DR. NEIL PARK: It feels like yesterday that we were celebrating Glidewell’s 50th anniversary, and here we are, celebrating its 55th. How does it strike you, just hearing that number?

JIM GLIDEWELL: After a while, the years start piling up, and the numbers cease to have much meaning. I tend to focus less on the past and more on what needs to happen next. I just hope we have better luck at 55 than we did at 50. Because 50, as you may remember, led us smack dab into COVID.

STEPHENIE GODDARD: Who could forget? We had gone to great lengths to make sure to recognize 50 years in a manner befitting the milestone. We had plans to celebrate — both internally, and with our amazing customers — throughout the year. Two months later, we found ourselves, along with the rest of the industry, nation, and world, in a state of historic uncertainty.

NP: (to Jim) You actually ended up in the ICU, at one point.

JG: I did. They put me on a ventilator and gave me a nine percent chance of survival. Those kinds of circumstances definitely give you pause — time to look back on your life’s choices.

SG: (to Jim) Any regrets?

JG: No regrets, except to realize that I might not, in fact, live forever. That I couldn’t say goodbye to my family. That they, my employees, my customers, would have to carry on without me. At that time, it was hard not to focus on what more I could or should have done.

NP: You were kind enough to share that very personal story with us in a prior edition of Chairside^® magazine (“Jim Glidewell’s Personal Battle with COVID-19;” Volume 15: COVID-19 Special Edition). You also talked about being reassured by everyone’s response.

JG: Well, yes. We tend to think that any positive impact we have can only survive while we do. But that experience seemed to suggest that at least some of my goals and philosophies may live on in others.

NP: How much of that experience shaped your decision to appoint Stephenie as Glidewell’s next CEO?

JG: COVID really spurred us to take a closer look at succession planning. I’m fond of saying that my only exit strategy from Glidewell is a pine box. So perhaps I hadn’t truly given it due consideration. My first order of business was to get well and help lead our company and industry back from the mandated shutdowns. Once I did that, I accepted that I might be trying to do too much of it on my own. When I looked around, Stephenie was an easy choice as someone who could help me to continue serving the needs of our customers and employees.

NP: (to Stephenie) A tremendous responsibility, I imagine.

SG: And then some! But I really was humbled by his trust, and I was thrilled by the opportunity. The influence that Glidewell has within the dental industry is unique. The chance to continue positively impacting the future of dentistry was, and still is, highly motivating. At Glidewell, we like to say that “every smile deserves a second chance.” And we strive hard to meet the demands of that mantra every single day.

NP: And the foremost way of achieving that goal — increasing patient access to quality dentistry — is by way of innovation and education.

SG: Absolutely. We’re constantly looking to improve the quality, speed, and affordability of our solutions. To us, there’s no trade-off. Meaning, we don’t accept improvement in one facet if it diminishes or degrades another. It’s Jim’s relentless drive for continuous improvement that I find most inspiring. With him, there’s no such thing as “good enough.”

JG: My earnest belief is that we have to do what’s best for patients and their providers — not some public company’s shareholders. That means providing doctors with the tools to perform procedures more simply and with more predictable outcomes. If we want to continue pushing dentistry in that direction, we have to be our own disruptors. We can’t wait around for someone else to do it.

SG: A great example of this is our glidewell.io^™ In-Office Solution. People thought we were crazy, producing a machine that competes with our core, lab-based services. But single-appointment services, conducted entirely in the clinic, are in many ways better for patient and provider. If it serves to enhance clinical flexibility and patient acceptance, that’s what we’re going to do.

JG: Fortunately, we only have one shareholder to satisfy. So we don’t have to worry about maximizing short-term profits or meeting some quarterly quota. We can take a longer view and do the right thing.

NP: Which is?

JG: Reinvesting in the company: employees, R&D, software development, mechanical engineering — all of the various needs of our continued operational expansion.

SG: It’s really quite something to see. We receive thousands of visitors every year to our campus here in Irvine, California — chiefly for the events spearheaded by you and your educational team. As you know, the response is almost universally mind-blowing. Some form of “I had no idea” or “I can’t believe it” or “this is nothing like my old dental lab.”

NP: Ha! Thank you for the plug. Yes, our clinical education team works very hard and is quite proud of the quality of our speakers, topics, and range of CE offerings — whether online or in person. We’re extremely grateful to you and Jim for the incredible, world-class facilities you’ve provided us. Our many visitors thank you, too.

NP: We’ve spoken generally about your commitment to education and technology — and the built-in promise to back them up. Can you share any specific innovations you’re particularly excited about today?

