in the chair for a little longer and the doctor and the mentor over them and discussing things. I mean, it's a lot of work to be a patient.

Speaker C: O Absolutely. It's the best CE value because it's Monday morning stuff that they can go in and use in their practice every day. And we have so many dentists that comes to these course that have never prepped more than two to four crowns one in one shot in their life. And you know, getting them in there in that clinical environment doing 10 for the first time can be kind of a wild ride. But it'it's a lot of fun and really fulfilling and you know, they're nervous.

Elvis: When does the lab make the veneers overnight?

Speaker C: O well, no, no, no, no. We do it do two weekends.

Barbara: That was funny.

Speaker C: No, no, no. Now we do it over were two weekends that are about five to six weeks apart.

Elvis: Okay.

Speaker C: And so, you know, and we're obviously being have to be very sensitive to our existing client base, that, you know, I'm sorry, you can't get your veneers back. We're doing a course right now. Ye we're taking care of. We don't want to be giving the impression that we like new doctors better than the existing.

Elvis: Of course not.

Speaker C: And so, you know, we usually, we usually stagger it so that we're able to best take care of, our existing base and manage the growth.

Elvis: And everybody flies back for delivery.

Speaker C: Yep, yep. And I have my technicians, there're on site for the prep appointment and the seat appointment. They get to see what the patients go through, and what the doctors go through. And it's a very, rich experience that we, are really thrilled to be part of.

Barbara: And I like the way you say you're building relationships because honestly, from an emotional perspective, it doesn't get any better than that for every.

Speaker C: No, it doesn't, because we are in the relationship business. Any business is really. But especially us. Especially when you look at the commoditization of our industry and you're seeing massive labs that are doing tons of AI, tons of automated design, and it kind of makes the playing field so that everybody can make the same restorations, but you've got to provide something beyond that, something more. And that's what we're banking on, as the industry is continuously changing.


How often are patients not happy with their crowns or shade

Elvis: So how often are those patients not happy with their final result or shade.

Speaker C: Like the ones at the courses?

Elvis: Yeah, I'm just thinking they've waited the, four or five weeks. The technician'right there.

Speaker C: Well, Barb will tell you that's our daily life, that's what we do, is that, you know, dental technicians live a life of putting their heart and soul and art into things and sending off their crowns, and they never hear anything again unless it's bad news. M. but it's. A smile is something that's extremely personal. Sure. And it's something that is a lot of many people's identity. And. Yeah, it's almost always, though, when you put people in provisionals, they're always thinking that they're too bright. And then when they get their, definitive final restorations, that they finally gotten used to them after a while. And you. If you do anything that's any darker than their temps, they're like, wait a minute, wait. Aute.

Barbara: I always say, err, on the light side, because you can always tweak it a little bit.

Speaker C: But then you got to remake the.

Barbara: Whole damn thing if you have to go lighter. So you always go.

Speaker C: Well. And what we do is, yeah, the seat weekend for these courses is pretty high pressure because if you don't deliver it, it's a problem. Yeah, we've had. So, you know, we. We have porcelain ovens and stain trays and, hand pieces. And, we're there on site with our technicians to adjust and modify as needed if the patients may be unhappy with the contour or this or that before we bonded in. So sometimes it could get a little. Little scary. And every once in a while I know the shocks you. A doctor will break one. Yeah. Had Realiss. Sorry. Yeah. We've had doctors that have dropped veneers down the patient's throat.

Barbara: O. Yeah.

Speaker C: You know, so things happen and. But you know, like any kind of education or course environment, everybody learns more when things don't go exactly as planned. So. Yeah. and how to deal with it, how to handle it, all that stuff.

Elvis: Let's hope that was the doctor's assistant, not wife. And that happened.

Barbara: Well, if it was his wife. Don't't. You don't have to put this on air. But he would probably ask her to retrieve it eventually.

Speaker C: Yes, yes, yes. And she may or may not wish to do that.

Barbara: I'd be like, no, that's never happening. Never ever.

Speaker C: I did have a doctor once just jokingly say to a patient, well, I guess you'll have to strain your stools and you know, and when you find it, bring it back in and we will cement it back in your mouth.

Barbara: Yeah, been there, done that.

Speaker C: The doctor was just teasing the patient. Yeahe. That never goes over well. No, but if you want. If you live for awkward moments, maybe that's something that you. You do. Elvis.

