Hi Voices of the Bench community. This is John Isherwood with the PR team here at Ivoclar. As we wind down the year, all of us at Ivoclar want to thank you for your partnership, your trust, and your continued support. We wish you and your family a very happy, healthy, and safe holiday season. I'd also like to take a moment to thank Elvis and Barb for continuing to make this podcast so special, bringing our community together to share ideas, learn from one another, and grow as a profession. From all of us at Ivoclar, have a wonderful holiday season. And as Santa likes to say, May your days be merry, your nights be bright, and may all your smiles sparkle like freshly fallen snow. Ho, ho, ho.
Welcome to Voices from the Bench, a dental laboratory podcast. Send us an e-mail at info at voicesfromthebench.com and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Greetings and welcome to episode 403 of Voices from the Bench. My name is Elvis.
My name is Barbara the Fudge Maker today because it's 15th of December when this launches and it's time for me to get it going.
I cannot not laugh when someone says Fudge Maker. I'm sorry.
There could be several different definitions of that.
But for me, it's.
White chocolate fudge and chocolate fudge and cookies and cream. So yeah, that's what I'm doing today.
Is it a baking weekend for you?
Yes, it is. It's a snow weekend.
Who do you bake this for? The whole lab.
I think this year, yeah.
Damn, it's a lot of fudge.
Yeah, they put me back in charge of the lab. So I've got several different things that I'm doing. They just launched a new lab for me. I think we talked about that. And then they put me back in charge of night dental. So I'm going to make everybody fudge this weekend.
Nothing wins over employees better than food. A bunch of fudge and food.
What's up with you? I heard you're getting 7, 8 inches of snow.
Yeah, I woke up today and I really, I mean, it's the weekend and I had these plans in my head. I was like, let's record, then I'll go for a run. And then a friend told me, You're not doing that. I was like, yeah, I plan on going for, I don't look out the window. I don't look at the weather. I need to do better at this because I really had plans of a nice run today. And then I look out and I can't even see the payment.
So is it already snowing or does it get just really nasty?
It's currently snowing and according to the app, it's like less than an inch within an hour. 7 inches within the next 6 hours. So it's going to be a long, slow.
And so you can't run when it snows because you might slip and die on the ice or what?
You know, I can run in negative degree weather. I can run when it's snowing. It's the slipperiness that stops me.
You might kill yourself. I mean, that is a little dangerous.
Not so much that. I just don't want to twist an ankle or something and then be 3 miles away from my house.
Yeah, that would not be good.
That's really the only thing that stops me.
Don't you have like running spikes or something?
You know, I used to, but it really messed with how you're hit. Yeah, And I hear they make ones for running, but you know, I'm cheap and lazy.
Are you impressed with my term gait? I bet you are.
I am. I am, yeah. Because I was going to use the word step.
All right, so on with the show.
Absolutely. It was back in the great month of November, which seems like ages ago, but it was just last month. NOAC Dental Supplies put on the first ever lab fest in New Orleans. Do you remember that, Barb? Oh, wait.
No.
You weren't there.
I know, but it was all over social media, so I followed it when I was on my awesome cruise and saw you guys all dressed up and all the parties and lectures. I was not far away.
It was spectacular. I mean, it was just one of those shows that had a great vibe all weekend. And huge thanks to the good and wonderful people at Aidite North America who was gracious enough to allow us to set up the podcast and record at their booth.
Yes, they're good and gracious.
Good and wonderful. I love it. Good people. Now, I didn't get a lot of recordings.
Yeah, because I know what you were doing.
You weren't there.
You weren't working.
When the show is that good, it's hard not to have that much fun.
True.
But I did get some really, really good conversations and some long ones, so you weren't there to stop me. But to kick off all the LabFest conversations, I actually got to talk to someone who I've known about for a while. I mean, we all travel in the same circles, but for some reason, never met. Duff Wilson.
Great name.
Well, because Barb was not there to tell me to wrap it up, I had an hour-long conversation with Duff and got his very interesting story that leads up to him being a speaker and a KOL for Adite. We talked to him about getting into the industry and having a good lab in those early years set him on the right path to eventually opening up his own lab 22 years ago. He mentions all the locations he's been at, running a million milling center that was dedicated to benefit the local lab association, which is so cool, and meeting the good people that eventually made Adite North America, and understanding the power of having trust in a relationship when choosing your partners for your business.
Oh my god, I love that.
So join us as we chat with Duff Wilson. So Barb, Cam has been a big topic for us in the past few weeks. And now that we're such experts on this matter, I actually recently learned about an exciting new partnership.
Oh yeah? What's that, Mr. Cam expert.
Well, you don't have to be * **** ***** it, but... Everybody knows our good friends at Ivoclar.
Yes, of course we do.
Yep, good people and they probably also know about their Ivotion dental solution.
Do you mean the one where the discs are already split into two colors so that you can design and mill a complete denture all in one shot?
Yeah, it's crazy how that works. Don't know how it works, but you're right. That is it. There's no bonding of the teeth to the denture base.
Well, I bet that makes everybody life easier, including mine. What a goopy mess that that can be.
You betcha. So until now, you can only mill Ivotion dentures on a closed system. However, Ivoclar has been working with Follow Me Technologies to implement the workflow into HyperDentCam. Wow. That means you'll be seeing it on a lot more open. machines.
All right, so give it up. That's amazing, but do tell. Do you know which ones?
Well, I know for starters, we're going to see it on the Roland DWX 53 series mills, which a lot of people have.
Yep.
And the Imagine I mills.
So that is crazy awesome. These Hyperdent dudes are everywhere, right?
I mean, not just everywhere, but everywhere. They're like PMMA chips stuck to my--.
Oh, we got it. Hard stop. Nobody wants the mental picture you're about to paint for us.
Voices from the bench. The interview. All right, this is great. Duff Wilson, the man I know of, the man I've seen. I don't think we've ever met.
No, I don't think so.
How is that possible? We're in the same circles. We go to the same shows. Where are you hiding out? I'm A recluse. You're A recluse. This will be a fun episode then. So here we are at NOLA Labfest. Thanks to Adite for hosting us, having us in their booth. Tell me about yourself, Duff. Hey, how'd you get the name Duff?
Kind of a family name on my dad's side. Is it really?
It's a unique name. I like it.
Yeah. It wasn't my name originally when I had a different name and then I never knew my dad.
Yeah.
But that's where I was, that Duff came from on his side. And I was raised by my grandparents and my mom was single and whatnot. And my granddad was a lawyer.
Oh, yeah.
And I looked at him one day and I called him Pop Pop. And I said, Pop, Pop, I want your name. And he did the paperwork. And I remember the judge saying, son, if you can spell it, you can have it.
How old were you?
I think I was about 5. Five? Six.
And they let you pick your new name for life.
Well, I knew I wanted my granddad's name instead.
And his name was Duff.
His name was Edward Vandiver Atkinson.
Okay.
And so Duff was just the nickname that always stuck.
Oh. So Duff is your legal name or not?
No, it's just my nickname that my mom and my real dad.
Interesting. So you must, every time you do anything legal or anything, you got to remember you're not Duff.
That's right.
Yeah, I get it.
But that also helps with telemarketers.
I get it.
Because if they ask for the wrong name, they're not anybody I know.
See, Salvis is my middle name. So if I ever get anything in the mail that's got Theodore, I'm like, yep.
It works great.
Don't know who you are?
That's right.
Don't know what you are. Never heard anything.
Yeah.
Well, that's fascinating.
Yeah.
