Dental Distribution - Burkhart Dental Supply

Transcription

Dental Distribution
Hall of Fame
D
ental distribution has a rich history. Some of
today’s distributors and manufacturers have roots
that go back 50, 100, even 150 years. Others have
made their mark much more recently. Regardless of when
they did their work, we think it’s time to recognize some of
the people who have made this industry what it is today.
That’s why, with this issue, First
Impressions magazine launches the
Dental Distribution Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame is our way
of saying thanks to those who have
brought us to the point we are today.
It’s a way of sharpening our collective
memory. And it’s a way of keeping
our role models front and center.
The Hall of Fame is a concept
we instituted 11 years ago in the
med/surg industry, through our sister
publication, Repertoire. Since then, it
has become a rallying point for med/
surg professionals. We hope the same
will occur in the dental industry.
There are many people – distributors and manufacturers alike – who
would have been suitable inductees in the
inaugural class of the Dental Distribution
Hall of Fame. But we limited the number
to five. (Keep in mind that we’ll induct
more in 2013, and each year thereafter.)
Please join us in honoring them.
www.firstimpressionsmag.com : First Impressions : April 2012 : 19
Dental Distribution Hall of Fame
Ken Austin: Built a
business based on need
K
en Austin credits his success in the
dental industry to good ears. “I’ve
been blessed by being able to hear
what doctors say, and knowing
where they’re heading with their
comments,” he says.
Austin credits a
power greater
than himself
with the idea
for the system
he developed.
And that power
wasted no time
in doing so.
Ken Austin
20 : April 2012 : First Impressions : www.firstimpressionsmag.com
Truth be told, though, there’s
more to Austin’s success than good
hearing. It also has something to do
with recognizing how to turn what
one hears into opportunity. “A doctor has a need for equipment or a tool
or some way to perfect a procedure
– that’s the opportunity,” says Austin,
co-founder of A-dec, Newberg, Ore.,
and an inaugural inductee into the
Dental Distribution Hall of Fame.
Then there’s the ability to turn
the concept into reality. “My DNA is
one of trying to solve a design problem or procedure problem, and then
make that solution with my own two
hands.”
Add to those the willingness to
work incredibly hard, be a straight
shooter with employees and distributors, give back to the community, and,
perhaps most important, work alongside a strong partner who shares one’s
values – in Austin’s case, that would
be his wife, Joan.
Hot-rodder
“I always had this love of automobiles
and mechanical things,” says Austin.
“And I pursued that through college; I
did a lot of hot-rodding and built my
own car parts.”
A 1954 engineering graduate of
Oregon State College, Austin jumped
from job to job for several years after
graduation. It was his fifth job, with
Power Brake Equipment Co., which he took in 1960, that
opened up the world of dentistry to the young engineer.
“I went to work for a company that made air brakes
for trucks,” he says. “I thought it was the perfect job. Little
did I know they had a tiny division that made dental equipment.” After three months as chief engineer for Power
Brake Equipment, he was asked to head up the dental division, which had all of three people in it. “I did it reluctantly,” he says.
Soon thereafter, he was asked to complete a project
for the company – building 20 portable dental units for use
by the military. “It was the first new development in field
equipment for the military since World War II,” says Austin. The project would have a lasting
effect on him, as his company-to-be,
A-dec, would build portable equipment for dentists providing care in
the field some years later. “And it exposed me to the general dental public, which I found to be the greatest
opportunity I have ever had in my
life.” That’s because dentists always
need special equipment and tools.
All an enterprising young person
had to do was listen and build.
By doing just that, Austin helped
build Power Brake’s dental division to 60 people in three
years. But due to differences with management, he left the
job in 1963.
Immediately thereafter, he took a job with Denver,
Colo.-based Densco, a supplier of Vacudent oral evacuation units. “They saw an opportunity to build a better
vacuum system, and my job was to work with the system
and try to improve it,” recalls Austin.
The experience at Densco reinforced Austin’s familiarity and interest in building mobile dental equipment,
as the company was developing mobile units for the children’s hospital in Denver. Densco also had developed a
mini-dental unit in a suitcase. But after nine months of
trying to develop the vacuum system that Densco wanted,
the company asked Austin to leave. (He found out he was
the company’s third chief engineer in less than a year.)
Austin came across a couple of people who, working
out of their garage, had literally reverse-engineered what
Densco was doing. “That’s when I told Joan, ‘I could build
a better oral evacuator myself,’” he says. Within a minute
or two, his wife replied, “If you want to try something on
your own, I’ll help you, even if we have to live on bread
and beans.” It was a risk for the young couple, who had
two kids at the time, ages 5 and 9.
Austin credits a power greater than himself with the
idea for the system he developed. And that power wasted
no time in doing so. “I proved my theory in three days,”
he says. “I was working almost every day, 12 to 16 hours,
building the first workable unit. Then I built 20 units after
that.” The manager of an SS White retail store in Denver caught wind of what Austin was doing, and alerted
The experience with the oral
evacuators was the beginning for
Ken and Joan Austin’s company,
A-dec, which today is a $300 million
manufacturer of dental chairs,
delivery systems and lights, whose
campus spans 50 acres in Newberg.
the company’s headquarters. Soon afterward, Austin was
meeting with SS White executives about supplying the
company with 2,000 units. “I told them I could deliver in
90 days,” he says.
His experience at Power Brake came in handy. He
had learned much about compressed air, the technology used in oral evacuation units. It was also at Power
Brake where he became acquainted with key suppliers
of the machinery and materials he would need to go
into production himself.
“We thought we’d better get back home to Newberg
if we were to get back to our roots,” he says. Joan and
the children stayed in Denver till the end of the school
year, while Austin went to Newberg to find a place where
he could build all the units he had promised. He got his
prepayment from SS White on Friday, Feb. 19 1965; was
in Newberg on Sunday the 21st; and had rented a Quonset
hut by Monday evening, Feb. 22.