Elvis: Sorry, my dogs are going nuts. I'm on mute.

Speaker C: Hold on.

Barbara: That's what happens when every now and again be. We'll be recording Saturday morning and his dogs go eat. So I'm gonna wait for him.

Elvis: No, you're fine. You can keep going.

Barbara: Oh, okay.

Elvis: Yeah. No, I can hear. I just don't want you guys to have to live with this. What I live with.

Speaker C: Oh, must be fun.

Elvis: It's something.

Speaker C: Those sound like one of those little annoying small dogs. They are the high pitch. Are four one's enough for me.

Barbara: Yeah.


You do courses based on demand and what doctors want to do

Elvis: So how often do you do these courses? I mean, is it once a year? A couple times a year?

Speaker C: Two or three times a year? We'll do as far as for the live patient go, that's a lot, man. We'll do these twice a year and sometimes three times a year, based on demand. And we'll do our young dentist course, which is an over the shoulder kind of environment where we just do one patient and then we do some occlusion courses and some other things, based on demand and what doctors want to do. And we also support other organizations that are doing no prep veneer courses and get ourselves involved with. With those teachers as well. So, you know, that's how we grow as we seek opportunities and we take them when we get them. You know, if you have a clinician that's doing. That's teaching, it's like fine figure way to piggyback on what they're doing. And I love that. Use it as a tool to make your business grow.

Elvis: So you have clients or doctors that work with you, be your speakers at your courses.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Ye. Ah, we don't do any courses with people we don't work with directly. Sure. so it becomes a collaborative process where we get, we get our technicians involved and the doctors involved and they made presentations together and it's a lot of fun. It's pretty cool. And it's good for our brand and establishes, us and builds relationships and, it's a nice way to do things. So it's been a successful model for us.

Elvis: Do they come to you with courses or do you reach out to the.

Speaker C: Sometimes, yeah, I bet. Sometimes. Yeah. We have with Sayy, I'd like to do this. And you know, we said no to things where it's like, okay, we want to do a course on sleep dentistry or whatever, but we don't make sleep appliances or anything like that. So we'll say, ah, you know what, you know, that's great that you want to do that, but that doesn't really. You fit in our wheelhouse and is't really what we do. So. But we'll do things. we've been involved with some implant things with varied success. But most, most of the stuff we do is, elective fee for service aesthetic dentistry. So.

Barbara: Yeah, that's what I was going to say.


Is it mostly aesthetics or implants or milling now

How is your business model change? So is it mostly. If you were looking at a percentage, is it mostly like 80% aesthetics, like high anesthetic veneers and.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I would say so. Yeah, I would say probably. I'd say it's probably two thirds, one third. we still do our high growth areas, our anterior aesthetics, as well as implants. But you see as, as most labs have discovered with chairside, milling and cheap commodity labs that you're getting, you're doing less and less and less of single posteriors and you're doing stuff that machines can't do. You're doing the implants and the veneers and that kind of stuff. And that's where we see our primary growth areas and going forward.

Barbara: So you guys are doing chairside too?

Speaker C: No, but I'm just saying that you see doctors that will go by this machine or that machine and you know, and they're trying to save themselves into prosperity by doing, that's what they think anyways. Well, sure, sure. I actually had a doctor that told me he was too busy for Sarah. He was just like, I don't need that. he's like. He bought one and disappeared for about six months and realized that, oh my gosh, I could, I could dismiss the patient and put somebody else in the chair and prep some more.

Elvis: Yep.

Barbara: Bingo.

Speaker C: So, so he came back with a vengeance. And that's been a great relationship.


M. Monolithiceah: We're trying to balance technology with developing employees

Elvis: So do you even do posterior crowds?

Speaker C: Oh yeah, we do lots. Monolithiceah.

Elvis: Nothing crazy. We do now.

Speaker C: We do, we do a lot of them out. Yeah, absolutely. M. Our goal is we wantn. I mean, yeah, we're allowed that people send their hardest work to and the hardest things to. But we also. But what we really want, as a broad relationship where we're able to do everything that the doctor needs and we want, we want that full relationship. we still do of our single posteriors and stuff. We're probably doing 35 to 40% of them with model free. We're not doing, we're just, we're just getting, getting the file. Oh yeah, we're just getting the files in and designing them and finishing them up and sending them out a little bag. So.

