Centenarian Technician Reflects on 82-Year Career

In 1932, 15-year-old Earl Jacobs began working at his brother’s small denture lab after school; it was the beginning of a career that would span eight decades. Today, now 101 and retired in Hendersonville, NC, Jacobs is one of the oldest living CDTs in the country.

After working at a handful of labs across the South, Jacobs enlisted in the Navy during World War II and was assigned to be a technician in the dental laboratory at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Chicago. “From 1944 to 1946, I worked with about 100 other technicians. We turned out 2,500 cases every month for the men who were there for boot camp before they got shipped out,” says Jacobs, who has an incredible recall for dates and facts. 

After the service, Jacobs married, started a family and became the Manager at Davidson Dental Lab and Supply Co. in Baton Rouge,...