Better workspaces
The experience with the oral evacuators was the beginning for Ken and Joan Austin’s company, A-dec, which
today is a $300 million manufacturer of dental chairs, delivery systems and lights, whose campus spans 50 acres
in Newberg. The company’s facilities in the United Kingdom, Australia and China support a network of authorized dealers in more than 100 countries. Close to a thousand people work for A-dec.
As the Austins built their company, they were guided
by a few simple principles, starting with recognizing dental professionals’ needs and then filling them. Austin was
particularly driven by the opportunity to improve the dentist’s workspace and enhance the productivity of the dental team. Improved oral evacuation systems, for example,
“That’s how the company grew,” he says. “There was
never a development plan. It was developing products that
fill a need.”
A-dec President Scott Parrish believes one of the keys
to Austin’s success is, quite simply, his brainpower. “If most
people can work on five open files, Ken can work on 35. He
thinks and sees and pictures everything in 3-D.” Just as important, Austin can bring concepts from many industries into
dentistry and make them work there, he says.
”Ken is able to see the big picture,” continues Parrish, who became president in 2007. He was never tied
down by conventional thinking. “His innovative genius
allowed him to solve problems. He also brought reliability and quality to dentistry, and he brought ergonomics
[to the field] as well.
“He has always been very intuitive about
what works for customers and what doesn’t.
Ken’s biggest concern is customers. He wants
customers to be happy with the product.”
– Pete Frechette, former president and CEO of Patterson Companies
helped save time for everyone in the operatory, as procedures didn’t have to be delayed every time the patient
needed to spit.
Some time later, with the introduction of chairs for
the dentist, a practitioner in Portland asked Austin if he
could develop a delivery unit that the dentist could use
while sitting down. “I used the skills I had learned building
cars to do it,” he recalls.
At one point, the dental staff at the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., told Austin of a problem they were having treating female cadets. Because many
wore their hair in a bun, they couldn’t be treated comfortably. “So we built a headrest for our chairs for West Point
that have holes in them.” That headrest is now available
for all military units.
“His innovation has been through continuous
improvement. It’s all about what’s really important to
the dentist.”
“I can remember seeing Ken at conventions or meetings and he’d reach into his pocket and pull something
out and say ‘Hey, what do you think of this?’” says Pete
Frechette, former president and CEO of Patterson Companies. “He has always been very intuitive about what
works for customers and what doesn’t. Ken’s biggest concern is customers. He wants customers to be happy with
the product.”
Working with distributors
Since its beginning, A-dec has been a supporter of distribution. That too was something Austin learned during
Principles for business
The A-dec Way is Ken and Joan Austin’s vision for how they and their company should conduct business.
Here are the 15 principles.
• Concern for people.
• Provide opportunities and assist
in self-development.
• Provide an atmosphere
encouraging self-satisfaction
and pride.
• Encourage team effort.
•M
aintain complete fairness,
honesty and integrity.
•M
aintain consistency.
•M
aintain open consistent and
regular communication.
• Keep things simple and basic.
• E ncourage public service.
• E ncourage creativity.
•C
ommitment to productivity
and quality.
his three years at Power Brake
Equipment, a dealer-oriented
company. “I knew it was really
important to have dealer support,” he says.
“One of the first things
I did when I decided to try
something on my own was to
ask my old boss for his dealer list.” His boss did indeed
share the list with him. Ever
since then, Austin has shared
his dealer list with young entrepreneurs.
“Doctors are dependent on their dealer for education
and service,” he says. “Who’s going to take care of the
dental chair if it quits working?”
A-dec only works with dealers who “know how to
take care of A-dec equipment, show it in the showroom,
and service it,” says Parrish. “You can’t sell something
you can’t support, because that’s what’s important to
the dentist.”
Just as Austin grew his company by listening to the
needs of the dentist, so too has he learned how to listen
to the needs of his distributors. “I used to believe that if
you built a better mousetrap, it would be easy for the dealer to present the best to the doctor,” he says. He resisted
• Dedication to improvement.
• Build on the basis of “need.”
• Attention to detail.
• Conserve resources.
specials and spiffs. “But as I
talked to the retail salespeople
who call on doctors, and they
told me their side of the story,
I realized the impact that a
special can have.”
Even more important
than specials, though, is the
quality of the relationship between manufacturer and distributor, says Austin. To him,
that relationship rests on integrity and trust. “Our outside
sales force knows where we’re
coming from,” he says. “They know what we’re going to
do. They’re confident we’re not going to jerk the rug out
from under them.”
“Ken Austin always does what he says he is going to
do, and is one of our most trusted partners for that reason,” says Frechette.
Just as important as the manufacturer-distributor relationship is that between employer and employees, says
Austin. In 1964, the Austins created what they call the Adec Way, a set of principles for how to treat employees, as
well as business partners. (See accompanying sidebar.) “It’s
the backbone of the company,” says Parrish. “If you treat
people right, they’ll do good things.” [FI]
Just as Austin grew his
company by listening
to the needs of the
dentist, so too has he
learned how to listen
to the needs of his
distributors.
Stanley Bergman:
Master builder
B
orn in South Africa, Stanley Bergman earned a bachelor of
Bergman joined Henry Schein in
1980,
and served as vice president of
commerce degree and a post-graduate certificate in theory
finance and administration from 1980
of accounting from the University of Witwatersrand in to 1985. He served as executive vice
Johannesburg, and became a South African Chartered Ac- president from 1985 to 1989 before
countant. He came to the United States in 1976 and be- becoming chairman and CEO in 1989.
came a New York State Certified Public Accountant. Before joining Henry Rich history
Schein, he was the manager in charge of New York management advisory Henry Schein had a rich history when
services at the accounting firm of BDO Seidman.
It was Bergman
who set Henry
Schein in the
direction of
international
expansion.
In 1990, the
company
expanded
into The
Netherlands,
United
Kingdom and
Spain.
Stanley Bergman
Bergman came onboard. The company was founded in 1932 by Henry and
Esther Schein as a storefront pharmacy in Queens, N.Y. It began fulfilling
mail-order prescriptions in 1935, and
in the 1940s, introduced private-brand
dental, medical and veterinary products. During the 1950s, the company
shifted its business focus from consumers to office-based practitioners.
