	The job ad called for a driver who also wouldn’t mind doing sweeping and other light clean-up work. No weekend work was required and it also promised to teach skills that could be turned into a profession.

	Mary Ann Miles was fresh out of high school when she responded to that ad 40 years ago. She never guessed that it would turn into a lifelong occupation and that she would become a co-owner of Schmitt Dental Laboratory Inc. in Saginaw, Mich.

	Miles shares ownership of the lab with Vicki Lewis, granddaughter of the man who founded the company in the 1920s. Lewis got her start in the business in 1985 and, after so many years of working together, the two women agree they are like family.  

	The lab was full-service when it was founded in1928 by Reinhold Schmitt who worked in the business along with two of his brothers who later went on to start their own labs. Even during the economic downturn of the Great Depression, the lab stayed open.  Eventually the reins of the business were turned over to Reinhold’s son, Edward.  He switched the focus to removables and that remains its focus today.

	Both Lewis and Miles credit Edward Schmitt, who is retired, but still pitches in when things get busy, with teaching them everything they know about the business of operating a lab.

	“When I wasn’t driving and I had all my cleaning done, I did my lab work. I did base plates, articulations and poured models,” said Miles about her early years learning the business.

	Eventually, Miles and Lewis earned their CDTs. Both said they are drawn to lab work because they like to work with their hands.

	“This is a really good fit for me because I enjoy the craft. I get a lot of satisfaction from it,” said Lewis who spends her leisure time doing crafty things including knitting and scrapbooking.

	Miles said she’s glad she didn’t choose to work in an automobile factory as many people did in the 1970s in Michigan. She likes that every day in the dental lab is different from the day before.

	“I don’t have to go and do the same thing every day,” she said. “It’s not always grinding dentures. Every case is different.”

	She said lab staff tends to take different aspects of a case depending on what is needed which helps keep things fresh and every day different.

	“We’ve all been trained to do everything,” she said. “It’s rare that we sit down and totally finish a case from beginning to end.”

	The company employs one other person as well as a driver who makes deliveries within about a 50-mile radius of the company. All of the firm’s work comes from dentists within Michigan.

	Miles and Lewis said they also have enjoyed their careers because they have been able to balance professional demands with family life. They each are parents of two adult children. Lewis said the importance of family was set by her father.

	“He always understood that his grandchildren needed their Mom sometimes,” she said.

	The company intends to stay focused on removables, which they believe there will always be a market for, particularly in times such as these when many people are keeping a close eye on how much they spend.

	“There are always going to be people who can’t afford implants or crowns and bridges,” Miles said.

	Lewis attributes the company’s longevity to the quality of their work.

	“I think our quality is high,” she said. “We’re reliable and we’re dependable. We’ve been here a long time and we’re not going anywhere.”

Articles

 The job ad called for a driver who also wouldn’t mind doing sweeping and other light clean-up work. No weekend work was required and it also promised to teach skills that could be turned into a profession.  Mary Ann Miles was fresh out of high school when she responded to that ad 40 years ago. She never guessed that it would turn into a lifelong occupation and that she would become a co-owner of Schmitt Dental Laboratory Inc. in Saginaw, Mich.

Legacy Labs: Schmitt Dental Laboratory

I can still remember the first time I came across a computer mouse when a childhood friend was showing me the brand new Apple Macintosh computer in the corner of his family’s kitchen.

Sure, I’d grown up in a house where there was always at least one machine, but our tan and brown Commodore 64 was text controlled, forcing me to quickly learn both rudimentary typing and the basic commands in order to use the computer on my own. So when I encountered that pixilated cursor and the new concept of pointing and clicking, I was completely blown away.

This marked a whole new way of interacting with a computer, a method so simple and straightforward that there was no new language to learn. All that was required to make that computer start a program or open a file was mastering the movement of the mouse in order to point it at what you want and a click to start the action.

Prior to the rise of the computer mouse computers were operated via text based interfaces that required the user and the computer to speak the same, often limited language. (Prior to that early computers were controlled via punchcards, which was an even more limited platform on which users and machines could interact.) But the mouse simplified things by shifting text to a secondary role and letting computer users take control via a Graphical User Interface (GUI, which is often pronounced as gooey).

The power of interacting with graphics is apparent from the first time a user comes across a computer. Folders containing files look like folders, the place for deleting files is a trashcan and applications, discs and other items can be represented by images of what they are. Finding things becomes easier than ever before, and navigating the computer can be taught in minutes.