Barbara: Wow. you guys have your own on site designers?

Speaker C: We do, we do. But you know, there's AI as well, but not for everything. We're trying to do a lot of stuff. We're trying to balance the technology needs and the fact that we've got to stay competitive price wise and things with also developing employees as well. So you know, I thought that this year in Chicago, Jim Glidewell said something absolutely profound and that is, we're trying to eliminate as many jobs in the dental lab as possible, but not necessarily people that his mission is to preserve and protect the careers and earning potential of his employees.

Elvis: Talk about a lab that has so much automation and so much technology to keep adding people.

Speaker C: But. Yeah, but he'trying he's trying to create career jobs and living wages. And I think that that's kind of a well articulated way with what we're trying to do. We're trying to create great jobs and people that we don't want jobs that are repetitive or not, that don't require much skill. We want people here earning career wages and making as much money as they can. Yeah, I love it.


Jim says removable work is only 2% of his total revenue

Elvis: Well, we talk a lot about fixed Veneers and implants and whatnot. What about removable? Are you putting that much, much energy and art into your removable or do you even do them?

Speaker C: Not really. Just with the skill sets of the people that we have. we made the decision this last summer to eliminate dentures and parcels. We quit doing themh house. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, we had some turnover with personnel and things and we decided to make a business decision and take the people that are involved in that process and put them toward the, all in X and hybrids and stuff like that. And we found that that was a better use and had a higher ceiling for them career wise and things. and, you know, I just got to a point where removables was 2% of my revenue and 40% of my headaches.

Barbara: See ya.

Speaker C: And it was like. And you know, we had a lot of local dentists that the only things that they were bringing were rel lines and repairs that are disruptive to the workflow. And, and so most of what we do now is night guards and splints and things that are in support of our fixed work. Kind of a value added service. And life's been a lot nicer without that headache, so. Which was really hard to do because our roots were kind of in dentures and removables and things. And that's what my wife's grandfather did is he use was a removable tech. And it was part of our heritage. But it just gots the point where, you know, the labor shortage and the fact that people have these astronomical expectations for removable cases and all of them are compromised in one way or another.

Elvis: Oh, sure.

Speaker C: And we just decidedeah. We just decided it was, it wasn't, the best for us, but, you know, there's a lot of money and opportunity to be made for people out in the removable world. We just chose a different path.

Elvis: Well, it's so easy for a lab to get a new removable client because everybody needs a good removable lab. So it must have beenlutely hard to say we're not doing it anymore. It just.

Speaker C: Yeah, we did. And it was, it was slowly dying anyway because we were, we had some turnover and the quality was inconsistent and we wanted to have a product that we could be proud of. The truth is, if I could h. If I found a denture technician tomorrow that could deliver, something that was commensurate with our brand and we could charge accordingly, I. I'd fire it back up tomorrow and I know I'd have all the work I could handle in pretty short order. Sure.

Elvis: But where does that person live? Where does that unicorn and our. That's the hard.

Speaker C: That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

Barbara: But, I mean, I know you said that you, 2% of everything you guys are doing. I like the fact that you guys actually looked at it and said, you know what? This is really. We're struggling here. It's only 2%. And even though it was part of your heritage, you took the risk and eliminate it. And I think it takes a lot of guts, personally.

Speaker C: It did. It was just. It was. It was something that was, You know, it's hard to say no to work. you know, all of us were trained and raised to look for every way possible to say yes to everything. especially this time of year. Oh, God. Yeah. But. But I keep reminding people, I said, okay, remember, when mid January rolls around and all the doctors have been closed for two weeks and there's no work in here, we got to make howy while the sun shines. And that's how it works.

Barbara: And I'm gonna do backflips and say, man, maybe I'll take a day off.

Speaker C: Maybe I'll take a day off. That's right. That's right. I remember visiting you in your lab, Barb, when you were. It was right over New Year's, and that place was a. Was dead. And, you had somebody in there busting your chops over, hey, we got to hit our goals. We got to hit our goals changed, Jim.


If you were to say what's the biggest threat to the dental lab industry

Elvis: The question is, Barb, did you hit your goal?

