First and foremost, I’d like to give a big thanks to everyone who voted for me in the 2011 DrBicuspid Dental Excellence Awards. Being voted “Most Effective Dentist Educator” is a true testament to the talent and dedication of many people who work behind-the-scenes here at the lab.

Every person named on the Chairside^® magazine masthead contributes to the success of this publication. As editor-in-chief, I focus on content that will be of interest to a large number of dentists. And while I am responsible for the content, it is our creative director, Rachel Pacillas, and the members of her editorial and design team who make the magazine come together so beautifully.

My goal with Chairside is to share with you what I see at the laboratory — whether I am looking at preps and impressions or noticing what doctors prescribe. Even if you don’t read every article, my hope is that you will at least look at the pictures and read the captions, so I try to keep those as informative as possible.

This honor also acknowledged the clinical DVDs we’ve been producing at the lab for the past decade. We have come a long way in improving the visual quality of our clinical footage. It took a $30,000 camera lens investment to be able to fill the screen with teeth #8 and #9 when it is desirable to do so. We recently upgraded the rest of our equipment, and now everything we shoot is in full 1920×1080 HD. Soon you will be able to request Blu-ray DVDs as well. Videographer James Kwasniewski acts as my cameraman, and he has to be the best dental editor in the U.S. I strongly believe in our video education because you can’t Photoshop live video — what you see is what you get, versus still images, which can always be edited.

Last but not least, I’d like to thank Jim Glidewell for paying to produce this educational material, and then providing it to the dental community free of charge. It’s one thing to say you want to give back to the profession that has given you so much, and quite another to send 4 million free DVDs and 2 million free magazines to U.S. dentists each year.