The Macintosh marked the first commercial GUI, and personal computing has never looked back. Microsoft adapted this approach with its Windows operating system and quickly grew into a massive software powerhouse. The designs and capabilities of these interfaces have certainly advanced over the years with animated icons, better graphics and reimagined folder structures, but the GUI has withstood the test of time and probably will remain as the main way we communicate with our computing devices.

Beyond simplifying the commands required to control a computer, the GUI created opportunities for the development of a range of peripheral and integrated devices for navigating those graphical control landscapes. For more than 20 years the mouse remained the primary control device.

Computer mice could be found roaming the limited confines of mouse pads before lasers replaced the trackballs and the control devices were let loose on just about any flat surface. The number and placement of buttons changed, as did the size and shape of these devices, but for quite a while, the mouse was king of computer controls.

But that’s not to say other controller concepts haven’t made a run at the throne. Joysticks and jog-wheel equipped paddles were the preferred controllers for early video games. Whether for capturing handwritten notes or sketches, pen input and control schemes have also been around for quite a while.

The trackball was another concept that gained some traction in the industry. At first it was the way we controlled arcade games like Centipede and Crystal Castles, but trackballs have found use in a number of additional ways. At first they were basically inverted mice that didn’t have to be moved around the physical desktop to control a cursor within the virtual desktop. Then they became mobile controls with integration into some pre-smartphone cell phones such as the BlackBerry Pearl.

This concept was also evolved into the keyboard-embedded knobs found on some laptops. However, the knobs were never a popular controller scheme, and laptops quickly evolved around a touchpad for control of the cursor. The touchpads have grown in size and capability over the years with the addition of multi-touch commands. They’ve also led us to the current state-of-the-art in computer control, touchscreen.

While touchscreen controllers have been around for quite a while at gas station pumps, supermarket checkouts and other commerce kiosks, they were truly ushered into the world of popular computing devices with the 2007 introduction of Apple’s iPhone.

This shift in control technology seemed subtle at the time, but it actually required a major overhaul of how the operating system would be designed. Once optimized for touch, computer operating systems become even more intuitive to use and training is almost an afterthought.

Just touch what you want it to do and it does it. If you’ve never seen a baby with an iPhone, look for a video on YouTube, it’s amazing how quickly they understand how to make this strange device do something. It’s an immersive control set up that makes the user a part of the device he or she is using and it fits well with other innovations in computer control such as haptics which allow touch controls to provide physical feedback based on the commands given and motion control which uses cameras to capture the user’s movements to allow touchscreen like control simplicity without any actual touching taking place.

What started with smartphones just four years ago is now firmly established in the design of tablet computers and many newer PCs. The mouse will not disappear overnight, but touchable design aspects are being integrated into the latest versions of both Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s OS X.

Both operating systems have borrowed aspects from their mobile OS cousins to make desktop computing the same type of immersive and intuitive experience. It’s an example of hardware innovation driving software design and it’s likely going to stay a trend in how computers continue to evolve. Drawing on a computer and fingerpainting are likely to be similar experiences going forward (although the former will remain the less messy of the two).

All this means computers will grow in their capabilities even as the learning curve for new users gets smaller. As touch becomes the mode of control, users no longer have to even bother learning the nuances of a mouse or another device. They just tap on what they want and there it is.

This concept is likely to be the next control paradigm, but it will probably quickly combine with the possibilities available via motion control systems. This could mean computers that are as easy to use as touchscreens, but without all the fingerprint smudges. Much like in the movie Minority Report, computer users may interact with projected graphics, shuffling them around in mid-air and tossing away the icons they no longer need.

The computer mouse may soon be a thing of the past, as trackpads take over for a brief transitional period until full-scale physical touch control moves into the majority and then quickly cedes way to virtual touch controls that offer the same level of interaction, without any of the actually touching.

Of course all the software design built to optimize touchable computers will need to be reimagined once technology allowing computers to be controlled via thought is perfected.

I can still remember the first time I came across a computer mouse when a childhood friend was showing me the brand new Apple Macintosh computer in the corner of his family’s kitchen. Sure, I’d grown up in a house where there was always at least one machine, but our tan and brown Commodore 64 was text controlled, forcing me to quickly learn both rudimentary typing and the basic commands in order to use the computer on my own. So when I encountered that pixilated cursor and the new concept of pointing and clicking, I was completely blown away.

Tech Smart: Input Adjustments

	Today Apple launched its latest generation of the iPhone, and as always seems to be the case when this company is launching something new, the media and general public are rapt in anticipation. However, this launch was the company’s first big move since founder and technology icon Steve Jobs stepped down from an active roll in running things and the press event seemed a bit lackluster without his smirking boasts about the wonderful things the company's latest can do.