Bergman joined Henry Schein
as the company was experiencing
rapid growth. In the prior decade, it
had directed its energies toward the
dental market, putting together catalogs, offering low prices and providing great services. It was a strategy
that the company had successfully
used in the physician market. By
the end of the 1970s, the company
dropped its pharmacy business to
focus on the dental and physician
markets. (Later, it would enter the
animal health market.)
Henry Schein’s older son, Jay
Schein, became chairman and CEO
in 1980. Throughout the ’80s, he automated the company’s operations,
including inventory and catalog operations. Bergman
stepped in as chairman and CEO following Jay Schein’s
untimely death in 1989. At the time, company sales were
$225 million.
Today, annual sales are $8.5 billion. The company operates its five business groups – dental, medical, animal
health, international, and technology – through a centralized and automated distribution network, which provides
customers in more than 200 countries with more than
90,000 national and Henry Schein private-brand products
in stock, as well as over 100,000 additional products available as special order items.
It was Bergman who set Henry Schein in the direction of international expansion. In 1990, the company
expanded into The Netherlands, United Kingdom and
Spain. Henry Schein now services customers in virtually
every country in the world, has operations on the ground
practices, and includes DENTRIX®, Easy Dental®,
Oasis®, and EXACT® for dental practices.
“Technology-driven products such as digital devices,
software, hardware and mobile devices in clinical and office settings will continue to play an ever more essential role
in the future of the dental market, as technology improves
efficiency, increases patient satisfaction, and helps dentists
deliver high-quality, cost-effective care,” says Bergman.
“We are continually re-inventing along the digital highway
and are committed to being the technology leader in the
markets we serve. Indeed, we firmly believe that the digital
highway runs directly through Henry Schein.”
In 1995, Henry Schein was listed on the NASDAQ
Marketplace, raising $72.8 million in the initial public
offering. The next year, it introduced a three-pronged
approach to sales, combining field sales with telesales and
direct marketing.
“We are continually re-inventing along the
digital highway and are committed to being the
technology leader in the markets we serve. Indeed,
we firmly believe that the digital highway runs
directly through Henry Schein.”
– Stanley Bergman, CEO, Henry Schein
in 24 countries, and a portfolio of business that is steadily
becoming more balanced between its North American and
international businesses. Beyond Europe, Henry Schein
has expanded to Australia, New Zealand, China, and beyond. Today, international accounts for 35 percent of
Henry Schein’s total sales.
In 1997, Bergman orchestrated the acquisition of Sullivan Dental Products, making Henry Schein the world’s
largest distributor of dental equipment and supplies. The
following year, the company acquired Meer Dental, which
brought in more than 100 field reps to what was then
called Sullivan-Schein. Schein then sold its private brand
line of dental equipment manufacturing to John Spencer
Technology
(who also acquired Pelton & Crane and Marus), in an efParticipating in the “digital highway” has been one of fort to earn the trust of manufacturers who were wary of
Bergman’s most important projects. In the early 1990s, the company’s private-label equipment ambitions. Sales in
Henry Schein released a dental practice-management 1998 exceeded $1.9 billion.
software system, which offered, among other features,
electronic claims processing. Today, its practice-manage- Global social responsibility
ment and electronic medical records software solutions In 2001, Henry Schein introduced the Digital Dental
have an installed active user base of more than 75,000 Office, Privileges customer loyalty program, and Customer
Analysis Tool (CAT) system, and established the Henry
Schein Cares global social responsibility program. Henry
Schein Cares focuses on expanding access to care for
underserved populations by advancing wellness, building capacity in the delivery of health care services, and
assisting in emergency preparedness and relief. It is the
philanthropic pillar in the company’s overall commitment
to corporate social responsibility, which also includes a
commitment to the environment and good corporate
governance. For its efforts Henry Schein has repeatedly
been ranked first in its industry for corporate social responsibility in Fortune’s list of the World’s Most Admired
Companies. In 2002, the company began its role as exclu-
social responsibility program, is our ability to use our
core competencies to support an issue; and our ability to work in collaboration with our many supplier
partners, without whom this would not be possible.”
Also in 2002, the company established Sullivan-Schein
University to develop Schein’s dental representatives.
Henry Schein continued to grow in the United States
and internationally throughout the 2000s. In 2006, for
example, it acquired Island Dental and Darby Dental
Laboratory and Medical Supply.
Bergman has been – and remains – active in a number
of dental industry and professional associations, including the American Dental Association (where he served on
the Oversight Committee, Future of
Dentistry Project and was awarded
honorary membership) and The
Forsyth Institute, an oral health research institution. He has received
honorary membership in the Alpha
Omega Dental fraternity, and an
honorary Doctor of Humane Letters
from A.T. Still University’s Arizona
School of Dentistry and Oral Health.
Bergman also is active in the World
Economic Forum.
– Stanley Bergman
He is an active supporter of organizations fostering the arts, higher
education, cultural diversity and grassroots health care and
sustainable entrepreneurial economic development initiatives in the United States, Africa and other developing regions of the world. Bergman serves on a number of boards
in related areas, including the University of Pennsylvania,
New York University, the University of Witwatersrand,
Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University, the Metropolitan
Opera, JP Morgan Chase, and the Business Council for
International Understanding.
“Last summer at the Ellis Island Medal of Honor
ceremony, I said that ‘no dream is too big for America,’”
he says. “I truly believe that the lesson that we have seen
reflected in our Company’s history countless times is that
‘no dream is too big for Team Schein.’ Our ability to dream
and recognize that nothing is impossible is what we have
seen through our history. And we are confident that our
best years are yet to come.” [FI]
“It is impossible for me to
overstate how important we
at Henry Schein feel publicprivate partnerships such as
Give Kids A Smile are.”
sive distributor of professional products for the American Dental Association’s “Give Kids A Smile” program.
