Editor’s Note: This Leader Board is excerpted from Jim Glidewell’s memoir, “Constant Change: Adventures in Business and Life,” published in 2020 by Harriman House. Glidewell in 1970 founded Newport Beach-based Glidewell Laboratories Inc., the world’s largest privately held provider of dental lab products. The Business Journal’s annual list of dental companies in Orange County begins on page 26; Glidewell ranks No. 1 with 1,500 local employees.
Humble Beginnings
My dad was raised in backwater Kentucky—the kind of place where travel is not an option, where land is passed down through the generations and where families bury their dead in the front yard… I was deeply shaped by those early years growing up with my grandparents, living without electricity, and then later living with my father and stepmother in Las Vegas.
I watched my father’s frugal demeanor. In many ways, these early years determined my work ethic. My father never needed to lecture me about a man’s sweat and tears or about the value of a dollar.
He was very hard working… Although we didn’t have much growing up, we lived just fine. Today, as the founder of a 5,000-employee company, I drive a 14-year-old Hummer H2. When people ask me why I won’t buy a ‘nicer’ car, I tell them I don’t want to drive a car that my average employee can’t afford…
I suspect those days in which my father would pull over on the side of the road to collect a rusty wrench had a little something to do with this philosophy. When people ask me to reveal the secret to building such a successful business, I tell them there is nothing special about me. In the end, the real secret is knowing that there are no extraordinary men, only ordinary men with extraordinary reactions to ordinary circumstances.
Enlisting
The day I turned 18, I signed up for the Army. A day after turning in my application, the Army recruiter called and inquired if I was the same Jim Glidewell who had had 17 moving violations in the last two years. I proudly said, “Yes, yes, that is me.”
Thus, I joined the Navy… It was during those days that I began to read a lot. Only through my reading aboard the ship did I slowly come to the conclusion that I alone was in charge of my future. At age 19, I came into a consciousness that directed my focus in a way that would eventually lead to my success…
That morning, we landed 4,800 Marines. Vietnam would never be the same—neither would I… To be honest, a big part of my reason for not re-enlisting was that I desperately wanted to create something more meaningful than just mindlessly repeating the same tasks every day…
I left the Navy in June 1965. I had been a two-year active-duty reservist. I knew if I did two years in the reserves, I was expected to go to monthly training meetings at the Navy Reserve.
That’s how they set it up. But since I had completed my two years of active duty, I was never required to do any of the meetings. When I got back to Las Vegas, I checked in with my Reserve Center, and he said, “We’ll call you if we need you.” No one ever called.
A New Direction
On May 15, 1966, the day I turned 21, I took the exam to get my license to become an insurance agent, just like my brother-in-law Danny…Days and weeks went by as I continued working in the insurance business.
One day, a miracle of sorts happened. It’s funny how everything can change in a single moment that, at the time, goes unrecognized. I ran into an old buddy of mine, Rex Frehner, and sold him a policy. He was a friend from my earlier days in Vegas, who happened to be a dental technician…
I took one look at what he was doing and I thought, “This is fascinating.” Here was the kind of work I loved. Rex showed me what he was doing, and I saw that he was making something with his hands.
It was a legitimate business where you actually made something and sold it… I wanted to follow in Rex’s footsteps and become a dental technician, so that I too could create and make something the way he did in his lab.
It looked like a job that could lead to some financial stability. My goals back then were small: I wanted to make $200 a week. I was responsible for a young wife and a baby. Sure, it would be a struggle to go to school, but then I could get $175 a month on the GI Bill as a veteran to help pay for it.
I decided I would attend a UCLA Extension and complete their Dental Technician program, just as Rex had… When I look back on those early years, I don’t remember that my goal was to open the largest dental lab in the world…
But once I reached that goal, I looked ahead a little farther. And then again, a little farther beyond that. My mind has always been the same: once I reach a certain point, I continue to think, “Well, now that I’m here, what else can I do?”
Business Philosophy
Glidewell has grown to be the largest dental laboratory in the world. We have annual revenue in excess of $500 million, a growing headcount of nearly 5,000 employees, and physical facilities covering over 600,000 square feet…
In leaving you with a few last words, I’ll say this: no business lasts forever. But you can transform and grow a company by keeping some of the old parts while you start up new viable divisions before a competitor does.
Sears could have outcompeted Amazon, but they failed to see the future in online sales. By nature, it’s hard to start a division that competes against your core business. Amazon started as an online bookseller, then just kept expanding the business model at every opportunity. In my opinion, that is one of the keys to success.
Glidewell has started a division that builds chairside mills, enabling dentists to make dental crowns in their own office. This approach cuts out the dental lab, and so would seem like an unnatural progression for our business.
But if this is the inevitable future, should we just sit by, wringing our hands and awaiting our demise? Obviously not. Any successful business must react to the changing marketplace.
Rest assured that if we don’t develop it, someone else will! Chairside milling might as well be our next innovative transformation. Eventually, our old way of business will die. This is inevitable.
Even a snake sheds its old skin in order to allow for its growth. Our job, and my challenge to you, is to constantly look to the future. Onward!