	Sure this isn’t the first time Jobs has left his position with Apple. Back in the mid-’80s he was famously forced out from the company he helped create a decade earlier. But that led to the darkest era in Apple’s history and his return to the company in the mid-90s is considered the start of the company’s rise to its current position as the largest public company on the planet.

	Even with Jobs now out of the day-to-day work at Apple, the company seems set up to be a technology leader for years to come. But Jobs decision to turn over the CEO position to Tim Cook due to his own declining health certainly marks the end of an era for the company, and the perfect time to take a look back at the legacy he and his inventions have left on the technology landscape.

	It all started in the late ’70s as Apple released its first PC. While those hand-built machines are certainly left in the dust by the powerful computers in today’s phones, (even the not-smart variety) it was the precursor to the company’s computing portfolio and was quickly upgraded to become the Apple II. This open-architecture PC set a new standard with color graphics.

	The company’s biggest PC revolution came along a few years later with the graphical user interface that powered the ill-fated Apple Lisa and the now iconic Macintosh. It was Jobs who led the push to create graphics-based computer interfaces rather than the text commands used to operate computers previously. Both computers shipped with a mouse and offered users the chance to “point and click” for the first time.

	It was after these revolutions that infighting at Apple led to Jobs leaving the company. During his decade away Apple made some influential advancements such as the PowerBook laptop computers, but also failed with projects like the Newton PDA.

	When Jobs returned to the company he brought a new software basis for the company’s operating system and helped position Apple as a retailer of high-end computers preferred by artists and designers. That spirit permeated the products as well, with the 1998 launch of the iMac line of computers that got rid of the computer tower, combining the monitor and all the internal components in one box.

	All of these steps have led to the computers people see today, and while Apple’s design esthetic has continued to set trends followed by other manufacturers, it remains ahead of the pack in most cases. The ultrathin MacBook Air laptops have set new standards in portable computers while just about every computer maker now has an all-in-one computer that looks a lot like the latest generation of iMac.

	While once primarily a computer maker, Jobs’ vision has taken Apple into a range of other electronics arenas, and none has been more greatly changed by the company than the world of music. In 2001 the company began selling its first iPod digital music player. This marked the beginning of the end of the Compact Disc, which itself had only recently toppled the cassette tape.

	The iPod was a wonder in its early generations and sold well even before the company launched its iTunes online music store. That store is now among the biggest music retailers in the world and has changed the way most people acquire music.

	On top of changing the format on which people get their music, the iPod and digital music downloading also changed how artists interact with their audiences, making record labels and music stores less significant in the marketplace.

	Not satisfied with just changing people’s music habits, Jobs and Apple next revolutionized the way people interact with their computers, their phones and each other when they launched the iPhone in 2007. While it wasn’t the first phone to handle e-mail, it quickly set the standard for pocket computing.

	Intuitive to use and easy to customize with lots of software titles available, the iPhone was a runaway success. It combined the best of the company’s previous successes by presenting a user-friendly computer with high-quality graphics in a stylish, pocket-friendly package. Jokes about its poor phone service abounded, but millions of the phones have been sold and just about every smartphone since has had similarities to the iPhone in both form and function.

	The company’s most recent success is the iPad, which while certainly not the first tablet computer, is most definitely the first commercially successful one. Priced at a reasonable level and capable of doing a lot in small package, the iPad falls short of being a full computer, and instead settles in nicely as compact, affordable media machine.

	It works because it can do what most people who use computers these days need a computer to do. People raised on the Internet need a machine to visit websites, play audio and video, and other basic tasks. The iPad does all that in an attractive and portable package.

	Through his up and down years at the helm of Apple, Jobs’ career has been marked by several traits. He’s shown a willingness to take chances on his vision of what people will want next from their electronics, a dedication to creating products that set new standard in style and design, a determination to make sure they work as crisply as the look, and a ruthless approach to the business side of the industry.

	Apple has set trends in more than just the software and hardware design. What the company has left out of its products has been as important as what its introduced. Under Jobs Apple moved data storage from tapes to large floppy discs before abandoning those for smaller floppies. Those were dropped for CDs and eventually the company started releasing computers with no disc drives at all.

	These moves have been made unilaterally ahead of the curve and have basically dared the rest of the industry not to follow along. No such move was as bold as the company’s total abandonment of Adobe’s Flash language when the iPhone was launched. Jobs famously criticized Flash as causing computers to run slow and crash and decided that even with many websites built on a Flash platform, if enough users couldn’t access those sites, they would have to redesign. Now with the advent of HTML5 providing the animations and videos that were once powered by Flash, it seems like this is another case of Jobs and Apple imposing their will on the computing world.