Over the next 10 years, Henry Schein and its supplier
partners donated products and services valued at more
than $11 million to the program to support the work
of volunteer dentists around the country to help more
than 4.5 million children. Bergman and the Henry Schein
team celebrated the accomplishment in February 2012
by opening the NASDAQ Stock Market on the annual
“Give Kids A Smile Day.” With the participation of 29
supplier partners, this year the company was able to support oral health care screenings for more than 400,000
children throughout the United States.
“It is impossible for me to overstate how important we at Henry Schein feel public-private partnerships
such as Give Kids A Smile are,” says Bergman. “Fundamental to the mission of Henry Schein Cares, our
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Perry Burkhart Jr:
A stewardship approach
P
erry Burkhart Jr. never saw himself so much as
president or owner of Burkhart Dental, when
he served in that capacity from 1984 to 2006,
as a steward. “My father and [Uncle] Ev cared
deeply about the employees of the company,”
he says. “Somehow I inherited that. I felt it wasn’t just my
company. I was an employee there.”
“Basically,
[my father’s
and uncle’s]
philosophy
was that, as a
family member,
you had an
opportunity
to work for the
company, but
not a guaranteed
job.”
Perry Burkhart Jr.
That didn’t mean he didn’t make
tough decisions in his 22-year role as
leader – consolidating and automating warehouses, letting some tenured
people go who didn’t fit the company’s service-oriented philosophy, stepping out from behind his desk to be
the face of the company, expanding
into new geographies, and nudging
the sales force toward implementing
automated solutions in their work day.
But he always did it with an eye toward nurturing the company, its employees, and its customers.
Chemical engineering
Burkhart Dental was founded in
Tacoma, Wash., in 1888 as Tacoma
Dental Depot by doctors William
E. Burkhart and Cyrus Van Winter.
Several years after Dr. Burkhart retired (sometime between 1903 and
1905), his son, Archie Burkhart
joined the company. In 1945, Archie
died. His two sons – Perry Sr. and
Everett – returned from World War
II to assume control of the company. Perry Sr.’s son, Perry Jr., joined
the company in 1974.
Prior to doing so, however, Perry
Jr. worked for five years as a chemical engineer at Pennwalt Corp., which
had developed a process using salt
and electrolysis to make chlorine and
sodium hydroxide for the pulp and
paper industry.
His first positions with Burkhart were inside the
company, filling equipment orders, then dispatching
service calls. When the company opened a branch in
Seattle, he went into the field as an equipment salesman.
“A fair amount of that work was helping dentists with
office design,” he says. “The thinking patterns I learned
from chemical engineering helped me with that.” And
the company culture taught him much as well. “The
company philosophy was very much geared toward
helping the dentist, so it was more of a consulting role
than a sales one.” When an account management position opened up in the Tacoma office, young Burkhart
took the job.
“He was very service-oriented, and he knew his
products super well,” says his
daughter, Lori Isbell, who succeeded her father as president in 2006.
“He was our top salesman, and that
surprised some people in our family, because he was so quiet. But he
took care of people, was very reliable, and was very down to earth.
He’s very warm. When he greets
you, he grasps you with both hands,
looks you in the eye.”
When his father and uncle retired in 1981, they named Gary
Halsan president. “Basically, [my
father’s and uncle’s] philosophy was
that, as a family member, you had an
opportunity to work for the company, but not a guaranteed job,” says Burkhart. “You had to earn your way. And
at that point, they thought Gary was better qualified to
lead the company than I was.”
But just a couple of years later, Halsan died suddenly.
Burkhart’s father and uncle stepped in for a time, then in
1984, named Perry Jr. as president.
Six years earlier, in 1978, Perry Sr. and Everett Burkhart had begun computerizing the operation. Perry Jr.
saw the efficiencies that automation brought, and seized
on the opportunities it presented.
One of the first things he did was consolidate the
company’s three warehouses, which were located in
Tacoma, Yakima and Spokane. “We consolidated the
inventory from Spokane into Tacoma, so we only had
two, and that cut down our borrowing costs,” he says.
Shortly thereafter, the company brought Yakima’s inventory into Tacoma, so one warehouse was now serving all three branches.
The move was not without some risk, points out Isbell. After all, up to that point, each branch had its own
As president, Burkhart
oversaw a period of
growth for the company.
The general plan was to
grow 8 percent a year.
An unkind economy
It wasn’t the best of economic times. Inflation and interest
rates were high. “Like all dental distributors, we had a great
deal invested in inventory and accounts receivable,” he recalls. Borrowing money was difficult. The situation called
for some creative – and tough – decisions.
merchandise. If a customer ran out of something, the
local rep could pick it up and carry it to the doctor in his
or her station wagon. At first glance, then, consolidating
the warehouses could be viewed as being “un-customercentric,” she says. “But we found that when you consolidate inventory, you can carry a much broader variety of
products,” she says.
Adds Burkhart, “It took a day longer to get supplies
to our customers in Spokane, but because we had a bigger
inventory, we had a better fill rate. We did a better job of
filling orders.”
In 1991, Burkhart installed an automated carousel system in a new distribution center to further
increase efficiency.
Laptops for all
In 1992, the company issued laptops to all account
managers. “For some time, we had been processing orders through our computer in the warehouse,” he explains. So the account managers were carrying books
2-3 inches thick, containing product numbers and descriptions. “It just made sense that when laptops were
available, we provide them to the account managers,
so they could use that information to help manage the
customer’s inventory and help [customers] with the
ordering process.”
As president, Burkhart oversaw a period of growth
for the company. The general plan was to grow 8 percent
One exception was Burkhart’s 1997 acquisition of
Reeve Dental, with branches in Dallas, Texas; and Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla. Burkhart knew the owner,
Bernie McNichols, through American Dental Cooperative (now NDC Dental). “It was a challenge,” says Burkhart, referring to the geographical distance of Reeve
from the Pacific Northwest. “But we made the transition from their computer system to ours, and managed
the inventory remotely out of Tacoma. We retained their
managers and salespeople, and gradually started hiring
more people. I think it was a bigger shift in philosophy
for some of their salespeople, but over the long term, it
worked out.”
Growth was often accomplished through word of
mouth. One dentist would speak with another, who
was happy with the service Burkhart provided.
