My Career and Life in the Lab by Chris Morrison

I will begin my story at the time when David Gergen moved back to Arizona from Texas. He bought a house in my neighborhood. I was only 12 years old back then. David had a basketball court in his driveway, and he would be outside shooting jump shots and playing basketball by himself mostly.  One day, I walked down the street to introduce myself, and he invited me to shoot baskets along with him. Little did I know, this encounter would form my life & my career and have a major influence on my life goals through adulthood.   

 My father, Rick Morrison, was a school teacher in Arizona. He was very strict on me with my grades but also a caring and wonderful dad.  He wasn't a “traditional school teacher,” as he had long hair and looked like a hippie; it was actually appropriate for the time. Needless to say, as one can imagine, the music around the Morrison household music was a lot of the Grateful Dead ,Tom Petty, John Lennon, The Beatles and Bob Dylan.  So much to my surprise, the music David was playing while we were shooting was quite similar— that of John Lennon , The Beatles ,Tom Petty and Bob Dylan.  

 David Gergen was definitely an athlete. He had long blonde hair like my father, but nobody was going to call him a hippie. Because of his athletic frame, he looked like an athlete with long hair.  For me, this was important because I'd always thought of my father as a hippie for having the long hair with the type of music he listened to, but then, there's David Gergen, our new neighbor, who was quite the same except he’s  clearly an athlete and very physically fit. So, this was a game changer for me. I realized people can look different but still be very similar in other ways. That notion really expanded my mind, and it was important for me at that young age to realize these things. David Gergen had lived in that house for 3 years, and he gave me my very first job. I was a delivery driver for Gergen's Orthodontic Lab. David also became friends with my father, and they would talk on the phone often. They had a lot more in common than I ever knew at the time. They both expected excellence in everything they did from teaching school to making Orthodontic Appliances, and they instill that into me profoundly.  That sense of excellence carried over into my life and my career. Moreover, the similarity that David and my father also built character in me; they’re two of the kindest people one can ever meet and they're both very giving individuals. They believe in doing right by others and holding to the highest standards.   

 After the summer was up and I had to go back to school,  I worked at the lab part-time until graduation. I then took another job at a steel mill and I worked there for a little while. The pay was better, but I didn't see a whole lot of opportunity there. I had relatives on the Police department and also at the Phoenix fire department. That whole time,  the words of the man I admired most and my father also rang them into my head were, “son, stick with David Gergen and you will go places. He is a winner and he will take you with him wherever he goes. He's a person who understands loyalty and that is the most valuable thing a person can have.” And, I learned that David truly is extremely loyal, and “will take you with him.” As father knows best, that was also the best advice my father ever gave me. 

  At Gergen's, we have a very strict policy about always doing the right thing. We always tell the truth, and own up to it when we make errors. But, we also learn from those errors and we dedicate ourselves to turning the appliances around in a timely manner ; that is so important to us. We have a 10-day turnaround policy, regardless of the appliance. At Gergen's, we believe in door to door 10-day service.  Over the years, even with our excellence in a 10 day turnaround timeframe, it's very sad how many people have died while we had their sleep appliance ready to be shipped back. We will get calls with doctors saying, “sorry the patient passed away …” and that really hits home! That really affects people when you're living it! We are thinking about their entire family, too. You feel the importance of turning the appliances around quickly and timely, as these are people's lives we're talking about!  