SG: I’ve mentioned glidewell.io, which continues to be one of our highest-
growth areas. Because today, it’s all about digital transformation. If you’re a dentist with any preconceived notions about the capabilities or limitations of traditional chairside solutions, I highly encourage you to give glidewell.io a look. We understand that most clinicians aren’t looking to become in-house technicians. Or spend all their time training and retraining staff to serve as such. Our goal, again, is to simplify and streamline. Crown design is as simple as a one-click, AI-generated proposal, sufficient in most instances. Tweak if you must, or consult with us to do so, if you’d like. When you’re satisfied with the design, mill or 3D print it in minutes with in-office equipment — or submit the design file to our lab for delivery in a day or two. No sintering ovens or post processing required. It’s like having a team of Glidewell lab experts right there with you — not to mention that it can serve as a major practice builder.

JG: It’s been a game-changer for so many practices. We get flooded with positive feedback in a way I probably haven’t seen since our introduction of BruxZir^® Zirconia.

NP: Since you mention BruxZir, would you like to share any thoughts on “Fusion?”

JG: Fusion with BruxZir^™ Zirconia is our latest and greatest crown-and-bridge restorative solution. As popular and versatile as monolithic zirconia has become, it remains limited when it comes to precisely mimicking the dual-layered, dentin-enamel relationship found in nature. So, what we’ve done is fused two separate zirconia pieces together — an anatomically shaped inner core, and a translucent, wraparound veneer that lets light pass through the facial, incisal, and interproximal. You still get the strength and dependability of BruxZir Zirconia, but in the most natural re-creation possible.

NP: I’ve seen some of the cases, and they’re really incredible.

NP: We’re glad to hear it. Any other exciting developments you’d like to share?

SG: I’d like to add that we’re extremely proud of our R&D materials team for developing the very first antimicrobial, 3D-printed denture resin. What this essentially means is that our Simply Natural^™ Digital Dentures exhibit a 99.9 percent reduction in the most common bacteria and fungi known to contaminate a denture surface.

JG: I think most would agree that a cleaner denture is a healthier denture.

NP: Absolutely. I suspect elderly patients who have a hard time cleaning their dentures would really appreciate this.

SG: Another innovation we’re really excited about is our ORB Sport^™ Smart Mouthguard, which contains sensors to track the athlete’s physiology and biomechanics during practice and play. It’s like your favorite smart watch or ring, built into the mouthguard itself, to better monitor performance and wellness. We’re working now to adapt the hardware to other oral appliances — nightguards, sleep appliances, and even dentures — to give patients better, faster, real-time data concerning their oral and systemic health. Data that could prove invaluable to providers.

NP: That sounds like another major evolution for dentistry, with exciting implications for other industries.

JG: We’ve all heard that data is the new gold. The currency of the future. Our company benefits from being the busiest lab in the world by accumulating more data than any other. It’s this volume that allows us to build smarter machine learning and artificial intelligence. We employ some truly bright minds in these areas and have applied their knowledge in ground-breaking ways. We’re talking about mass-customization on a scale that is truly unique. It’s much easier to use AI to produce packaged goods — the same widget over and over. In dentistry, we don’t have that luxury. Each case is one-of-a-kind, and yet we’re still able to produce thousands of distinct crowns each day, for example, and get them to clinicians the very next day, if that’s when they need them.

NP: A next-day crown?

JG: Yes. If received via digital impression, we can expedite through our highly automated, intelligent manufacturing center, lovingly known as “BruxZir^® Factory.” We can then ship from either California or Memphis, Tennessee, where we have an end-of-runway facility that used to belong to FedEx, actually.  It allows us to cut out interim shipping stages that others can’t avoid.

NP: And that was by design.

JG: Absolutely. We think of speed as a service. Nothing good comes from leaving a patient in temporaries longer than absolutely necessary.

NP: Another benefit of digital transformation.

SG: Exactly. It’s no exaggeration to call BruxZir Factory a marvel of engineering. To our knowledge, there’s nothing like it in this or any other industry.

NP: Pioneering advances in fixed restorations, dentures, oral appliances … any other categories? What about dental implants?

SG: Ha! We could do an entire interview on implants alone.

JG: Once upon a time, placing and restoring implants was a highly unpredictable endeavor. But that treatment modality has come a long way. We now view it as the standard of care for missing teeth. Far superior to any of the traditional alternatives.

SG: But success requires a holistic approach: planning, surgery, temporization when necessary, and restoration. So our Glidewell Implant Solutions span all of these phases — including numerous continuing education opportunities to help dentists all along the way. We take a restorative-driven approach that begins with the desired outcome in mind, then provide numerous, flexible solutions to ensure you achieve it.

NP: Can you share some examples?

SG: Sure. We can start with digital treatment planning, or DTP.  This service helps to determine precisely where the implant should be placed to safely avoid any critical anatomical structures and ensure an optimal restorative outcome. They can then produce a surgical guide to make the surgery as safe, quick, and easy as possible. For the surgery itself, we offer Glidewell HT^™ Implants for both guided and freehand applications. We recently lowered the price on these implants from $169 all the way down to $99 each, which we’re only able to do because of our vertical integration in all treatment phases.