How'd you get into dental technology? Being raised by a lawyer.
Yeah, so I end up going to the University of Missouri. I'm from South Carolina. And so I went to University of Missouri. Being 1000 miles from home, I had a lot of fun. And so honestly, I had a friend that worked at a lab in Charlotte.
Oh, yeah.
So when the first year of Missouri was over, I went and we roomed and he got me a job at that lab back in the day, back in I think it was 1993, something like that. 93, yeah. Big lab? Big lab. Yeah. And they took good care of me, and I learned a lot there. But at the end of the summer, I actually, I had a little 60-day review or whatever. I wouldn't plan on staying. So I had that in my back pocket, which helped me out. And the guy looked at me and he said, times are tight right now. I can give you a 10-cent race. Yeah, big money. Yeah. Now, granted, I totally understand this for the sheer fact that in business and whatnot, you just can't go and hand over the family fortune because you don't know if the person's good or not. Sure. Especially in a large lab where you might not actually know the person.
Yeah.
As the owner, you know? Yeah, for sure. And so I went back to my desk. Very upset, I was like, Wow, I felt like I was doing better than that, But, like I said, I hold nothing against any of that.
What were you doing at the lab?
In the model room.
Really.
Yeah, making a whopping 5 bucks an hour. So I was going to 510, going to 510. So I talked to my department head and he went and talked to another person, because I got to know a lot of people, some of the managers and stuff. And one of them said to me, he said, give me to the end of the week. And he said, I'll go talk to him. And so at the end of the week, they called me back in there. The owner said, the owner is a good friend of mine. He took very good care of me in the long run. I don't want any of this to be like it was negative, but it's business. And And he said, wow, I did not know you were doing this good. He said, I'm gonna give you a dollar an hour raise.
Nice.
And he said, and I'm gonna pull you back in here if you stay, 'cause I was gonna go back to school. And he said, I'll give you, if you stay, I'll give you another review in 90 days.
So $6 an hour.
Right. And so in 90 days, I went back in there and he gave me two more dollars. And so long story short, the company took very good care of me.
Dropped out of school and just didn't go back.
Or he said they said they'll pay for all my learning for CDT and all that stuff nice if I would stay and so I think I was about 20 21 and I was at the time you know making good money I think I was getting like 76,000 a year from five bucks an hour and in like two or three years no I was I was within four years I was running their removal department Wow yeah and who taught you removables so I got thrown to the wolves on the removals large labs like that you know they have some turnover here and there and so their their tooth setter went to lunch one day and didn't come back and I will say that they looked at me and they said You're going to sit down here and set teeth, and every case you set, you're going to go put it on my bench and I'm going to check it, and then you'll fix it.
Who's there? Like the manager of the department.
Very good. I wouldn't go name drop any names, but it was Billy Drake.
I knew you were talking about Billy.
Yeah. Yep. Super great. Good to me.
Amazing.
Yeah. And so I would set teeth and go put it on David's bench. And David is a great teacher.
Yeah.
And so about twice a day, they would bring me a whole cart full of denture cases back and he would have notes on all of them for me to fix.
Fix. Wow.
We're talking about high volume, you know, we're talking about major volume. Yeah. And a 20 year old kid doing it, you know, and.
How bad were the first few?
I mean, well, I think I got thrown in the role because I was always going and doing stuff. And so I took it upon myself to kind of learn to to set some teeth and I showed it. And then that's how I ended up in the position.
You had interest in it. Yeah, yeah, okay.
And so that's how I kind of rose to the ranks. I had a very, very good friend. She's, I think, just might have retired, named Debbie Walston at the time. And she actually got the department **** *** and she didn't want it. Like, you know, we're talking- Maybe you want a management that doesn't want to be. She was very good she taught me a lot, too, and so David taught me technical things on how to do set teeth and things like that. Debbie taught me how to work, yeah, and I love that. Yeah, so I was just a young kid, and so these people took me under their wing and really...
A young kid making a lot of money.
Yeah.
I mean, it'd be dangerous.
At the end, they ended up giving me like, I think I got 1/2 percent of the department's total revenue per month. Yeah, I mean, they treated me real well.
Nice.
They treated me real well.
Nice.
And so I was there for, I think, 6 1/2 years, something like that. And my dad got real sick. And so I went to him and I said, you know, I'm going to have to leave.
Back in Missouri.
Nope. So I'm from South Carolina, South Carolina. So I was only two hours. My hometown's only two hours from Charlotte. And so I ended up giving them a 30-day notice and came back to Sumter and got me a job for $12.50 an hour.
Out of dental.
In dental.
In dental.
Yeah. So I'm sitting there.
Wow, that's harsh.
Yeah. And so I ended up... doing that. I got married and I think at that time now I'm like 26, something like that. And so I took this job at 12.50 and then next thing the guy's bouncing my paychecks. And now I've already committed into a house and all this stuff. And I'm like, I just had this job that they took great care of me. Now you're, and so, yeah. And it's tough for the small labs. Like, that's one reason why I would adite and whatnot. I really try to make sure I'm honest and I think about things that help the smaller lab survive yeah because we're in a we're in an interesting market now so my checks were bouncing I I'm gonna have to go back to Charlotte like they would take me back in a heartbeat so I was like I'm I'm gonna go back to Charlotte and I was talking to some of the doctors in the town and they said don't go back to Charlotte they said we will front you to open your own lab.
Are these a group of doctors?
No, it's just individual ones in the town.
Individuals that had nothing to do with each other all wanted to front you. Wow.
And so I went to them and I said, taught each one and I said, listen, I don't want to be obligated to owe you money. And so I actually took an equity line off of my house. I said, as long as you can write me letters to the bank saying that you're, you know, you're going to.
And you promised me work. Yeah.
And they did. And so I got my little loan and opened.
So you did it yourself.
Opened my lab. And in one year I paid the whole lab off.
Did you start in your house kind of thing?
Yeah.
What'd you do like removable? Just.
I did everything. Yeah.
So how did you know crown and bridge if you did only removable?
So I would also go in Charlotte and sit and watch them contour crowns and stack crowns. And just whenever I had time, I would go and watch. And then when I got to this lab in my hometown, the little girl's over there doing stack and porcelain and whatnot. And I felt pretty bad. She knew less than I did. And I wasn't a crown and bridge person.
That's insane.
I helped her do better and whatnot. And eventually, at some point, she ended up working for me. She now lives in Florida. But I didn't realize what I knew. I will say, as far as large labs go and whatnot, Drake has always held a pretty high standard in their quality. And they've had good management. Mark Stewick there is one of my best friends back in the day. He's the one that stuck his neck out for me. He's a good dude, yeah.
So, what was the name of your first lab?
Wilson Dental Lab. What is this?
Is it still the same lab?
Okay, great. I'm now in business. This is my, I think, my twenty-second year.
Oh, wow, yeah. Okay, so you started in your house. You probably just... I mean, got what, a casting machine and this and that?
So out in the back garage, I had the old broken arm caster.
I love the labs in the old garage.
Yeah. And I had a room in the house. I didn't have proper plumbing. So of course I got, you know, Renford. I love Greg at Renford and whatnot. So I had the vacuum, the model trimmer that went to your vacuum. It was dry. And it was pretty consolidated. It was small, but I made it work.
And you were there for how long before you expanded?
So in the house there, I was there for about a year and a half. Yeah.
And your wife was okay with this?