The company would place a rep there, and if things
worked out, would open a branch, hire some more
people, and build a new territory.
a year. “We knew it was beneficial to grow, to leverage our
computer expertise and distribution centers. To do that, it
would help to be a strong regional.”
So Burkhart Dental, a $13 million company in 1984,
opened branches in Portland, Ore., and Denver, Colo. To
accommodate that growth, Burkhart moved operations to
a 36,000-square-foot complex in 1991. The next year, the
company opened branches in Phoenix, Ariz.; and Union
City and Sacramento, Calif.
Growth was often accomplished through word of
mouth. One dentist would speak with another, who was
happy with the service Burkhart provided. The company
would place a rep there, and if things worked out, would
open a branch, hire some more people, and build a
new territory.
Burkhart’s growth continued, with the opening of a
branch in Houston, Texas, in 1999; Salt Lake City, Utah, in
2001; Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2004; and Boise, Idaho, and
Austin, Texas, in 2006. The company also opened a distribution center in Reno, Nev., in 2004, when the company’s
sales hit $117 million.
In 2000, Burkhart purchased the consulting and
education firm Practice Leadership Center to help the
company’s clients with practice management services.
“Dentists are trained on dentistry, but they’re expected
to be full-time office managers and full-time business
managers,” says Burkhart. “They’re running a small
business. We thought that providing assistance with
practice management and leadership could be valuable
to them.”
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Open book policy
In the midst of the growth, Burkhart labored to keep the
company and its employees in touch with each other. “His
stewardship approach ends up having lots of impact,” says
Isbell. “We’ve had an open book policy among our associates for as long as I can remember.” Anyone with questions
about the company’s numbers will get them answered. “I
think [my father] felt our associates were owners, and if
you own the company and you’re acting responsibly, you
should have a right to know what’s going on with it. And
if you know what’s going on, you can be more effective in
making good decisions.”
Burkhart practiced some of that same open-book approach with fellow independents. In fact, at the meetings
of the American Dental Cooperative, he was always willing to share what he knew with colleagues, for the greater
insightful enough to know that sometimes we may have to
change our approach to how we do things.”
In retirement, as in his earlier years, Burkhart continues to demonstrate that insightfulness and intelligence, according to those who know him.
As a youngster, Isbell recalls driving down the Oregon
coast with a carful of rhododendrons. At the time, Burkhart and his wife, Sharon, had a rhododendron farm with
more than a thousand varieties of plants. They’d sell them
to the public on weekends.
The rhododendron operation is closed, but now,
Burkhart is passionate about goat packing. (Goats have
the ability to climb high and over rough terrain, carrying
camping gear for adventurers on their backs.) In fact, he
belongs to a local goat packing association and travels with
groups to different mountain ranges in the Northwest.
“For a lot of us, and not just us fellow distributors,
but manufacturers too, he was consistent.
He was not easily swayed by the winds of change.
He didn’t just jump up and do things.”
– Mike Brown, Nashville Dental
good, that is, the community of independent dealers, says
Mike Brown, Nashville Dental.
“We’d be at meetings, talking about [the future of] the
independent dealer, with all the changes in the industry,”
recalls Brown. “Perry would sit and listen. He always reminded me of those old E.F. Hutton commercials, ‘When
E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.’ Perry was usually one of
the last people to say something, but when he did, he put
everything in perspective. He had tremendous insight.”
Burkhart grew to be a strong leader for independents,
continues Brown. “For a lot of us, and not just us fellow
distributors, but manufacturers too, he was consistent. He
was not easily swayed by the winds of change. He didn’t
just jump up and do things.
“Perry never changed his value system, never changed
the vision he had for Burkhart,” says Brown. “But he was
Last summer, he read dozens of books on nutrition, and
became an expert of sorts on biochemistry. And most recently,
he is teaching himself a new computer programming language.
“He’s the last person you would think would be an
adventurer,” says Brown. “He looks like someone who
would be happy sitting in front of a fire reading a book or
working with numbers.” But Brown recalls that at industry
meetings, Burkhart and his wife and daughter would be
off doing something, like snorkeling.
“I think [Burkhart] reminded me, with his values,
of my dad,” says Brown. “His desire wasn’t to create a
big company; it was to have a company that provided
a good working environment and jobs for people who
helped the company grow. I think growth comes out
of that. His vision was to serve his customers well and
provide for his employees.” [FI]
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Larry Cohen: Never forgot
who his customer was
C
andid. Outspoken. Funny.
Confident. Happy. Not to
mention really hard-working and customer-focused.
“He was at work before I’d get up for school, but he
always came home for dinner,” says Benco Managing Director Rick Cohen, speaking of his father, Larry Cohen,
an inaugural inductee into the Dental Distribution Hall of
Fame. “Then he’d go back to work. Part of it was sacrifice,
doing what he felt he had to do. And the other part was, he
did what he loved.”
“When I first
got into the
business, it
wasn’t big
enough.
We couldn’t
compete,
couldn’t buy
right. There
wasn’t enough
volume.”
“For over 50 years, through
untold industry changes and developments, Larry has always
known two things,” says his son
and Managing Director Chuck
Cohen. “First, dentists are professionals who want and deserve to
be treated fairly and honestly. And
second, a smart sales rep, backed
by a strong company, will add value to a dental practice,
and cannot be replaced by a catalog or a computer. It’s
that core belief that’s led Benco to be focused like a
laser beam on customers and the people on our team
who take care of them.”
After serving as Benco’s president for some 30 years,
the senior Cohen now serves as the company’s chief customer advocate. As such, he takes
phone calls – often complaints –
from customers. “He can’t wait to
be the fireman to fix the problem,”
says David Pierson, president of Insight Management Associates and
former president and co-owner of
E&D Dental, developer of flowable
composites. “So you have this guy
who created this huge corporation,
who’s still motivated and cares about
fixing people’s problems. He never
forgot who his customer was.”
