Lasting Impressions | Fall 2014

26 © LASTING IMPRESSIONS Glenn Krieger , D.D.S., FAGD, admits his journey from being a successful dentist to a dental student at the CDM is a bit unusual. What began as a career working in his father’s insurance-driven dental practice in West Babylon, New York, finds him 22 years later at Nova Southeastern University’s College of Dental Medicine, perhaps the oldest orthodontics resident in the United States. His “true” den- tal education began when he moved to Seattle, Washington, from Long Island in 1997, although he had graduated five years earlier from the University of Buffalo School of Dental Medicine. “People who today are among the biggest names in continuing education in the United States were growing their names back then— John Kois, Frank Spear, Dave Matthews, Vincent Kokich, Roger West, John West. Seattle was becoming the mecca of dental education in the United States,” said Krieger, 46. But before he left New York, Krieger made a phone call that would change his life. People he knew told him to contact Michael Cohen, D.D.S., M.S.D., a periodontist and founder of the Seattle Study Club, which was a small organization of dentists committed to continuing education. When Krieger came to Seattle, Cohen took him for coffee and asked, “Where do you see yourself in dentistry?” Krieger told Cohen, “I’ve been out of school about five years and know most of what I need to know,” looking back on himself as a “brash New Yorker.” The two men still look back at that first meeting and laugh. “I probably was as good as the average Joe, but I didn’t know what I needed to learn if I wanted to be where I wanted to be,” Krieger said. “Here’s this leader in dental education, and I’m telling him I know most of what I need to know, and he’s being very gracious about it.” Student Impressions Return to dental school puts a new career in focus. Glenn Krieger concentrates on his patient, Michael Gigliotti, 18. By Arnie Rosenberg