Yeah. And then we were going to have our first kid and she wanted to be in a different house. My house was old in the historic district and whatnot. And she wanted a more modern house. So we sold that one and actually bought a house on I guess they have it everywhere, but it's like called the Prada Homes where they build model houses that are really nice and stuff. And so we got in on one of those and I had them build a laboratory in the thing over the garage. and so they actually plumbed it up and everything for me as they built the house.
So when you went house shopping, that was in your mind, I need lab space.
Well, I've always tried to be economical with my lab. And as I go further in this venture, you'll see some of the things I've done. But yeah, I had them totally outfitted so that when... the parade of homes was over I just moved my stuff right into that that room over the garage and did all that and so I wasn't at this place very long I ended up getting a divorce and all that good stuff you know that comes with that yeah and I bought a building because of this in downtown and I moved my lab there yeah and at that point I was I purchased a small house so that my son could live with me and stuff like that and and then I had this building that I went in with another guy and we we stayed in one side of the building and rented the other side out the whole purpose is is that as a small lab to have an overhead of a rental or things like that is very very taxing on a laboratory that's small yeah and so I've always tried to stay out of that I want I want to pay rent back to myself yeah are you the only employee at this point yeah so I ended up having an employee when I was in the second lab, the room over the garage lab. And it was interesting stuff. My ex-wife would tell me like when I would go do pickups and deliveries, the garage door would go down and she would hear all the equipment upstairs cut off. So he would shut it down. He would just talk on his phone, whatever. And then as soon as the doors went back up, everything cut back on. Yeah. And it, you know, it's just The biggest thing you hear in the industry is getting people that want to work. And it's tough. It's tough. And then how do you make the person you have think of the laboratory as something of their own? It's very hard. It's very hard. And this guy was a very good friend of mine. And when I then moved the lab into this other building, he came with me. And then he kind of got his nose in my divorce a little bit. And so I had to ask him to leave at that point. And I was back on my own. I had a girl that came over and her, she's from the next town over, and her brother's a dentist. And she had gone to the College of Charleston and gotten her degree. And she came and watched, right? And she said, what do I need to do to get into this? Because I'd like to do my brother's work. I said, well, there's a couple of colleges you can do it. You know, they're two-year schools. And I kind of gave her Durham Tech's information and whatnot, you know, because we always tried to look out for the industry in that areas, because they're dying schools.
Yeah, there are not many left.
And I never heard from her for two years. And then we were at the ECDL in Charlotte, and she walks by. She says, hey, and I'm like, what are you doing? She's like, I just got out of school. She went to Durham? Yeah.
Graduated.
Yeah, and I think one of the tops in her little class and whatnot. I said, well, what are you doing? She's like, well, I'm trying to figure out what I'm gonna do for work, you know, and where I'm gonna work. You know, I got my brother, but I don't actually have a lab or anything. So she took a job with a sketchy dentist in our town. And I don't even want to go into all that stuff. But to the point to where the guy lost his license and then hired dentist to come in there and work. And I said to her, I said, Mary Catherine, I said, I can't hire you. I said, but I can rent you a room and put you in business.
So your other half of your building rented to another lab?
No, so the other half of my building actually was rented to Allstate. So I got me a good renter. Yeah. So Allstate rented that. But I had an extra room. I had plenty of room.
You rented out space in your lab for her to run your own lab.
She didn't have all the equipment and everything like that. And so her husband came in there and built all of her countertops in that extra room. And so Mary Catherine, you know, coming out of school, they do a good job of teaching you, but you really don't know how to work.
Yeah, totally.
And so she would. set teeth, she did everything also. And she would bring them to me and I would play the David Avery role with her and taught her all the, ins and outs of it. And she rented that room for me for three years.
Wow.
At $100 a month. It's a deal.
That is a steal.
Yeah. And so three years into it, she says, Duff, come here and check this out. And this girl now is probably where I was. She's 26. You know, she'd done the school and then the other school.
Yeah.
And She showed me her bank account. She had already, as a 26 year old, had $150,000 in her bank account.
All from doing her brother's lab work, or was she doing other?
She had a couple other accounts she had picked up and whatnot. But yeah, I mean, she didn't have any bills.
Just 100 bucks a month in material.
Yeah, she...
Did you think to yourself, wow, I need a...
I looked right at her and I said, I should have paid, charge you more rent, girl. And so her and her husband ended up building a lab. in their back of their yard and stuff. He's a contractor. And so it's it was a it was a really nice lab. And then they just put a garage on the back of it for like his boats and stuff like that. But it was a built for a lab and did a really good job. Super people.
So she offered you to move in there, right?
But to this day, 20 years in, her and I still bounce back and forth and whatnot. She visits the office all the time. She has three kids now, still maintaining her laboratory by herself.
That's amazing.
So during all that time, I was the president of the South Carolina Dental Lab Association twice. So I developed a lot of relationships with South Carolina dental lab owners. And good, good friends of mine all over. You know, we don't compete against each other. We help all of each other out. And that's what I've always tried to do for South Carolina to the point of, we'll move forward into this a little bit. And so I was in that office. We sold that building.
To Allstate.
No, we just sold it. And I bought another house. And it had a five-car garage.
Five-car garage.
Yeah, and I don't need five.
No, that's a lot of space.
So Mary Catherine, the girl I helped get in business, her husband came in and built my laboratory in three of the bays. Closed them in, had a fully functional lab in this house. We learned A lot. The bad part about having a lab in your house is you never go home.
You never have that disconnect.
Yeah, right. You know, and it became that like when we went home, the door we went in was the lab and walked through the lab and went into the house. What happens when you walk through the lab?
You see what you need to do.
I should have done that. You know, and it was rough. And so in all of that time at this lab, we decided with the South Carolina Dental Lab Association, you know, all these associations are suffering.
Yeah, oh yeah.
And so we came up with an idea and we presented it to the board. And the idea was, is that Brad Duncan, I don't know if you know Brad and Duncan, he's with Absolute Charleston.
Okay.
And so Brad had his own lab before Absolute and whatnot. And so we went in, Brad, his brother, and myself, and start a milling center.
Interesting.
Self-funded milling center. So they did a pretty good amount of units at a time.
What was this? Like about what years?
I'm gonna say it was 2010 to 12, somewhere in there.
So milling centers were so huge. I mean, not everybody had a mill and everything.
So here was the problem. Here is back then when the boom was there, you would talk as a small lab to a milling center. And you would say, is this the best price I can get? And they would say, if you send us this amount of work, we can do better. Well, if I don't do that amount of work, I can't ever get better. I looked at one of them, major player in the market, and I said, I can give you 100% of my work, But I can't hit that number. They said, I don't care. I wasn't going to get a break. So here I am as the president of the association, and I'm looking at all these small labs, and none of them are getting a break.
I see where this is going.
And so I said, you know what, Brad, let's do a milling center for the state of South Carolina.
Did the association own the milling center?
No, Brad and I owned it.
Okay.
Yeah. And so what we did was for every crown that a member of the association sent to us. We donated a dollar back to the association.
Wow.
We funded that association for many years.
Yeah.
Like our association is, we're not active, but it's still there.
I was gonna say, is it still exists?