Larry Cohen
Beginnings
Benco Dental was founded in Philadelphia by Larry Cohen’s father,
Ben, in 1924. Six years later, the
company moved to Wilkes-Barre,
Pa. By the time he was 12 or 13,
Larry was working in the business
on summers and vacations. He formally joined the company in 1959 and was named president in 1968.
“My father was a very low-key guy, who would rather
have been a salesman than anything else,” says Cohen,
speaking of Ben. “He always had a manager to run things
on the inside, and he let me do what I wanted to do from
Day 1. If there was ever anything he wasn’t happy about,
we would discuss it at dinner. And my mother would say,
‘Ben, let him do it.’”
Like Ben Cohen, Larry was happiest in the field. “I
was a full-time salesman from 1960 to about 1973,” he
says. “Those were very good years for me. I was out all the
time, even after I became president.” In fact, he kept a territory until the early 1990s.
But as much as he loved being in the field, Cohen
knew Benco needed to grow, and he
turned his efforts in that direction.
“When I first got into the business, it wasn’t big enough,” he says.
“We couldn’t compete, couldn’t buy
right. There wasn’t enough volume.”
He considered entering other businesses – such as medical sales – in
his geography. The other option was
to expand Benco’s geography, sticking to dental sales.
“I concluded after a short
amount of research that it was
easier to sell dental supplies over a
broad area than to grow by selling
different items in the same area. So
I hired salesmen and I put them out farther away.” First
Philadelphia, then down toward Baltimore, then a little
bit farther west.
The rise of parcel services such as UPS helped in
the company’s expansion, he says. Prior to that, everything was shipped parcel post, that is, through the
U.S. Postal Service. “Ten percent of the packages we
sent, the customer would call and say, ‘We never got
the order.’” Shipping by UPS – which demanded that
the recipient sign for the package – eliminated most of
those problems.
Still, Cohen found it tough to compete against the
trade houses, that is, the distributors with all the name
brands. “I remember specifically calling on a dentist for
eight or nine months,” he recalls. “He never bought a thing
from me. One day he said, ‘You’re a nice young fellow; I
want to get a gross of SS White burs.’ I didn’t have the
courage to tell him we didn’t have them, so I tried to buy
them from another dealer. It took me two weeks. By that
time, [the dentist] said to me, ‘I’m never buying another
thing from you.’” (Editor’s Note: First Impressions didn’t
find out if Cohen won back that customer, but chances
are, he did.)
Adversity strikes
The year 1972 was a tough one for Cohen and Benco Dental. His father, Ben, died that year at age 69. Something else
happened in 1972 – Hurricane Agnes. It was the largest
Every day, Cohen sent a truck
to a friend’s supply house,
Heinsheimer Dental, in
Philadelphia, to buy supplies
for the next day’s orders. He
found he had loyal friends
among his customers as well.
natural disaster in the United States in terms of property
damage at that time, explains Cohen. “We had eight-anda-half feet of water in the warehouse; I had more than
that in my house.” For weeks, there was no phone service,
no electricity, no running water. “All our inventory, everything, was wiped out.”
Nobody in the area had insurance. “I wouldn’t have
bought it anyway, because we were so far from the river. I
never thought the river could do that.”
Every day, Cohen sent a truck to a friend’s supply
house, Heinsheimer Dental, in Philadelphia, to buy supplies for the next day’s orders. He found he had loyal
friends among his customers as well.
“I remember calling on one large lab that used to place
an order every single day,” he says. “I told him, ‘We don’t
have the teeth; they’re covered with mud; you’ll have to
buy them wherever you can. I’m hoping when we get our
act together, we can get you back as a customer.’ He said to
me, ‘Do you think I’m the kind of guy who would desert
you because of a disaster?’ And there were a lot of others
like that too.”
Manufacturers came through as well. Some even replaced inventory at no charge. “It was a kinder and gentler
business then,” he says.
But they were trying times. “I seriously thought about
never reopening. I was a good salesman; I could have
Cohen orchestrated the acquisition of several distributors as well. The secret to a successful acquisition, he
says, is people. “Nothing else matters. If the people are
good, then the whole thing works.” Rather than write a big
check to make the acquisition, Benco structured earn-outs,
in which the previous owner had the opportunity to earn
part of the purchase price based on the performance of
the company after the sale.
In 1989, his first son, Chuck, joined the company,
establishing a presence in New York City. Five years later,
Rick came onboard with the goal of creating an e-commerce platform. One year later, Benco launched Painless,
a Windows-based e-commerce computer system. The
“Larry showed that a small-town
dental distributor, armed only with
a little luck and lots of pluck, could
compete effectively with
the biggest chains.”
– Chuck Cohen
gotten a job any place. But we had people working for us
who would have been out of a job.”
In 1980, Cohen and Benco had recovered to the
point where he was able to move the company to
a new, 26,000-square-foot location in Wilkes-Barre,
one that wouldn’t be susceptible to flooding. At
the time, the company had 57 associates, including
14 sales reps. And what followed was a period of
strong growth, in terms of geography, capabilities
and offerings.
The new headquarters was state-of-the-art, says Rick
Cohen. And soon after he built it, Cohen became an early
adopter of computerization. “To computerize the inventory was a big step,” he says. “It was expensive, and it was
definitely an indication that he wasn’t satisfied with being
just good enough.”
following year, it created the BluChip Buying Club, a customer loyalty program. By 1998, Benco achieved $100
million in sales.
Cohen promoted himself to chairman in 1996, and let
his sons take a front seat in the company’s growth. “But he’s
always been a key player in Benco’s growth and success,” says
Chuck. Adds Rick, “He stepped in when he felt he needed to
help us with decisions, but he let us make mistakes.”
By 1998, the company achieved $100 million in sales.
The years 2001 through 2011 saw more growth, including
the opening of distribution centers in Florida, Indiana and
Texas. In 2010, the company moved into CenterPoint, its
new, 272,000-square-foot headquarters, distribution center
and regional showroom in Pittston, Pa., about 10 miles
northeast of Wilkes-Barre. Most recently, Benco opened
its fifth distribution center, in Reno, Nevada.
Industry achievements
Larry Cohen achieved much in his career – and is still contributing, notes his son, Chuck. But four achievements
stand out.