Barbara: I always hit my goals, especially aesthetically. Like, I just love what I do, and I do a lot of the similar cases to what Jim's lab's doing, and, like, it never gets. I love what I do. I love, the people I do it with, and I love the doctors.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's soulfilling. If you could find that right partnership. It's amazing, fulfilling work. It's a lot of fun, and, you know, it'we've. Been very fortunate to be in that world.

Barbara: Yep.

Elvis: Usually when you hear of a lab that's a hundred plus employees, you hear them going after DSO a lot and the dollar crown race, and that's even high. Yeah, but do you even play in that game?

Speaker C: No, we don't's crazy. But I do have. Well, it is. I think that that's probably the biggest. If you were to say what's the biggest threat to the dental lab industry, I would say it's DSOS and corporate dentistry. That's the one thing that we watch as we have all these terrific fee for service practices that we have amazing relationships with that their succession plan. They don't have a child or anything that's going to come in and a daughter or a son that's going to join them in the practice. And you have some private equity company offering them stupid amounts of money to sell. And you know, DSOs exist to create economies of scale and be able to work vendors over for cheaper pricing. Yeah, yeah they do. And that's why they exist. And you know, the truth is dental laboratories mass produce a custom product and that makes us somewhat unique in that there's not really efficiencies outside of maybe bundling shipping that come from doing lots and lots and lots of work. It's one of those things where so far we've resisted. We have lots of people, you know, I probably have eight Heartland accounts, I have a bunch that are a, part of other DSOs. And you know, it's slowly happening where people are selling more and more and more as part of a succession plan. And what we're trying to do is find people who we're trying to expand our market because when you have, like us, we're probably, you know, if you want to have fun with numbers, and this is just quick math in my head, if there's 200,000 practicing dentists in the country, licensed dentists in the country, and you probably take 60,000 of them or some sort of specialist, 60 to 80,000, you're down to maybe 120,000 dentists that are GPs. And if you say that you only work for the top 5%, you're talking about 6,000 dentists. S your, that's your market. And so you have a choice. You either have, you need to have a combination of trying to capture as much of that market as you can, but you're also trying to add to that market, to find more people who want to move into that realm. And there's a lot of dentists that want to do that, a lot of young dentists that want to move into that world. But so many of them are coming out of school with huge amounts of debt and their employees of a, an organization and they don't have decision making authority. So yeah, we're trying to navigate those waters as best we can and try to maintain and build more and more relationships all the time.

Barbara: But it sounds like the vision of the business is that's exactly what you're doing especially with the Dr. Hornbrook courses and with the young dentists and the mentoring and all of that. It's like you're growing your own business with.

Speaker C: Correct. And so get along lines of what Elvis referred to earlier is back in 2007, my father in law made the decision to sell 45% of the business to his employees. He still owns a controlling share and he can sell the business anytime he wants. But what we did is we brought on, you know, our key employees as owners of the company, equity partners, they mortgage their houses, borrowed where they could, borrowed from their 401k, borrowed from family to buy into the business. And what that does is that creates a huge stabilizing factor for us in terms of culture and in terms of those relationships. And people literally have a vested interest. For example, if you worked at a large lab, it's very seldom do large labs allow their doctors to speak directly with the people that make their teeth. And the reason for that is we.

Elvis: Only let on certain ones on the phone, right?

Speaker C: Well, yes, and that's a whole other conversation. That's next week's episode. but know the truth is, is that a lot of them will have managers and they will work with the doctors and then they will turn around and relay the information to the technicians. And it's because they want, they don't want those technicians leaving and taking those relationships with them as if they went to another lab. So they're trying to insulate their technicians from getting involved with doctors, on a personal and relationship level. So by allowing, by having our people be owners, I don't have to worry about that. Yeah. So I give my doctors direct access to our technicians and they get to. And it allows for a lot of collaboration and a lot of relationship building because I'm not worried that somebody's going to take off and open their own lab and take a book of business with them.

Barbara: Yeah.

Speaker C: And so it's been very stabilizing for our company. And people care. They care about our profits, they care about our growth, they care about the sustainability of this company. And having, you know, you know, with a third of your employees being equity partners, it really takes a lot of the weight off of me and puts a lot on, it just spreads the load.

Barbara: Equal opportunity stress.