Yeah. We had a great director, Tom Hughes. I don't know if you know Tom back in the day. He's passed away and Jim Morton took over and Jim has the reins, but he's not in great health now. And so it just, It just, the role, the change of the guard from these older technicians to the newer ones and whatnot. And so David Burrows, good friend of mine at Janulus in Spartanburg, and he's actually still labeled as the president now. So we're teetering on maybe collaborating and doing something. But like our association has 30 plus $1000 in the bank. And we don't have a meeting. We don't do anything. It's just sitting there. But it came to the point where how it is in your life where everybody was busy. These guys are all about my age now. We were in the prime. We were hitting it hard. Business was what we were doing. And yeah, it was very good business. But it consumed our life. And to function those meetings and not have an actual director to do it for us was tough. And we didn't want to per se pay. there's a lot of great people out there like Wanda and Scott and whatnot. They're super people. But we didn't think we could afford to just pay someone and do the stuff. So we just decided to kind of let it go dormant for a little while. And actually we've talked in this past year of possibly doing some little things. This thing with NOAC's great, you know, the ladies in the mill and all that stuff. I mean, so that's kind of what you're looking for now in the industry is the day of the ECDL meeting, they're hard to do. Very hard, but if you can collaborate, if you get different thing.
Brand it a little different, not make it a mini lab day, right?
You got something, yeah, so that's where we are with that, is that we opened that milling center, so my wife Kim ran it. And we were milling a lot of crowns and we were supporting that.
And it was all for just people in South Carolina.
Yeah. And so we funded all that. And so my wife Kim was running it with Lori, Brad's wife. So we had two different locations, the one in Charleston and the one.
Interesting.
And we actually milled two different types of zirconia. So one milled 1 zirconia and one milled another zirconia.
Why?
Just because Brad's lab kind of used that and they were they had a good end with that and we had a good end with Bars, and I'll reference back on some of this too, because with Adite, there's a reason why I'm with Adite, and the reason is loyalty, and it's not Adite, it's more Tom Hughes. So, when I was in the one building, I had a Sirona Compact System. I had a million hours on it.
A million hours.
The technician looked at it and he said, I've never seen a machine with more hours on it.
I'm just trying to, like, how many hours are in a year? Right. Like, non-stop.
I burned that thing up on Emacs when Emacs came out. I mean, and the machine kept going.
I was gonna say, was it down at all?
So this is how I met Tom Husey. Yeah. So a good friend of mine, Dan Haver, he was my Emacs guy, you know, he was with Ivoclar back then, and he... He said, Duff, you're not milling anymore Emacs. And I said, yeah, my bindle went out. My milling chamber went out. He was like, I said, I'm having to outsource it. And this is where the outsourcing stuff came around too. Because I never had to outsource. And I said, I called and they need $7,000 for a new chamber. So I said, I'm going to have to save up for a little bit and then I can get a new chamber. I'll be back in business. And so I saved up. I didn't realize that the MCXL was coming out.
Oh.
So what happened was, is I called, I saved my 7,000.
Yeah, I'm ready for my new spindle or whatever.
Yeah, I called and they said, well, it's 14,000 now because they're trying to get them off the market. So they jacked the price up. Yeah. And I'm like, I can't get it. So then I talked with Dan. I said, well, I was going to get it, but they raised the price. Yeah. And I said, it's nothing to do with you, Dan, but I'm not going to get, I can't. Yeah, if you can't.
Mill it, no use buying product.
So Dan said, well, let me see, you know, what I can do. Lo and behold, at the Hinman, Dan's at the bar and Tom's hanging out at the bar. Now, I mean, Tom doesn't drink or anything, but I mean, he's just socializing and all that stuff.
We all hang out, yeah.
And Dan tells him my story. You know, Tom was the national manager. I'd never met Tom. I was the second in lab in South Carolina.
Really.
Yeah. Yeah, another dude in Orangeburg, he had gotten the first one and we ended up milling all his zirconia because he was a member of the association.
Nice.
But I had the second one. Like when I installed my in-lab, the guy that installed it didn't know what a dongle was. So it didn't run. It didn't run. And I'm like, well, I don't want it if it doesn't run. And then he had to call in, get to call in and figure out what a dongle was. And I'm like, this is great. We're really jumping into this digital stuff, you know. So Dan's talking to Tom and tells him, to give you a description of the lab I had, I had no windows and a steel door.
You had no windows and a steel door.
No, I took the worst part of this building and rented out the best part.
Nice, yeah.
And so I'm in this dungeon and the door knocks. And I'm like, nobody comes to see me. And I look out the peephole. And there's a tall, skinny guy sitting there, you know, and well dressed. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't remember if it was a Mercedes BMW or what, but, you know, Tom likes his cars. So I opened the door and I'm like, this guy's in the wrong place. And he introduced himself to me and said, he said, told me the story with Dan and him talking. And he's like, I'm headed to Charleston for the night. I said within the next two hours, there'll be a guy that comes by here named Bob Hadley. And if he doesn't take care of you, you call this number because he's meeting me tonight for his yearly, his first year of review for Sirona.
Oh, he just got hired.
Just got hired. So this is how back I've gone, but, and I was in InLab before they were.
Yeah, sure.
So I'd never met these guys, you know, and so.
Do you know Norbert at this time? No. Wow.
You know, they started all that stuff with Frankie and all that great guys, JB, all that. And I'd already been in this before them. But they really built this thing, you know, and they did a good job. And so, but.
So Bob shows up.
Yeah, like an hour and a half later, another knock on the steel dungeon door and I open it and Bob's sitting there. And I'm like, all right. And we hit it off right away. no one cannot like Bob, And so he's in there looking at my compact unit. I've never met these people. And Bob bear hugs it, unplugs it, bear hugs it, and puts it in the back of the Subaru and drives.
Those kids were not.
I know. Yeah, OK. They drove off with my machine. You know, here I am, a young guy.
Hey, you got nothing.
I got nothing. He said he just took it. He said Tom told me not to let you down so I'm taking it with me and I will drive it to corporate when we when I get back because you know it was in Charlotte.
Yeah.
And that's where he lives and so he drove it to the headquarters and said fix it for $7,000.
Wow. Yeah.
That is why I'm with Adite.
When did you get it back?
It took about a month and a half.
Really.
Yeah, But the bottom line is that when someone develops a relationship with you that you can trust.
Oh, 100%. You do business with business. I've been telling people for years, the product is not the important thing. The product, the equipment, anything. It's who's going to be there when it doesn't work and who's there to support you at the same time. 100%. So when they went over to Aidite, No question, just made the switch or.
So there's more in this story with, and some of it's kind of, it's very interesting. You might have a better word for it, but as I tell it. So of course, back then, you remember Dentsply had the Chinese lab.
Oh, yeah. Remember that.
Remember that.
We all remember that announcement.
Yeah.
Half the industry just burr.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, a Chinese company. So I didn't do dense supply products anymore.
A lot of people stopped.
You know, it was very common. People just stopped.
Yeah.
And so I was on that train, right? Here I am, small business owner, beating my head against a wall, trying to make a dollar.
Yeah.
And I did that for a long time. And then I realized the fact that I'm looking over here at this guy and this guy's succeeding. This guy is living large. He's, you know, this lab's doing this and doing that. And I can't do it because I can't financially do that. You know, I can't.
You're trying to stay to true products that are ethical.
Yeah. And I'm buying German, you know, all this stuff, you know, I get it. I get it. You know, I want American made just as much as everybody else.
Everybody, yeah.
Then it came to the point that in America and whatnot, there's always this other guy over here and he's gonna do it this way. And his family's got food on the table. Yeah. And so Tom and Bob, them were both with Densply Sirona. And Tom came to me and he said, Listen, I don't want you to buy this because it's Densply or this or that. I got a team I'm trying to, you know, and he's like, can you mill our zirconia in your milling center?
Who's zirconia?
Dentspy.
Interesting. What did they call it? Zircon.