	Steve Jobs may not have been the most likeable computer tycoon, but it’s hard to argue that he hasn’t been revolutionarily effective. In his time running Apple, the company shifted from a rag-tag group of outsiders dedicated to an open-source approach to a corporate titan producing closed-architecture products from one of the most tightly connected and controlled supply chains around.

	It’s easy to poke fun at Jobs for his trademark jeans and turtleneck style, his no-nonsense approach and the fact that his company often makes and sells products at a higher price than his competitors. But as Apple takes its first steps into the second post-Jobs era, it’s clear his impact on technology is being felt by everyone who uses a computer, downloads a mp3 or uses their phone to check e-mail while following turn-by-turn GPS directions to the next meeting.

 Today Apple launched its latest generation of the iPhone, and as always seems to be the case when this company is launching something new, the media and general public are rapt in anticipation. However, this launch was the company’s first big move since founder and technology icon Steve Jobs stepped down from an active roll in running things and the press event seemed a bit lackluster without his smirking boasts about the wonderful things the company's latest can do.

Tech Smart: A bite from the Apple

	Working in a cramped space in a dentist’s office no larger than a closet is how Robert Renstrom got his start in the dental industry. That job gave him the experience needed to start 

, which is still going strong and is now owned by his sons, Randy and Rick Renstrom.

	The company is located in Vadnais Heights, Minn., which is just outside St. Paul. It was founded in 1966 and now employs a staff of 25.

	Robert Renstrom finished a stint in the U.S. Navy before getting the job with a dentist that gave him the experience to eventually start his own lab.

	“He learned on the job,” Rick Renstrom said. “Back then there was not a lot of outside training like there is today.”

	His sons bought the company in the mid-1980s – a move that the Renstrom brothers were ready to make.

	“I started working in the lab right out of college because I loved working with my hands,” Rick Renstrom said. 

	Today, Rick Renstrom, vice president, handles quality control. He checks every case that goes out the door to be sure it meets their standards.

	“I don’t want to be a mass production lab,” he said. “We’re always concerned about the quality of our restorations. We produce and inspect our work under microscopes. Our tolerances are very tight.”

	Not only is quality important to the lab, so is communicating with clients, he said. 

	“We have many ways to communicate with them including report cards and a personal service representative who contacts them every month,” he said. “We track trends and make changes as we go. Quality is No.1, but service is a very close second.”

	Randy Renstrom serves as president and is in charge of the business aspects of running the lab, including trying to predict what new trends and technology are coming down the pike. His daughter, Randi James, works in the lab as the office manager and his wife, Kathy, is the lab administrator.

	“I enjoy the digital technology that is coming out,” Randy Renstrom said. “It’s the first major change in the industry in years.”

	The lab recently underwent a renovation and added several computer stations. Randy Renstrom said the lab underwent the renovation because it wanted to be prepared for the next 10 years and because their manufacturing processes are different now than in the past.

	 “It’s opened us up to new products,” he said. “We can do things that we couldn’t do five or 10 years ago.”

	“While we still feel hand-layered porcelain gives us the best esthetic effect, we use computers to design stronger understructures of materials such as zirconium and lithium disilicate,” he added.

	The lab has a dentist on staff whose main focus is to work with clients and answer questions.

	“He does a lot of trouble shooting,” Rick Renstrom said. “If a client is having trouble, we can figure it out together and solve the problem.  He also does a lot of training of both our technicians and clients.”

	Randy Renstrom said the dentist is helpful because “materials, as well as manufacturing processes, are changing. We employ a dentist to help educate our clients on the new changes and the best ways to work them into their practices.”

	The lab frequently holds seminars for dentists and their staffs that touch on a wide range of topics, from new products to how to manage a dental practice more efficiently.

	“We are dedicated to being more than just a lab manufacturing a product,” Randy Renstrom said. “We are here to help our clients practice better restorative dentistry.”

	Both Renstrom brothers said anyone wanting to get into the field today needs to be knowledgeable about computers. Whatever changes may come, they agree that their focus on maintaining quality and service is what makes their lab stand out.

	“I’m more inclined to provide higher quality even if the price has to be slightly higher because I feel good about what we do,” Rick Renstrom said.

 Working in a cramped space in a dentist’s office no larger than a closet is how Robert Renstrom got his start in the dental industry. That job gave him the experience needed to start Renstrom Dental Studio Inc., which is still going strong and is now owned by his sons, Randy and Rick Renstrom.

dlpmagazine.com-2011-10-01

Legacy Labs: Schmitt Dental Laboratory

Tech Smart: Input Adjustments

Tech Smart: A bite from the Apple

Legacy Labs: Renstrom Dental Studio