Speaker C: Well, yeah, well it's also, yeah, it's also a little more self serving. I have what I call team leaders that are essentially middle management. And their job is to take care of the doctors, their preferences, whatever they need. you know, some Labs have a specific look of the way all their crowns look and their veneers look and they have a quality control. Whereas I allow all my people to just meet the doctors where they want to be met and give them what they want and make it look the way they want it to look. So Utah Valley Dental Lab doesn't necessarily have a specific look, of a product, that our technicians do. And so I love that we let them do their thing and occasionally I have to intervene and change technicians or whatever, but for the most part these people are invested and they take care of their businessderful. it's a wonderful world.

Barbara: And that was your father in law's idea?

Speaker C: O yeah, yeah. It was something that was done to stabilize the business. you know, anybody who's ever owned a business has felt that weight. when things go poorly or, or the business is struggling or bad decision or decisions need to be made or bad decisions are made and dealing with the consequences of that. And my father in law just, he didn't want it all on him anymore. He wanted to be able to share that load and get a little more buy in from people and also keep people from leaving and keep people settling in. I mean, I've got lots of 20 plus year employees and it's really nice.

Barbara: What I love, is that, you know, he kept, or somebody close to you guys kept that majority shareff that, you know, that's the most, you know, stable and he knows, okay, I'm still here. And you know, the company's not being sold out from under the family, but yet you've got that stability of that, you know, number one shareholder. Ye, I wish that would have happened to me.

Speaker C: Honestly, you know, the drama of family dental labs, that could be, that could be a whole other conversation. Yeah, as a lab owner, just like most of the people that go into business for themselves, they don't wantna work for anybody else. They don't wa wantna answer to anybody else. They don't wantna have to defend their choices and their decisions. That's why they went into business for themselves. And so that's why he kept his, controlling interests. But what he was really doing was inviting all of us and he made a bet that we would be able to grow the lab, beyond, far beyond what it would ever be with him being the sole owner. You know, he had several bonaf fide offers to sell the business and he just made a bet on his employees and it paid off a lot.

Barbara: I love that's great.


Jim McDonald: It takes X amount to become an owner

That's so cool.

Elvis: We don't have to get into the weeds and the numbers. But what happened? No, I'm just curious. Like employees, you just say it takes X amount to become an owner. They give you the money, and then they hope that the profit return over years is more than that. Is that basically how it works?

Speaker C: That's basically how it works. I mean, we had the company valued and you know, and we, we try to keep our stock price affordable, but whenever we have an employee that retires, quits or whatever, and it doesn't happen very often.

Elvis: Sure.

Speaker C: They take, you know, those shares become available, and we make a, a decision as a company and say, okay, do we want to just retain these shares, you know, for a rainy day, and when we need to raise capital or whatever to buy equipment, or do we just. Or do we redistribute these to other owners or do we want to bring new people into the fold? And, you know, we make those decisions. A lot of it has to do with the ownership. Has a lot to do with, the replaceability of an employee. Yeah, I mean, obviously, I mean, don't like to use the word golden handcuffs, but that's kind of what you're. It's like, look, because if you're going to be an owner, you were re going to give you this opportunity. It gives you an opportunity to make more money. Because that's another thing with dental technicians. They can only make so many teeth. Yeah, they can only make so many teeth, and at some point they just top out. And the only way for them to make more is to have their own shop. And we don't want to necessarily have that. So, yeah, that's kind of what goes into it, is we'll just make a list when stuff becomes available and decide how to divvy it up.

Barbara: I love that.

Elvis: How long did it take for them to make their initial investment back?

Speaker C: Was it cool? The original group? Yeah, this would have been the group that bought in 2017. It took about seven or eight years.

Elvis: Wow. And then it's just AW's fantastic bonus after that.

Speaker C: Well, well, you know, it's like anything, the profits and the distributions that go out, it's like anything else in life. You can either use that to pay down your debt or you can use it to boost your lifestyle or go get a car. Oh, yeah, lifestyle. Like, you know, nothing makes me happier to see, one of my workers go out and buy $100,000 new truck. Seriously, it's like, oh, well, I guess they won't be going. You know, they're now married to that debt.

Elvis: Y.

Barbara: And you sound like Jim Glidewell. Honestly. Jim. And your name's Jim. But I mean, he said the same thing. It makes him happier than. Oh, really making a lot of money, you know.