Yeah, I think it was. Yeah, Zircon. Yeah, HT and all this stuff. But, you know, I'm like, you're really making me go against my principles.
You know, what were you doing before?
Katana.
Oh, yeah, okay, yeah.
And so I And I said, if it was anybody else, I wouldn't do it. But the relationship means the difference. I know that when I place an order, I got an order. Those guys don't let me down. And so I didn't do it for Dense Placerona. I did it for Tom and Bob and the team that they had, you know. And so we milled Zirconia, you know, with Dense Ply for a while. And then when Tom left, We stopped. Went went back to Katana.
Really? Yeah. Did the Dent Supply even follow up? Like, why are you switching? Why did we lose you? Or do you never even hear from them?
So people call, you know, and, but nobody tried a relationship with you. They try to come and make deals or whatever, but it's just, it's like, I get it. You know, that's a whole beast on its own. You know what I'm saying? I mean, like. No, I'm not looking for you, dude.
I'm just letting people know that it's a relationship thing. And if you don't have someone else to continue that relationship, you're going to lose it.
Seemed like basically the corporate beings don't understand a relationship. And that's what this industry is. We're small.
Yeah.
As I've done it, I start to, I meet you now. You know, we all, we have our relationship. You know, you build this, but when you're in the corporate.
It's all, they think a few extra dollars will make a decision when most smart lab people, that's not the deciding factor.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, and I've made some good relationships in this industry and there's some really people, and I don't even get to talk to them anymore, but when I see them, they're my friends. Yeah.
100%.
Yeah. And so we went back to Katana And I think Tom took a little while, looking, and then he just showed up one day and he said, I want you to try this zirconia. Tell me what you think. And I don't think, I don't even know if he had taken the job.
Really? He just wanted your feedback.
And I said, I said, well, I don't want A1, A2, A3. I want a C2 and a D2.
Totally.
Don't give me the one that's easy to make. Right. Yeah. And so he did. He called them and had them ship it to me. And I gave him my feedback on it. And I said, I really like it. So there's a lot of business that goes into this also. And I'll explain that to you in just a minute. But, you know, Katana is a great product.
Oh, yeah.
You know, but they had this one that was for single units only with high translucency. And then you had this one over here, you can do 3 unit bridges. And then you had this one over here that looked really bad. You know, a lot of stock, small business.
Yeah, hard.
3D Pro. It has this strength. It's good for veneers to full arches. It has the translucency of the best katana at the time. It was higher than the best. So I had a zirconia that was the best translucency and strong enough to do veneers to full arches.
All in one puck.
All in one puck.
That's huge.
I had $60,000 of katana stock on the wall. So, when I switched over, now I got $15,000 of Adite stock on the wall.
Still able to do the same amount of use.
Money in my pocket too.
Yeah, 100%.
So, as I'm talking about Adite and whatnot, I love the product. It's a great product. It is really, I think 3D Pro is probably the most premier zirconia on the market.
It's really set a name for itself, because as long as we've been doing this podcast, I remember when Adite came out, everyone's like, oh my god, what is this? It's got Chinese writing on it. Oh my god, we can't do this. So now it's like like, it's a player. I mean, people are really like, this is good stuff. I use it all the time. Some big names are using it.
Yeah, yeah. And that to me is one that was, you know, and I said to Tom, I said, you know, once again, I'm back on the principles that I had and now, but at the same time, I can get this premium product for a great price and my family's got food on the table. And I've gone further into it. You see the guys here from corporate ADI, Joe and Melody's here. They're wonderful people. They don't have anything to do with our country and their country. You and I are living in this world and they're living in this world.
That's the way you need to think of it.
And they're really good people. Very, very good people. Yeah, they're good people. And so Tom and I have had great discussions about all of this. I really, really am fortunate to broaden my personal horizons and values and stuff like that and see the world a little differently. I'm no longer like just some country guy that... You still.
Have the look, though.
Thank you. But, you know, and so we started doing that, but now we're making money. Now we're in business. Someone has finally given us the break we need, and it was Tom. from that relationship all the way through and he's not pity partying giving me this break he's giving me a premium product for a great price and we're making money that's.
What it's all about.
Man and next thing you know I've been I don't I don't know how many years I've been in business at this point I think it was definitely over 10 and um probably around 15 I think I've been using eight right now for five five years. I think Tom's been with it five years.
That sounds about right.
Yeah. And now I'm starting to get people call me and tell me, what are you doing different to your crowns? They pop in the mouth. They look amazing.
And you're just telling them.
I just changed products.
Yeah.
You know, started using Biomic, the glaze that they have and everything. Amazing. And I'm getting compliments.
It's the way it should be.
Why didn't I get compliments with Katana and Circon and all that? They're great products, too. I don't want to doubt anybody's product. But for me, I'm getting compliments.
That's the best thing to get, man.
I've never advertised my lab in 22 years. I've never advertised. I've never called. And next thing you know, I'm in a study group, and this guy's talking to this guy, and I got more business than I can do.
Wow.
Is because, not because I'm special, is I'm starting to get great results with these products. And so it was to the point to where we had so much work that, one, it was bad for your family. So then what I try to do best is, I went to a lecture a long time ago, I think it was Whitmix, a guy from Whitmix did this lecture on being lean.
Yeah.
You know, Whitmix is a very lean company, you know? And I said, I need to be lean. You know, I need to be streamlined.
How big is your lab at this point? How many people?
Four people.
Four people.
Yeah.
You could be lean with four.
Four people and we produce 80 to 100,000 a month.
Yikes.
Four people. And I don't work Fridays.
Dude.
That's lean.
Yeah.
That's how you make money. Yeah. and good quality you know and I mean we're not known for high production we're alone for good quality you know and and so that's when it started well the problem was is now we're not lean we're doing a ton of business and my wife Kim who a lot of people have met has a heart attack 40 years old has a heart attack.
Wow didn't see that coming didn't see it coming holy moly and so that's a life changer yeah.
Now we got to get rid of stuff. The doctor's like, you can't work like this. Talking to her.
She was running the milling center still, right? Yeah.
So we dissolved it. I didn't sell it. I just dissolved it.
Wow.
And at this time, the association really wasn't going. going and that, but that kind of put the final lid on it and we just let it rest. And then Brad and Roy got bought by Absolute Durham. So they said at Durham that would be a conflict of interest for them to run the milling center and be part of that. So we just all agreed and it all went in. But we went through that. So she had a heart attack around when COVID hit?
Oh geez.
Yeah. right before COVID.
Wow.
And so we're sitting there and granted, the time off was nice, but we had so much work. We worked all the way through it. We didn't do any pickups and deliveries, but we still had work to do every day. That's how much work we had. And you didn't have any downtime with COVID?
That's insane.
And so at that point, we had a lake house, boats. I mean, living it up.
Yeah, as you should with all that hard work.
And I said, I said, we got to change our life. We need a lifestyle. We need to...
A heart attack at 40 because of lifestyle and just work. It's not right, man.
So we were like, you know what? We'd light some land and... And so we started looking at places. We looked at like a 40 acre horse farm, and then the girl says, I know this property that I think is going to fall through. It's like it has a contract. It only has like 3 days left and I don't think it's going to go through. And they said, let's go look at it because one, I just want to see it. The realtor wanted to see it. And I was like, all right, it's not going to hurt anything to look.
Let's take a look.
So we went there and the lady, the lady was there. Cleaning this place out.
That was selling it? Yeah.
