Clay Ponder, Owner, SCP Dental Lab, Mobile, AL

Having worked in a corporate laboratory environment for six years, Clay Ponder felt underappreciated and also wanted to provide a higher level of patient care so, at the beginning of 2021, he opened SCP Dental Lab, a removable lab in Mobile, AL.

He started out with the bare minimum of supplies and equipment in a 9' by 5' utility room located under his carport; it was cramped and uncomfortably hot in the summer and cold in the winter. After a year and a half, he enclosed the carport and moved the lab into the 450-square-foot space.

He recently hired a part-time technician who works on Sundays and bought a scanner and is outsourcing C&B work. His wife, Mandi, has left her nursing position and now works with him in the lab.

LMT: What have been your biggest startup hurdles?

Ponder: Opening my own lab was really scary, especially considering I’ve only been a technician for six years. Plus, the 75-hour...