 At Gergen’s, we've worked with some of the world's finest orthodontists. Dr. Ricketts used to come in all the time and so did Steve Sabatino, Ron Roth and Paul Serrano. These are some of the finest Orthodontists who ever lived. Those guys absolutely demanded excellence and perfection. Believe me, we very much  aimed to please them. David did all the TMJ and the Sleep stuff in the second half of his career, so that left me in charge of all the Ortho. Dr. Paul Serrano and Dr. Steve Sabatino, who are also both personal friends of David, demanded that level of excellence, so the pressure was on to always do an exceptional job. As I worked my tail off to impress them,  I had been appointed head of the ortho department. Additionally, what I learned from working so closely with the two pioneering gentlemen is how much they cared for their patients. Both truly cared about doing the best possible job that they could do. David always pointed it out to me that in all the years he has known them, he's never seen one of their cases relapse. Not a single case! I learned so much from working with them. For example, I learned the importance of why a lower Hawley needs a double tuck to make it fit properly and the importance of relieving the acrylic on a wraparound on the distal of the sevens to allow settling . Over the years, it became very evident to me that these guys care so much about their patients, and it’s not surprising that both of them are recognized as incredible orthodontists in our nation.  In the spring of 2012, David called a very important meeting with me. His cousin Jason Wilson (the head of the sleep division), his son Johnny ( the head of the retainer division), and his son David (who was running the Illinois operation at the time) were all present at the meeting. He took us out to Ruth's Chris steakhouse for dinner, and he said he had a big announcement: that he was going to be making some extremely significant changes inside the company.  At the dinner he said, “I'm going to be leaving the lab to pursue the National Football League.  I have to do this, and I can't stay at the lab in order to pull it off. It needs to be a full-time commitment on my behalf, and over the next few months, I'm going to be choosing one of you to be the lab manager and to run this company." 

  I must admit I felt that I was best for the job, but at the same time, I was worried there was a lot of nepotism going on: his two sons and his cousin were members of his family , and I was the only non-family member. He said he would weigh personal relationships with girlfriends, wives, and friends who we associated with.   These were all factors that must be considered, because they’re very important when making a big management decision…. family and friends can be a great asset, but they can also be a huge deterrent.  

 I felt this was an opportunity that I had to put every ounce of my energy into, because I just knew Dave would land the NFL. He always gets what he sets his mind on.  My father's words rang through my head. "Dave will always treat you fairly. That's just the sort of guy he is. He'll choose talent and skill over family considerations. He wants the Company  to thrive, and not go bankrupt like so many companies that have been mismanaged due to nepotism and bad personnel choices. Some have clearly chased money instead of what’s right for customers, doctors and patients.  

 Ultimately, he chose me, he left me in charge of the entire laboratory.  The entire company was a 20 million a year endeavor.  It never had a sales person ever! It was only built on Dave's reputation for punctuality and making the  highest quality work in the industry (both sleep and orthodontics).  So I thought to myself, everything will remain the same. I can leave everybody in the places that they're at. We’re just not always going to have Dave in the building, but he will still be there for communication and things along those lines.  See, David Gergen is by far the finest technician I've ever seen in my entire life. Having Dave in lab is like having four or five excellent excellent technicians!  He's that good, and he's that fast.  I had to take over the sleep division as well, and that's when I genuinely felt the compassion and the empathy of people who suffer with sleep apnea. It’s a terrible problem, and I started working with some of the finest sleep apnea doctors in the country. The Dental icons, Dr’s Harry Sugg , Allen Bernstein and Elliot Alpher stressed the importance of turning the appliances around quickly because they told me, “these patients are experiencing a difference between life and death,“ and there has been a number of patients died while the appliances were still in the lab being fabricated. And, that only had to happen to me one time in the past before I realized the fact that “I must knock these things out faster and faster with quick turn around as this comes to a life and death matter and can very well mean that.” 