Yeah. So this is where I live now and where my lab is now. So it's an interesting thing. But we met the lady, Miss Becky, and she showed us the house. The house was built in 1844. Wow. Somewhere else. And they moved it in 1960 onto this property. And the property had been in the family's name for a hundred years. Wow. And we're the first family in 100 years to own this place. Wow. Outside of the original.
How big is this property?
So now it's just Kim and myself living there. But my son did live there with us too, but he's off to Clemson now. But the house is 6,500 square foot.
How'd they move that in the 60s?
So the original 1844 house is our upstairs now.
Oh.
So they moved it on to the property in 1960 and then in 2003 it had some foundation issues. So the guy spent $1,000,000 and built a first floor. They sectioned the house.
And then put it on top.
And put it on top. So my downstairs is 2003 house. My upstairs is historic 1844 house.
It's crazy.
Yeah, it's amazing place. It's beautiful. So my particular lot is 8 acres.
Wow.
And then there was a urologist that had 10 acres next to us. This is all Miss Becky's property that she is now. She made $21 million selling everything across the street from us. That was in their family too.
Good for Miss Becky.
Miss Becky and her. And so, but the last part of the puzzle for her was selling the house. Yeah. And so, Another fellow that's now 50% owner with myself owned another. So it was 8 acres, 9 acres, and a 10 acre that they split off the main portion of the house. And so the urologist sold to me and the other guy a couple months ago. And so.
So now you have 18 acres.
No, because the three of us owned 114 acres on that side as a communal property.
Wow. What are you doing with all this?
With a 40-acre pond that nobody lives on but me now. It's beautiful. It's really beautiful. We have two, 300 birds a night flying over our house and roosting this place. It's amazing. And it's what Kim needed for her, for rest, you know? And we sit out there in the evenings and we're able to do that.
Chill.
Yeah. And Miss Becky was so good to us. The problem was, is that people came and looked at that house, doctors, lawyers, all this stuff, and they wanted to gut it. They wanted to modernize it. And Miss Becky wanted to keep it historic.
And you were willing to do that?
I love it the way it is. You know, I'm rustic, you know? So she held off three offers. I told Miss Becky, I said, Miss Becky, I don't have the money to make you an offer. I said, But this is amazing. And I said, I'm going to try to do what I can. I am a pretty devout believer. And in 45 days, I sold $1,000,000 worth of property. Wow. Lake house, boats. I didn't even put them on the market. They sold before I could put them on the market.
You just... let everything you pretty much had go.
Everything. The building my lab used to be in, the lake house, the boats, the jet skis. Like I'm sitting, you know, in our lake house for the last weekend and all we have is 2 jet skis and somebody comes up and buys them. So we just sat on the shore.
Yeah, for your last weekend.
Kim was upset because she loves her jet ski. And I said, sweetie, you don't slow this motion down. And so then I went to Miss Becky and I said, we can make you an offer. In 45 days. Wow. there's things that just happened.
Yeah. When was this? How long ago? COVID-ish.
So this is, yeah, right after COVID. We've been in there now, I think, right around, a little over five years. Around 5 years.
Yeah. So 20, 20, 21. Yeah.
So we're so blessed. Yeah. And so Miss Becky rented us the place for three months so I could build my laboratory and still have my laboratory in the old house. And I built my laboratory in her husband's 5,000 square foot woodworking shop.
Oh.
So I took half of it.
So it was perfect.
Took half of it and built a laboratory.
What's the other half? Woodworking tools.
My tools. My stuff, you know, UTVs, you know, things like that. And, you know, storage. Yeah. But it's just, it's been...
And are you working by yourself again now?
So we got four people now.
Still.
Well, including myself and Kim, we're four people.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah, so we have...
So Kim's still working.
Yeah, yeah, she...
Not a milling center though.
No, no, no, we don't do near the volume we used to. So I changed my business model as I kind of see the times, you know, and it's still evolving. But what I realized was, is I can do one implant crown.
For every five regular grounds.
There you go. Why not go and support these oral surgeon study groups and help these people out? And so will I do, and we have bread and butter work. You don't want to get rid of that because next thing you know, and so what I did was is we kind of changed that business model to looking for implants. And we have great, great doctors, you know, just building relationships with doctors means just as much as building a relationship with Tom and Bob and all these guys. You don't want to have a doctor that keeps you at arm's length.
Or shops around. Right. I mean, it's just not worth it.
It's hard to be picky, but sometimes you might have that doctor, but you got to realize that doctor's not staying.
Yeah.
And build your relationship with the ones that are willing to build a relationship and then don't take them for granted.
That's awesome.
Yeah. You know, and And so we do that now. And then Tom came to us and he said, Duff, I really value your opinion. And he said, granted, with Adite being from China, they're a global company. They have, they distribute all over the world.
Yeah, it's huge.
But the United States runs on 110. The United States needs things done a certain way. And he says, I want everything to come to your lab. and you look at it before we put it on this market.
Equipment too.
Everything.
Wow.
And so that's what we do. And so I do talk for Adite. I do, what I talk about is not some salesman. We're trying it out.
We've used it.
We're trying it out.
So every, I mean, I know they have a lot of equipment. A lot of people think Adite, zirconia, boom, but.
They have like scanners. We just, they just shipped us their new wireless. Yeah. And they've had scanners, they've rebranded scanners and things like that. But now they're really just, they're really an amazing company.
Are you giving them to a doctor that you have a relationship with and actually use it?
Yeah. So like in the next couple of weeks, Erica's going to fly to our lab and we're going to do a video with me with the scanner. But I'm like, you know, scanners also need to go into doctors. So we have plenty of doctors that will try them and then do us feedback and stuff. We're great clients. And so that's kind of what we do. It's like when I'm talking about Adite and stuff like that, we're doing it. Like when they put a, they have a desktop, wet mill, doctor's unit, they sell doctor's units too, you know. Kim ran 150 eMaxs a month through that machine for a year and a half. No problems.
That's amazing for a chair side. That's usually what going to end up doing what.
Never that volume. Never that volume.
Yeah.
But that tells you, like in my original lectures were on some of the equipment and things like that. And when I started looking into these other mills and checking the servos and the motors, and they're tiny little things. And the 88 mill comes to me like the one we have is 900 pounds.
This mill is 900 pounds.
Yeah, 12 puck changer. But then when you go look at the motor on it, and then you... pull the other mills apart that are German they're little tiny motors and these things are big and hefty they're they are made for commercial use yeah and they're selling them for way less than what these German ones are coming from you know and that was the issue I was having with a lot of is I'm paying 70 $80,000 for a mill and I can go buy this one right here for 35 get.
More output.
And feed my family.
And have this better support?
Right. Yeah, that is another thing that some companies have great support.
Yeah.
Tom came in on the ground floor. Like, what we have so far established is just Tom creating this. You know, and so we do have a great guy, Bob Fort. He does all our installs and repairs. You know, we used to have to sub this out and things like that. But we're trying to create the whole foundation to go.
Sure.
Adite still has a small foundation.
Yeah.
But with Tom's devotion and whatnot, they have boomed faster and then grow.
Yeah, I mean, we talked to them. We had him and Bob and Eric on. And I mean, the way they talk about, they barely talked about their product. I had to be like, Tom, what do you sell? Because he's just talking about the people the whole time. And it just, it means a lot. It really does.
Yeah. And as with labs, it's hard for Tom to find the right pieces for the foundation. And he has to keep a lot, Tom has to keep a lot of things in mind. this isn't a small company no it's a big company yeah and they he has to make sure the numbers work and he people mean a lot to him you know Erica means a lot to him Bob you know the relationship he's had with Bob forever and myself and but I can't just walk away from my laboratory and do all the support no no and and so but Like I said, Tom always has been so good to me and he values my opinions on stuff. And I make sure that I'm not a yes man to Tom.