The first is Larry’s work as a founding member of
American Dental Cooperative (now NDC Dental) in
1976. “It allowed smaller distributors to compete with
the national chains by purchasing on the same scale,”
notes Chuck.
Second, in the 1970s, Larry was instrumental in developing the role of the equipment specialist and office
Unbridled enthusiasm
“Larry was always available to any manufacturer,” notes
Pierson. “He viewed them as partners. He was a tough negotiator, but very fair. You had to be prepared, but if you
cared about his business like you cared about your own,
you would have a great relationship with him.”
It helped that Cohen was – and remains – bereft of
pretenses, adds Pierson. “If you ask him something, you
always get a straightforward answer.”
Above all, Cohen is motivated by a couple of key
things, says Pierson – customers and employees. “Larry
“He cared about the dentists’ business, both
personally and professionally. Larry hired,
trained and motivated some of the best retail
sales reps in the dental industry.”
– David Pierson, president of Insight Management Associates
designer. “Prior to that, territory reps tended to write
their own equipment orders and draw their own plans,”
says Chuck.
Third, Larry and his company pioneered automated
merchandise ordering, starting with the fax in the 1980s,
and computers shortly thereafter.
And finally, Larry “showed that a small-town dental distributor, armed only with a little luck and lots of
pluck, could compete effectively with the biggest chains,”
says Chuck.
“Larry was never afraid to invest in himself and in
the organization,” he continues. “He has unflagging confidence in his own abilities and the ability of our organization to compete with the ‘big boys.’ If you surveyed the
dental distribution landscape in the mid-1970s, chances
are you wouldn’t have bet on a company based in the coal
country of Northeastern Pennsylvania to grow into the
market’s third largest player.”
really feels that if you pay attention to what you do, love
your work and take care of your customers, you’ll make
a profit.
“He cared about the dentists’ business, both personally and professionally,” says Pierson. What’s more, “Larry
hired, trained and motivated some of the best retail sales
reps in the dental industry. You go to the top salespeople
in any dealer and ask them where they got started, and
you’ll find a huge number are Benco graduates.”
Above all, Cohen loves what he does, and it shows.
“If you go into a room and see a group of people
surrounding a person, Larry will be at the center of
that group,” says Pierson. “The way he views things,
there has to be some kind of positive outcome. He
has unbridled enthusiasm for what he does,” including
recording singing greetings for the company’s voice
mail system, or serving as chief customer advocate,
taking complaints. [FI]
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Peter Frechette:
Relationship-builder
Peter Frechette
“Pete brought more of
a relationship-oriented,
family spirit within the
organization. It’s integrity
that builds business.”
– Ken Austin, co-founder of A-dec
A
s Patterson’s
president and
CEO,
Peter Frechette combined basic, consistently
stated objectives with
progressive thinking in
guiding a struggling dental business on a steady
course toward diversification and total sales of
over $3.5 billion today.
“If Pete had not been CEO
of Patterson, he would have probably been a magician,” says Ron
Ezerski, retired board member
and Patterson executive. “As far as
I’m concerned, he pulled off the
best magic trick ever in the fact
that he turned a company like Patterson, which was close to being
out of business or being acquired
by somebody else, into a strong,
profitable company.”
Flurry of changes
With roots dating back to 1877, Patterson by 1982 had
gone through a number of changes and philosophies
that seemed to shift with the wind. Sales had slowed and
profitability teetered. It wasn’t unusual for a rep to take a
customer’s order on Monday and then upon visiting the
customer the following Monday, find out the order had
not been received. At the time, Patterson was owned by
the conglomerate Esmark.
Frechette joined the company in 1982 as president
and CEO after working for American Hospital Supply
Corp. for 18 years, the last seven as president of its Scientific Products Division. In his first year at Patterson he
traveled the country, listening to customers, manufacturers and employees.
One of the manufacturers
he called on was Ken Austin, cofounder of A-dec. “From the first
meeting, I was very impressed,”
says Austin. “He asked all the right
questions, and I just told him what
I knew about the dental industry. I
tried to give him an overview, not
just from a financial standpoint, but
of the relationships between dealer
and dentist and manufacturer, and
how they all fit together.”
Frechette saw Patterson as an
opportunity, says Austin. The company was slowly losing
ground, and it lacked the strength it had 20 years earlier,
he says.
With Frechette came a flurry of changes and the end
of indecision. From 1982 to 1985, he and Ezerski organized a management buyout of the company from Beatrice Corp. by a group of 45. Despite being challenged to
meet debt payments and maintain minimum cash levels,
the company appeared to at least have gained a foothold
for moving the business forward – and was making believers out of the sales force.
Frechette continued to work hard to build relationships with manufacturers. Soon after stepping in as president, for example, he sponsored a manufacturers summit.
“They invited all the manufacturers to come back to St.
Paul, to be with the store managers,” recalls Austin. “That
was a first.” What Austin witnessed was excitement on the
part of the managers, and confidence that this time, ownership would stay put and steer the company forward longterm. “That helped inspire them to excel, to go back home
and really make their storefronts viable in the community.”
Over the top
From early on, Frechette exploited the opportunities that
technology presented to improve the business. “We used
some gateway technology and ended up with a concept
that we called clustering,” he says, “so we were able to consolidate to larger inventories with more reliable shipments.
But it also was a great step in terms of building confidence
Frechette saw Patterson as an
opportunity. The company
was slowly losing ground, and
it lacked the strength it had
20 years earlier.
among the sales force. They could take an order and know
that the product would arrive on a timely basis.”
This visionary concept at the time – linking and
consolidating inventories in centrally located distribution centers to expedite delivery – is a model of service
and efficiency used by Patterson today and a hallmark of
Frechette’s legacy. It was also integral in the customer-first
culture Frechette helped instill, based on being easy to do
business with and taking care of the customer with responsive, personal service.
