About this Episode
Join Ivoclar (AND US!) this February at LMT Lab Day in Chicago. Ivoclar will be offering 16 different educational lectures over the three-day event, giving dental professionals plenty of opportunities to learn, connect, and grow. Visit labday.com/Ivoclar to view the full schedule and register, and be sure to stop by and see the Ivoclar team in the Windy City.
Walking the Lab Day Chicago floor? Make it worth it.
Stop by the FOLLOW-ME! hyperDENT booth (E-27, East Hall) and take part in their Milling Roadmap—a quick, scavenger-hunt-style activity that leads you to key milling partners like Axsys, Imagine, DOF, and Roland.
Collect stamps at booths you’re likely visiting anyway and get entered to win some great giveaways—including this year’s grand prize: a foldable Honda electric scooter.
You’re already walking the floor. Now it might carry you.
Come see and talk to Elvis and Barb at all these amazing shows coming up in 2026*
- Cal-Lab Association Meeting in Chicago Feb 19-20 https://cal-lab.org/
- LMT Lab Day Chicago Feb 19-21 https://lmtmag.com/lmtlabday
- Dental Lab Association of Texas Meeting in Dallas Apr 9-11 https://members.dlat.org/
- exocad Insights in Mallorca, Spain Apr 30 - May 1 https://exocad.com/insights-2026
This week we finally sit down with the one and only Matthew Douglas — technician, educator, denture-setting machine, former Affordable legend, past DLAT president, and all-around force of nature out of Texas.
Matt’s story starts with baseball. A promising career cut short by a hip injury (the “Bo Jackson thing,” as he calls it) led him to find a different path — one that started at TSTI in Waco and ended up shaping thousands of dentures, dozens of labs, and one of the fastest-growing state dental lab associations in the country.
From living in an RV at the end of an airport runway while in school… to learning how to tear down porcelain ovens and rebuild lathes… to mastering ambidextrous denture setups with a soldering iron (yes, really), Matt built his foundation the old-school way. And he built it fast.
We dive deep into his 12-year run with Affordable Dentures — managing high-production labs doing 60+ arches a day, training technicians across the country, helping open over 200 sites, and eventually becoming a regional leader. He shares what it takes to build systems that move that kind of volume — staggered lunches, zero idle time, and a whole lot of hustle.
From there, Matt takes us through Barksdale Dental Lab, the early days of All-on-4, learning analog conversion workflows before digital streamlined everything, and why zirconia has changed the long-term game for full-arch restorations.
When Matt returned to Texas and got involved with the Dental Laboratory Association of Texas (DLAT), the show had about a dozen booths. Today? Over 100. He breaks down how restructuring leadership, empowering the right people, removing outside management costs, and reinvesting in members transformed DLAT into one of the strongest state meetings in the country.