Do you talk to a lot of labs?
I talk to tons of labs.
Do they? if a lab is using Adite's Duff, they're like, Well, I'll get you in touch with Duff.
Yeah, so that's my job. Okay, so you don't just speak for them, you actually I support, especially on the inter-oral scanners. I'm probably the support for it.
Really.
Yeah, I firmly believe... you see this everybody sees it you get a salesperson and they pull this thing out they don't know how to use it dude don't.
Even get me started right?
Yeah and so I'm a believer that and and I I stress this to Tom and we we are working on it because a lot of times a salesperson doesn't think they need to know this yeah I think they do.
No you got to know more than the white sheet that right the manufacturer produced with it correct yes.
And the little PowerPoint you might have got yeah and so That is what I do, is basically I take this equipment, I learn it, and I do, I guess, falling back on me a lot on some support. And I'll give support, but I got a business to run too.
Yeah.
And Tom knows it. And Tom thanks me all the time for the support that I can give. But we have like Michael Cyrus now, he's the technical director.
Oh wow.
And so he is the guy now that should be, you know, like, put it this way. If you were a laboratory and you bought their Azer.
Which is what?
Zirconia.
Okay.
You know, that's their, so 3D Pro's the best. Azer, I always kind of refer to it as the equivalent of Katana.
Yeah.
But it has the thousand megapascals plus of strength. So you still only have to buy one zirconia and have all this stuff.
Makes so much sense.
But 3D Pro's 57% translucent, Azer's 53%. So it's a four degree difference. It's a great product. So if you were to switch, Tom sends Michael Suras to your office to calibrate your oven to get the optimal colors from that zirconia.
Standard.
He wants that to be successful.
That hat, I mean, that's huge.
Who does that?
Nobody.
Nobody does it.
Nobody does that.
Nobody does. Michael serious runs around a lot.
I bet.
You know, and so, and we're not talking little.
Does he still got his lab in Vienna?
No, so he just, they just sold it.
Oh, did they?
Yeah. And so Butch allows him to run more.
Yeah, I know.
You know, and.
He ran that lab for a long time, did a ton of training out of that. Yeah.
He came to my office and learned the equipment and all that stuff. Yeah. So he's busy. He's a busy fellow.
Interesting, yeah.
But that's what Tom's trying to build, is support. And it's gonna take a little while.
Yeah, sure.
You know, and so, but you gotta get people you trust. So Tom trusts that Michael Seris is gonna get the job done and this and that, you know? He will. He will. And so, and he's done a great job. But I'm so impressed with the fact that you're gonna buy Zirconia and we're going to send a guy to make sure you get it right. Because the worst thing you can get is someone to do it and then they have some other brand oven.
Yep. And it didn't come out right. Well, this is what I've said this for years. Zirconia people, when they want you to try their zirconia, they'll give you a puck and everybody sticks it in a drawer because I'm not going to recalibrate everything to try your puck. I'm not going to go through all that work. And everybody's got drawers of sample pucks. But to have a company come out, calibrate it, make sure it writes, show up that next day to look at it, say, no, we got to do this or it's perfect. That's huge.
Yeah, it does. It means a lot. And so that's just one area, you know, that's just the zirconia. But you got to think of all these different areas that we're trying to get this same type service. And it takes a little while. We hadn't got it all done. But this takes money, this takes time, you know, and so Tom's, He's like a puppet master up here trying to get all this stuff in place. And he's got a lot on his plate. And I've never seen anybody handle it as well as he does. And so- He's a good dude. And I try my best to help. And I make a very small dent, but I try my best to make sure I have the same passion as Tom does for this company and the product. And Tom's made a big difference in my life of my views. Like I said, Melody and Joe, you think, I don't have to go into, the thought process, but they're good people.
Yeah.
They're smart. I can't speak Mandarin, but they can speak Mandarin and English.
Yeah.
No, totally.
You got to respect that.
Right. And so, that's kind of where we've come. And so this year we're concentrating on a lot of full arch stuff. You know, we love true abutment and now big thing is intraoral grammetry.
Oh, yeah.
And so we got the true abutment kit. We have Adite's kit. You know, they have an intraoral. So Adite purchased 2 implant companies.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, they're Korean and and whatnot, but they have a major investment in them and whatnot. And so that's just different things. This is a broadening horizon. when you're in a big company like that, you got to, they're always getting bigger. Yeah, and so I'm testing all that it. They have the Exocad libraries for it and everything, and I mean, Exocad's amazing.
Is that what you use?
Yeah, we just got a little beta of the 3.3, which allows you to split the bar, so there's no more going to.
Yeah, everyone was just talking about that. Everyone's excited.
Yeah, man, I'm doing it. Yeah, and I mean... some places aren't putting it out yet, but where I get mine from is. And so I'm, I hear it's easy and nice. Amazing. There's no going into some other software and coming back. It just does it.
That's awesome.
It makes us even leaner.
There it is.
So our workflow is cases come in, doesn't matter what iOS. They come in. So we have an employee that pulls all those cases and she puts them in the right folders and whatnot. And then they go to our design center at ADI headquarters.
So you use their design.
Yeah, I train them.
Oh ****.
You know.
That's nice.
That's a lot of late nights, I can tell you, because they're 12 hours different. So here I am at 1 A.m. training designers. and whatnot, but the great people, great people. And I'm all up for AI, but AI's still got a lot to go. It does. And I do a lot of lectures on Design Center too, because I trained this one and they're great people. That's amazing.
Do you ever get to go over there?
I get asked constantly. My son looked at me when I was first talked about it and he said, Dad, I don't want you to go over right now. And now he's in college and he's out my house and whatnot. And there's a different story. as being a dad, you know, I raised him and whatnot. That was my number one priority.
Man, if your kid says don't go, it's hard to, yeah.
And so, but, and I will say, his friends came over, I don't know how long ago, but he was still at the end of high school and they were looking around my house and they're like, Where's your dad, D? And my son's name's Bennett and Bennett jokingly said, I was a Chinese spy. And I'm like, Bennett, you can't do that. That is not right. But they pick on me all the time and stuff like that. But we get the cases in. At 5 o'clock, we put them in to the design team at A. Night Headquarters. Yeah. I come in the next morning and I have them all done. Now, you can beat your head against the wall and design cases all day long. But I will say anybody that sends to a design service, and I think labs should, I don't care how big or small you are, I think you should develop a relationship with a design service, doesn't have to be ours. And don't let that design service be your thumbprint. You heard Sasha yesterday show the thumbprint. Every laboratory has its own thumbprint. Put yours on it. So you're not using a design center to say design goes straight to mill. You're using a design center.
Get the bulk of it done.
To get the bulk.
So you go through every design.
Everyone. I check the margins. I check the occlusion. I check the contact. Then it goes to the middle.
The nice thing is Exocad lets you do that easily.
Easily.
The other one.
The other one.
You got to go through every step.
Every step. It takes a little time.
Yeah.
But 89 will design in both systems. Sure. If you, know, you can select which one you want to design with. Yeah. So in each one. Design-wise has its better qualities and lower qualities. There's a reason to have both. But yeah, I check everyone. So I did a whole lecture on it, and it has numbers so people can see ROI on this. But you can check in Exocad 10 to 12 cases in an hour. But if you're going to design, me personally, in Exocad, build a model and design, I can do... Three to six an hour.
