Voices from The Bench

Have you struggled getting out there and getting more work from dental offices? Not every lab has the resources from a sales team, but you can learn a lot from a lab that does. Lauren Crowe came to Blue Box Dental Lab with a lot of clinical experience. Always working hard, Lauren worked her way up to manager and eventually became the Director of Sales for Leixir (a group of 5 labs). Lauren talks g...

Join Elvis and Barb at the DLAT Southwest Conference and Expo March 31 - April 2nd. Good times Texas style in Dallas! Dental technicians spend a lot of time making restorations that match the natural beauty of human teeth. But what if you could make a full arch of gold? What if you could make it so it could be removed and put in at any time? This week talk to Jay Goodman (the_cheshires_grin on Ins...

LIVE and IN-PERSON: Elvis Dahl at LMT Lab Day Chicago: Using Your Awkwardness to Market Your Lab Saturday 9:45am - 10:45am Acapulco Room · West Tower, Ballroom (Gold) Level We love us some labs that have a rich family story behind them. Barksdale Dental Lab is the newest lab to share their family's history. Betty and Steve Barksdale opened their lab in 1980. They made sure two things were always d...

LIVE and IN-PERSON: Elvis Dahl at LMT Lab Day Chicago: Using Your Awkwardness to Market Your Lab Saturday 9:45am - 10:45am Acapulco Room · West Tower, Ballroom (Gold) Level Just recently Asiga has set up a North America headquarters and they brought on Cory Lambertson to run it. Cory grew up in a lab and eventually became a technical support manager at Whip Mix , the company that originally brough...

Paolo Lubrano was a fully licensed dentist in Italy when he decided he liked the laboratory side of the industry more. Moving to America, he now co-owns a lab (Bespoke Dental Lab) in a dental office doing some amazing full-arch restorations with some top-notch technology. Paolo talks about working with implants, doing chairside crowns, and somehow finds the time to train and participate in triathl...

You know we love stories of second-generation dental technicians and this week we travel up to Canada to talk to an amazing ceramist that is carrying on the family lab. Dani Farago wanted to be a hairdresser and after some encouragement from her parents set off to George Brown College to learn dental technology. Not yet finding her passion, she continued her education to Japan to get a new perspec...

Who better to talk about then yourself? For episode 200, Elvis and Barb have turned the microphones on themselves. When asked “who should be on episode 200", multiple people said it was the hosts turn to sit in the hot seat. They asked a very special friend and the creator of the “ Fan of Voices From the Bench ” Facebook page, Joe Young from Young Dental Laboratory in Philadelphia to take over hos...

It's no secret that a lot of guests recently have been found because of the amazing dental technician community found on Instagram. If you are on there you definitely know of @thepartyenamel . It's hard not to know of her because she is great at creating content and bringing the dental lab community even closer. But the person behind the account is Beth Brown. Beth comes on the podcast to talk abo...

VOTE for Voices From the Bench as the 2021 Best Dental Podcast We are back this week talking to a dental technician. Hugo Sousa is a very accomplished technician from the UK. Born and educated in Portugal at a university in Lisbon, Hugo then continued his career in England working for different labs and then obtained his Master's degree in dental technology. He is currently going for his PhD while...

Let's start 2022 with a different kind of guest. What is a great way to show your passion for dental technology? Denture Babes shirt? Tooth decal on your car? How about an amazing denture tattoo? Well we have the perfect guest for you. Ed Johnson is a tattooist out of Portland Oregon who specializes in teeth and denture tattoo. Ed is joined by his dentist father, Dr. Dennis Johnson. They talk abou...

So many great dental lab shows to look forward to in 2022: Vision 21: https://nadl.org/events/v21/2022/ Cal-Lab: https://cal-lab.org/ LMT Lab Day Chicago: https://lmtmag.com/lmtlabday DLAT Southwest Conference: https://members.dlat.org/membership/ FDLA Southern States Expo: https://www.fdla.net/symposium Ladies of the Mill: https://www.ladiesofthemill.com/ This week we are talking to two amazing l...

We told you that the Whip Mix Digital Forum was amazing! This is the 4th episode we got from the Preat booth talking to so many amazing people. First up is Patrick Strohkirch from Oqton . Oqton is a interesting software company that allows AI to nest your mills and prints almost instantly. Then we chat with Tom Houle, who has a great path in our industry on the sales side to end up as the West Coa...