Speaker C: Yeah. And that's. And that's what we want around here. I mean, you. We have same problems with everybody else. There's always people that think they deserve more, and we measure their production and productivity and act accordingly. And so. Yeah, and it's tough when you're in an environment that you don't have if you're a company where you're in an environment where you really can't raise prices very much.

Speaker C: Cause we're kind of hitting the upper ceiling of probably what we can charge sometimes. And you watch all of the automation and different things with dental labs, and you have to make a decision. It's like either, either we got to figure out how to make more or we got to get more efficient. And that's what we're trying. That's what we're constantly trying to do.

Elvis: Yeah.

Speaker C: Because shipping goes up every year, materials goes up every year, health insurance goes up every year. If your fees can't go up accordingly, you've got to, got to get creative and how to figure out how to. How to create growth opportunities for your people.

Elvis: Do you have like a board meeting for everybody that gets together? You kind of vision out the lab or.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Elvis: I mean, not everybody can have a say, right?

Speaker C: No. Mean, it's like if you own McDonald's stock, you don't have the right to go in and tell them how to make your cheeseburger.

Elvis: I want more salt on my fries, man.

Speaker C: Well, but there is a reality. If you're a minority shareholder, anything, there's a certain amount of trust that you're placing. And we have a high trust environment with our owners where they want to trust that, this golden goose that's. This company is gonna continue to provide a nice living for them and that we're making good decisions and along the way and you know, nobody bats a thousand. We make poor choices along the way, but we're always trying to pursue revenue streams and, and get better and make relationships better and try to figure out how to charge as much as humanly possible for our product.

Barbara: Hell yeah.

Speaker C: Love that.

Barbara: Well said.

Speaker C: Yeah. So, yeah, it's fun. I enjoy it. It's a good business to be in. And we're optimistic and we're again, with all. Everything going on, we're Banking on this idea that there's always going to be dentists out there that wants something more, that want something better. Not everybody wants to shop at Walmart and finding those people is really, really hard and it's expensive and you know, and people have choices and there's a lot of great labs out there doing some amazing things.

Elvis: Yeah.

Speaker C: So.

Elvis: Well, sounds like you're doing something right, Jim. Sounds like you're putting out some good work and you got some happy employees. It's a win, win, win for everybody.

Speaker C: Well, we try to have a great culture. We spend more time with each other than we do with our families. And yeah, I've learned a long time ago that kindness is free.

Barbara: Yeah.

Speaker C: It costs nothing, you know, but sometimes, sometimes it gets high pressure and you know, we're just trying to have a nice place to be in a nice culture and a nice place to work.


Elvis: Would you guys buy into a lab you work at now

Barbara: Yeah.

Speaker C: So love it.

Elvis: Jim, thank you so much, man. We appreciate it.

Barbara: Yeah, thank you.

Speaker C: Well, anytime.

Barbara: We'll see you at Visions. Hopefully you'll see.

Speaker C: I'll definitely be in Chicago.

Barbara: Oh yeah. All right.

Speaker C: I still, I'm still trying to decide on vision this year. It depends. I've got a, I've got options on where I can, I can go, I can go meet with dentists or I can meet with.

Barbara: I know what I would choose, but.

Speaker C: What would you choose? Lab techs. Your people. Yep.

Barbara: Well, good talking to you. Thank you very James.

Speaker C: Thanks Parn, Elvis. You guys are great and we love, we love what you do. It's a fun thing you do and anything, anything to do to make this making teeth fun. We're all for it, know it 100%.

Elvis: Thanks, Sara.

Barbara: A, big huge thanks to Jim. I've always been a huge fan for coming on our podcast and talking about your interesting employee owned lab. I swear, Elvis, it's really great to see a large lab care so much about their employees and the quality of work they put out. Like, super jealous right here. Would you guys buy into a lab you work at now? I say yes.

Elvis: I think it's an interesting question.

Barbara: I know. Would you have a better work life if you're a part owner?

Speaker C: I'm thinking probably I'd like to be invested.

Barbara: I know, right? It's definitely interesting to think about. Thank you, Jim. Super amazing. We will see you at Calab. We'll see you at LMT Chicago.

Elvis: Awesome, everybody. That's all we got for you and we of course will ll talk to you next week.

Barbara: Have a great week. Day one.

Elvis: Bye that's cool. I didn't know. I'm the first of the last to know. The views and opinions expressed on the Voices from the Bench podcast, are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the host or Voices from the Bench llc.