And what's the design service cost, can you even say?
You know, because I developed it, I get a different price. I would hope. But I think it's like five bucks for a crown, you know, something like that. And it's like a dollar for a model or something like that. But somewhere in that ballpark, they got all the prices out there and stuff. But you know, that's why I say I don't care where you get your designs done, I think you should get designs done.
I think most labs do now. The problem is, I think most go straight into a mill.
Can't do it.
I agree.
Yeah, can't do it. And you shouldn't do it. It's not fair to the patient.
Because you're going to look just like every other lab that uses that design service. What's the point?
Yeah. And I've seen margins from ours and I've seen margins from other design services. They don't have. You got to put your thumbprint on it. And so that's in my lecture. I definitely stress that. We deal with large, large laboratories. I mean, I'm talking about like 10,000 designs a month and they go straight to mill.
Yeah.
You can't do it.
That's insane to me.
You can't do it. And they expect it that way for, you know, a dollar for a design. You pay for what you get and sometimes you still don't get what you want.
And then, if it doesn't fit, what does your troubleshooting look like? Right, I have no idea how we did it, so I would assume we're gonna do it again, and it's a mess.
So, the design service, I will say, probably was the most important thing for us not working Fridays, because I was spending a lot of time designing, and... And so now I check those designs from 8 o'clock to 1030.
Let me ask you this. If you get a script in and it's just simple, hey, 14A2, that goes to design. But if you get a case and it's some anterior crowns with a paragraph and a half of instructions, do you keep those in or do you still send them out and then do all that?
Right, I put them in. They go to the design team. To do the book, they can enter the case, they can create me beautiful designs.
Do you give them that paragraph and a half of instructions?
No, I read it, and then I make the alterations as I do it, but.
You know when you get it back, you're gonna have to dive in more than just 5 minutes of checking, right? You know you gotta give it that 20 more minutes.
Yeah, but you know it's the one thing I always say, like with the hybrids. A doctor shouldn't expect to get this hybrid and scan all this intergrammetry stuff in five minutes. It's a $20,000 case.
Yeah.
Take some time. If it's a large case with a big paragraph, okay, you're not going to treat it like a single unit. You're going to actually eat up a little time.
That's what I think labs are doing though.
Still faster.
Yeah.
You know, and so the value's there. And so, but yeah, that's what I do in the mornings, I check. And then it's in the mill within 24 hours of getting to our lab.
Wow.
And so I have taken a young man under my wing, he's 26, and you know, all of us will look for the exit strategy.
Yeah.
You know, it's hard, it's tough to, when you're a little guy, nobody's gonna come buy it.
Especially if it's in your house.
Yeah, nobody's gonna buy it, you know? I don't have anything to sell.
Yeah.
But I had a young man come work for us and do some stuff, you know, outside of dentistry. And man, he had great work ethic.
He was like work the yard and the farm.
Yeah, help me clean up. This is a large place I'm on and I got a lot of cleaning. And so I had some high schoolers that came and helped during the summer. Yeah. And this kid, good kid, good family. I mean, awesome.
Yeah.
And so I I talked to him. I said, his dad is a blacksmith. Do you know a blacksmith? There's a farrier that shoes horses and stuff.
Okay, sure, yeah.
And so I said, Walt, sure is hot in South Carolina in the summertime.
With a hoof in your crotch.
Right, you know. I said, you know, and you're going to get hurt. So my stepdad was a blacksmith also.
Oh, really? Wow.
So I know what happens. I said, I got air conditioner. He had no dental background, but he has work ethic.
That's huge.
Yeah. And so he thought about it. He went and talked to his daddy. And his daddy said, you know what? He's right. You're going to get hurt. You're going to get broke down by the time you're 50. And it's a hard job. And he said, if that guy's willing to teach you and you can do it, I would try it. So he's been with us now a little over a year, year and a half, and he's doing really well. So Kim showed him how to run the mills. So when I'm done designing, I hand them over to Walt. Walt mills them. We're currently teaching them some contouring and things like that. And so I'm teaching him. But then I talk to him and I say, listen, my son doesn't want to do it. My son doesn't want to come into the dental field. And he's really good at it, but it's not what he wants to do. And I said, I don't have anybody. I can't sell it. You know, I mean, it's on my property.
Yeah, it's equipment at that point. Penny's on the dollar. Yeah.
Yeah. And so I'm like, why don't you learn how to do this? And like, once you have achieved a certain level, maybe five years from now, we'll start you a percentage buy-in. Wow. Which as his career goes and mine finishes, by the end, he'll have a small amount to finish buying and he can have a very successful life.
Yeah.
The kid has no, he's just like me, no college education. You know, I have the one year, and I feel like it's a really way I can help a guy out that is just the nicest guy, good work ethic, and he'll be successful.
Have you shown him the world of our industry yet?
Yeah, so he's come to a couple of meetings with us and stuff like that.
Has he gone to Chicago?
He has not, no.
You're gonna take him to Chicago?
Not this year, but possibly next year and whatnot. I want him to not go and be overwhelmed. I want him to go and I want to put him in a class where some some stand-up people, Don with GC, they have amazing technology. I want them to see more contouring. And he's watching me do dentures and things like that. So he's learning A lot. And I don't want him to go into a situation where he doesn't understand what the guy's talking about.
Yeah.
And so that's awesome. He'll get there soon enough. And hopefully I've done a good job training him when he gets there and he'll understand what he's doing.
I think you're going to do a great job, man.
I hope so. I hope so.
I got no doubts.
But that's where we are now.
Duff. It's amazing, man. I had no idea.
Yeah, I love this industry.
It's a great industry. We all do.
Great people.
We all do.
And so I like that, you know, Sean did this event in this.
Yeah, LapFest.
It's different. Different atmosphere. Yeah.
Last night on the boat was fun. I mean. It's a good time.
Yeah, it's good stuff. I appreciate you having me on.
No, absolutely. Duff, I'm just surprised it's taken us this long to get you on the podcast. I mean, I'm A recluse. I did it.
I stand in the corners, man.
I mean, your five-car garage lab on your thousands of acres. I mean, it's nice for you to come out to civilization.
Yeah, that might be one reason why you don't see me is because... My life revolves around just staying right there.
Hey, there's nothing wrong with it.
It's a beautiful place and I'm fortunate.
Yeah, awesome stuff. Thank you so much, man.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks.
A huge thanks to Duff for sitting down with Elvis at the Aidite booth at the Labfest 2025. Isn't it the NOLA Labfest?
Yeah, I mean, NOLA's where it's at, I guess. Maybe they're going to move it around. I don't know. I doubt it, but Labfest it is.
All right. I am genuinely actually really sad that I was unable to attend this amazing event that everyone talked so highly about, especially on social media. So your journey in this industry was really amazing from the people that supported you. like Billy Drake, shout out to him, he's great, and his team, to having to overcome challenges that would set a lot of people back. I'm so glad I listened to this episode, by the way, Valdis. I totally agree that you should always look at the people and the support that they can provide you when choosing companies to work with to help your lab be successful. Go to any show, meet the people behind the vendor tables, and let that help you decide if they can earn your business.
All right, everybody, that's all we got for you. Just a couple more episodes to end 2025.
Yeah, and today's the 15th, so get it together. You got 10 days till Christmas. So make some fudge, make some cookies, be grateful, give people kisses, and bite them, and listen to us. There you go. Yeah. Have a good one. Bye. I love you, man. Good job, Elvis.
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.