By 1960, Patterson operated branches in 40 cities. The
acquisition of D.L. Saslow Co. in 1987, the third largest
U.S. dental distributor at the time, put Patterson on the
map as a major player. “That was a key event for us because it kind of kicked us over the top in terms of critical
mass,” Frechette says. “It gave us the opportunity to use
that incremental volume to generate some profits.” Patterson acquired the assets of a series of smaller dental distributors, and by 1990, had 75 branch offices.
Despite continuing lean times for the business and
its employees, the company never lost its sense of direction again – nor its commitment to customers and employees. In 1990, Patterson created the Employee Stock
Ownership Plan (ESOP). “We believed in sharing the
ownership as much as possible, and the ESOP created a
real incentive,” Frechette says. In 1992, Patterson became
a publicly traded company.
Even as the company gained traction, Frechette stuck
with his same message. Current Patterson Companies
President and CEO Scott Anderson, who was working his
“Pete brought more of a relationship-oriented, family
spirit within the organization,” says Austin. He didn’t devour companies, but rather, handled newly acquired companies with care and honesty. “It’s integrity that builds
business,” says Austin. “And if I were to have one line
quoted, it would be, ‘Pete Frechette is a man of integrity.’”
Technology
Innovative products and technological breakthroughs
occurred regularly in the 1980s and 1990s, with the Fuji
DentaCam leading the way. The inventory of 79 Patterson
offices was first linked, then consolidated and then made
customer-accessible with the PDXpress® and REMOSM
order-entry systems. CAD office design capabilities, followed by Eaglesoft software, CEREC and digital X-ray,
In 2000, the company achieved its first
$1 billion in sales, and diversified into the
veterinary and rehabilitation supply markets
in 2001 and 2003, respectively (Webster
Veterinary and Patterson Medical today)
way up through management ranks at the time, remembers
the message well – not just because it came from the CEO,
but because it was stated over and over again, year after
year: “We were going to grow 4 percent faster than the
market. We were going to improve operating efficiency by
50 basis points. We were going to invest in our employees.
And we were going to create new value-add technologies.
But above all, we were going to focus on taking care of
customers. That was how consistent he was about our vision for the future,” he says.
The company’s growth continued with the acquisition
of a series of smaller dental distributors throughout the
1990s, in addition to the purchase of Healthco Canada,
Inc. in 1993, which ignited Patterson’s dental business in
that country.
also drove the business. The objective was – and continues
to be – to serve as the single source that dentists could rely
on for everything they need, and to bring the additional
value that comes with the sales rep/doctor relationship.
“For me, you’re either the value-added supplier or
you’re the low-price distributor,” Frechette says. “It’s
about our ability to build and maintain relationships with
customers. We are in a relationship business. And second
is our ability to execute. As long as we can do those two
things, we can be, in my view, the value-added company,
and we can continue to be very successful at what we do.”
In 2000, the company achieved its first $1 billion in
sales, and diversified into the veterinary and rehabilitation
supply markets in 2001 and 2003, respectively (Webster
Veterinary and Patterson Medical today). The company
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changed its name to Patterson Companies, Inc. to reflect Fairness, honesty, keeping one’s word
this expanded base of business and became a $2 billion “Pete was always a hard worker,” says Austin. And demanding. “He’d say [to his employees], ‘Take care of the
business in 2004.
customer; I’m not going to take care of him for you. And
if I have to, I’m not going to take care of you anymore.’”
‘Like a bulldog’
Frechette was also generous, making sure Patterson
Courageous, fearless, smart and fair are some of the words
“gave back” in the form of assistance to those with physicolleagues use to describe Frechette.
“Pete has a unique ability to keep people focused cal or financial challenges. For example, it was Frechette
and on track on where we’re trying to go,” says Jim Wiltz, who called Austin some time ago about making mobile
who was in management at the time (and Frechette’s equipment for Apple Tree Dental, a nonprofit practice in
successor as CEO in 2005). “He’s also tenacious – like Minnesota, which provides care for nursing home resia bulldog. Once he’s onto something, we’re going to go dents and community clinic patients.
“Pete – and the whole organization under his leadership – looked
for fairness, honesty, keeping their
word,” says Austin. As Frechette’s
relationship with the manufacturing community strengthened, he
helped manufacturers become better at what they did. When Austin
asked Frechette how A-dec could
improve its on-time delivery as well
as responsiveness to customers, for
– Scott Anderson, President and CEO, Patterson Companies
example, Frechette and his organizathere – no matter what. But Pete also believes that while tion came back with answers.
Frechette rewarded those manufacturers with the best
we take our business very seriously, we shouldn’t take
products and best service – measured by fill rates and other
ourselves too seriously.”
Since his retirement as president in 2003 and as CEO indicators – by making them preferred vendors. It was probin 2005, Frechette’s pursuits have included expanding the ably one of the most controversial things he did, says Ausoutreach of the Patterson Foundation, which he and other tin. “He got a lot of flak from competitors.” Manufacturers
company executives formed in 2000 to help underserved who weren’t in the top tier weren’t too happy either.
But manufacturers with quality products and excellent
people live healthier lives.
Today, he serves as chairman of the board, the position fill rates make things better and more efficient for everyhe’s held since 1985. “Pete’s impact is beyond the success of body, particularly the distributor and the doctor, says AusPatterson Dental. He was and is a force for good for the en- tin. “Other dealers are doing the same thing now [that is,
implementing preferred vendor systems], because it makes
tire dental profession and industry,” Anderson says.
For more than 20 years, Frechette was Patterson’s driv- good business sense.
“Patterson’s strength is based on the relationship,” he
ing force – the company’s culture and philosophy largely
his making. Frechette’s thoughts on his many honors and says. “That’s the relationship between management and
accolades reflect his no-frills, straight-shooting style: “The the people in the field, and the people in the field and
dental industry was in a high-growth period. That and the the doctor. And that’s what Pete was looking for when he
hard work and fortitude of a lot of people, and a little asked me, ‘What is this business really like?’
“It’s a relationship business.” [FI]
good luck along the way, and here we are.”
“Pete’s impact is beyond the
success of Patterson Dental.
He was and is a force for
good for the entire dental
profession and industry.”

Dental Distribution - Burkhart Dental Supply

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