 Unfortunately, all 3 of those gentlemen have passed, and I have been taken it all in — I tell myself, just in the past few years, their losses to this field are immense, their impact on my life will never be forgotten, and they were so powerful, genuine and great people. And just when I thought there were no more people like Dr’s Sugg , Alpher and  Bernstein, then Dr. Jerry Hu walked right into my life. When Dr. Hu walked into my life, I immediately thought of those three great men. He is a man who demands excellence. He demands perfection, and he strives to be the best. He is an outstanding cosmetic dentist, and he also has an incredible understanding of pediatrics and orthodontics. Just the other day, he told me that the Herbst is the workhorse in the dental industry for mandibular advancement - oral appliance therapy. He said, “that's hands down the best oral appliance,” and he hadn't been a customer of ours until late, but after he used ours, he said “oh my God, your Herbst is so much better than that the other labs!” He continued, “it's just crazy how much better it is.” And, I explained it's because of the bites that he took and the records he took. Dr. Hu is a perfectionist and that translates to everything we do here, as we are different here at Gergen's than other labs. You see, Dave has worked with the world's finest doctors, and he's an artist himself. So, everything he does has that artistic touch to it, and he taught it to all of us how to figure the path of draw in the appliances we make. Furthermore, the splints he made were the Ricketts splints, and they were started with Dave working with Dr. Ricketts. And, as well as bionators and functionals, obviously, with all of them being done with Dave's techniques. They were all with Dave who originated them, and he taught those techniques to me. Therefore, it's been so great working with a guy like Dr. Jerry Hu who understands the techniques and clearly appreciates it. He sends to me pictures of the VA patients, some even disabled, who he had been working on, and their successes. Showing me the results in their sleep study using my appliances, that gave me goosebumps down my spine! He told me how easy the appliances fit, and it's because they're not having a machine just arbitrarily pick an undercut setting, and it’s so much better at Gergen’s as the appliances are hand done and evaluated with the human touch. He also thanked me that everything at Gergen's is handmade with that artistic talent and flair to it! He can feel and see the difference!  He said, “it’s like night and day to me and my patients are very happy, especially the TMD ones because unlike other labs who don’t know what they’re doing when they use dorsal fins that lock up the joint in pain patients, Gergens Lab knows how to properly design the right type of oral appliance.” Furthermore, we at Gergen's really like helping our veterans! We like helping people with excellent turnaround time, and we feel that it is ridiculous for timeframes longer than 10 days for such a serious medical issue of sleep apnea. It is so great to have doctors that feel the same way. Dr. Hu understands the value of commitment, excellence, and loyalty.  We at Gergen's embrace those same principles and we earn that genuine trust from talented doctors like him. 

   Moreover, that is why we have earned the dedication, respect, and loyalty of our customers; and, that is why I love my career at Gergen’s Orthodonic Lab. Dr. Hu reminds me so much of the late great Dr. Harry L. Sugg.  Dr. Sugg had at one time the biggest dental practice in the entire United States with 26 operatories under one roof and 13 associates. He was a dental icon. Recently, Dr. Hu was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Asia Pacific Dental Sleep Fellowship Meeting in Singapore. With all the accomplishments Dr. Hu had done in his life as a dentist, the entire Continent of Asia and including Australia, had their leaders show up at the fellowship meeting to work with him in collaboration and dedication in shaping the future of dental sleep medicine worldwide. I am honored to work with him because he puts in all the hard work, dedication commitment like Dr. Sugg did, and those principles also completely match what we value at Gergen’s lab.  

   Given the important responsibilities that Dave had assigned to me, I get why it’s important to value the people who understand loyalty and truth in hard genuine work. When Dave went through COVID, I remember that David had two variances of the COVID-19 virus in his body at the same time. He had both the Delta and the Texas El Paso variants. The El Paso one attacks the heart. It sent his heart into a-fib and if that wasn't enough, he also had the Delta variant at the same time. At a less than 1% survival rate, it seemed like he had Mt. Everest to climb. So, David had to fight for his life with the virus attacking his body from his lungs to his heart. During that time, it was very disheartening to see the lab accounts that had left. Those doctors and colleagues didn’t even bother to ask how David was doing. These were people he thought were his friends, and now, I see that he was wrong about all of them! His true friends, however, like  Dr. Harry Sugg and Mr. Collins were the opposite.  Dr. Sugg started prayer groups all around the country for David. Remember, he was in the hospital for about a month, being intubated and on a ventilator.  Dr. Harry Sugg never gave up hope, neither did Mr. Andre Collins, the executive director of the NFLPA. Mr. Collins to this day is also one of David’s very best friends. Dr. Suggs had amassed a giant prayer group for David with over one thousand people. When Dave came back from COVID, he sure as heck did so with an awakening of who his real friends were! He literally “died a few times” along the way, but he came back each time. I am so grateful he's here with us today.  I learned something then, and that’s all about priceless relationships we develop and foster with those who hold true to the core values that our lab embraces. We all live one life, and I can see why David Gergen values Dr. Hu so much. They both strive for excellence, and they both understand the meaning of friendship and loyalty. 

Chris Morrison
Head of Orthodontics, Gergen's Orthodontic Lab