Gingival Artistry for Analogue and Digital Dentures with Nina Frketin - February 10th Webinar Check out her episode on the podcast- 171: Pretty Acrylic In Pink with Nina Frketin We love live events where we get to talk to people face-to-face. At the end of October Elvis and Barb talked to so many people from the Preat booth at the Whip Mix Digital forum. This week we talk to two technicians that w...

In every industry, when a company that come into it that disrupts the usual way of doing things, people start to talk. Rumors go around and misinformation grows. This week we welcome the Head of R & D at Dandy , Kenn Butler. Kenn hears all the talk online and at dental shows about Dandy and being a fan of the podcast, Kenn agreed to come on and talk about how and why Dandy came to be, what the...

DARE to say NO to bad impressions the shirt! Order one today! 100% of the profits go towards The Foundation for Dental Laboratory Technology We love it when we can talk to people in our industry face-to-face. Last October we got that chance at the Preat booth while attending the Whip Mix Digital Forum. This annual event was on its 9th year and so far it was its best. This time we had a chance to t...

DARE to say NO to bad impressions the shirt! Order one today! 100% of the profits go towards The Foundation for Dental Laboratory Technology October 2021 Elvis and Barb FINALLY got to record at a LIVE event together for the first times since February 2020. Lucky it was at the Whip Mix Digital Forum , a packed event full of fantastic speakers, vendors, and attendees that were super excited just to...

When we discovered a Instagram account by a "gentleman" named @mrawwesome , we knew that he would be a interesting guest. Justin Gerard is a removable technician that tells it like it is. Entertaining and slightly offensive, Justin comes on the podcast to talk about getting into the industry, characters that help shape him in the profession, opening his own lab ( Colonial Dental Lab ) with a partn...

When has anyone ever said life in a dental lab is easy? It's not. There are many struggles and challenges every day. Todd Blankenbecler and Andy Stark from EasyRX have a solution for a few of the issues. Easy Rx is a software that can run production in the lab, but it also has a clinician aspect that allows the two to communicate efficiently. Oh, did we mention that it can also prep your digital s...

We love to talk to people that are so passionate about dental labs that they take their unique weirdness and turn it into a business that gives other technicians exactly what they want. Jenelle Tabaković and MacKenzie Mayer are both removable technicians with different career paths. But they didn’t like the options of clothing for dental technicians. After a lot of planning and hard work they have...

They say behind every famous person is the true group that makes them famous. John Archibald has been the in-office dental technician to the famous Dr. Gordon Christensen . This gave John a chance to be on the forefront of a lot of new products and procedures. Seeing an opportunity to teach the lab industry, he started the country's only full time apprenticeship school. Raising his son Jed Archiba...

Check out A Very Dental Podcast: Shorts: Everyone Sucks at Their Job (except Elvis) This week we welcome John Wilson from Sunrise Dental Laboratory out in California to the podcast. He has been at this lab game for a while. Early on he saw the importance of putting his lab on the front line of implant restorations. John comes on the podcast to talk about his early days as a punk kid, mistakes he’s...

Conversa à Bancada: a dental laboratory podcast out of Portugal Join Elvis and Barb at the Whip Mix Digital Forum October 29 & 30 in Louisville, Ky When you hear of people consulting in our industry, you would hope that they spent some time in our industry doing what they are "consulting". David Avery has done it all. Classically trained in school, worked in-house for a prosthodontist, owned h...

Every lab is looking for technicians. We all know about the lack of talent in the employee pool. What can we do about it? One man outside of London is attempting to help technicians and labs "hook up". Andy Foster comes on the podcast to talk about running his one person lab while at the same time running his website recruit4technicians.com . This site is dedicated to our industry. If you are a te...

After a year of many dental meetings being canceled, Whip Mix has come back bigger and better with the Digital Forum . This year in Louisville, Ky October 29 & 30, is sure to be the best forum yet. Bernie Jaroslow comes on the podcast to talk about all the amazing speakers they have lined up along with some fun evening events that you will not want to miss. Also joining the episode is a father...

When you think of world-famous Denturist, who comes to mind? Because of the lack of legal states in America, the list is short. But there is one gentleman out of Windsor, Canada who has been promoting the profession for years online. Eric Kukucka, from the Denture Center , comes on the podcast to talk about finding out that he wanted to be a denturist at a young age, getting in to school, partneri...