JG: Implant manufacturers have to make a sizable profit on the implants themselves. They have to charge anywhere from $300 to $500 per implant to cover all of their overhead and satisfy their corporate owners. But all that extra money doesn’t buy you a better implant. It buys a lot of fancy marketing and sales reps and clinical studies for the appearance of better quality, but they’re using the same high-precision lathes and milling machines that all of us implant manufacturers use. Clinical success rates for our Glidewell HT Implant — which we originally developed with the legendary Dr. Jack Hahn as the Hahn^™ Tapered Implant — are 99.2 percent. It can’t get much better than that. The only real question is what you might do with the extra savings. Pass it on to the patient? Reinvest it in your practice? That’s up to the individual clinician.

SG: We also offer 20 percent savings on all restorations over Glidewell HT implants. So a $340 screw-retained crown, for example, costs the dentist roughly $270 instead. The combined savings add up fast.

NP: Especially for high-volume practices.

SG: Total ROI increases the more you use us, certainly. And that’s not even our best example of case savings. We’ve recently introduced the Glidewell Tooth Replacement Solution, which consists of everything you need — surgical guide, implant, custom temporary restorations, and final restorative options — as a single bundle. It even includes the digital scan body for submitting your impression to the lab.

JG: Patients don’t typically care about the implant itself. What they really want is the new, natural-looking tooth that sits on top of it. So we engineer our solutions to provide that in the most efficient, predictable way possible.

NP: Custom temporization is a notable aspect of that. If a doctor can prepare the soft tissue during the healing phase to match the contours of the definitive restoration, that restoration should seat beautifully, without any adjustment or patient discomfort.

SG: Exactly. And we of course have other improvements on the horizon. As Jim said, we don’t wait around for others to disrupt our current business models. We’re looking every day for ways in which we can more effectively meet the needs of our customers and the patients they serve.

NP: Particularly important in times like these, with so much economic uncertainty. It does remind me a little bit of our experience during COVID, never quite knowing what’s going to happen next.

JG: I can tell you. The economy will recover. Or it’ll get worse … and then recover. Economies are cyclical. If you’re trying to time a particular investment or strategy just right, good luck. I’ve found it’s generally better to focus on matters within your control, and on strategies that don’t expire. Expanding your clinical skill set through education, or offering your patients a popular new service such as same-day dentistry, or swapping out your implant system for one that will drastically reduce your costs every time you use it, are all actions that make sense in good times or bad. People who wait around for a no-risk situation tend to miss out, while early adopters tend to maximize their reward. If you’re not offering same-day services, which providers in your neighborhood already are? How many patients will you risk losing to them while you wait?

SG: To that point, we do offer incredible financing deals on equipment. And you don’t have to wait until the end of the year to secure tax benefits throughout 2025. In that regard, the sooner you invest, the better.

JG: More than 70 percent of all case submissions received by Glidewell now come from an intraoral scanner. Sure, if you send us physical impressions, we’ll digitize them via CT scanning technology, sparing you from traditional plaster model errors. But what other benefits are you and your patients missing out on by being one of the last to go directly digital?

NP: Sensible advice.

JG: The wisdom of age, they tell me. Or maybe they’re just trying to make me feel better. I can never be sure.

NP: I’d love to keep you longer and find out!

SG: I feel the same. Which is why we’ve created the interview program “Lasting Impressions” for our all-new streaming network, Glidewell TV.

NP: Yes, let’s tell our readers a little bit about that. They can download Glidewell TV for free on any smart TV or mobile device, correct?

SG: Most, yes. We’ve developed for Roku, Amazon, Apple, and Google devices, as well as Apple and Android mobile devices. If you’re using a different operating system, and can’t find it, let us know.

NP: What content can they expect to find?

SG: Mostly educational content. Viewers of our Glidewell YouTube channel will recognize a lot of it. CE courses, clinical tips, Glidewell Online Study Club sessions, Glidewell Symposium lectures, Guiding Leaders content, and more. We have a number of terrific patient education videos, as well, courtesy of iCoreAcademy, if you choose to subscribe to that. All designed to help dentists hone their clinical skills, enhance their business knowledge, keep abreast of industry innovations, and increase patient acceptance of various dental procedures.

NP: All on demand?

SG: On demand, yes. Like watching Netflix or Amazon Prime. We’re planning on offering live programming, as well. But that, too, will be viewable later at the user’s convenience.

NP: And the “Lasting Impressions” program?

SG: That’s my monthly interview show with Jim. A chance for us to review topics and key insights from his memoir, fill in some of the gaps, and cover events and developments that have transpired since the publication of his book, “Constant Change.” We see it as another way to capture and share his knowledge, hopefully entertaining and inspiring fellow dental professionals along the way.

NP: Sounds like a big undertaking.

JG: We don’t like to do things halfway. Because we can’t succeed in our mission unless dentists succeed in theirs.

NP: Well, we appreciate it. And we appreciate the time you’ve shared with us here.

JG: Thank you, Neil.

SG: Yes, thank you. We want everyone to know how much we appreciate you, too.