Frameworks-Only Niche Keeps Lab in High Demand

Nick Hayden is as ambitious as he is industrious. He lives in a quiet, wooded suburb of Pittsburgh with his wife and two small kids.  His one-room dental laboratory closely resembles anyone’s dream of a cozy mountain retreat and is just up the road from his house. Way up.

The laboratory sits atop a hill on his parents’ 70-acre apiary farm, housed in a wing of their home, which blends seamlessly with the thick surrounding woods. As I step out of our RV well past 6 p.m. last October,  Nick greets me with a freshly made jar of honey, a gift from his bee-keeping folks.

During the day, Nick works part-time at UPS. His hours are enough to provide his family with UPS’ excellent health insurance policy and give him the opportunity to get some physical exercise and be out and about.

By mid-afternoon, however, he’s hard at work in the lab, where he’s built quite a following for his expertise in frameworks and is in high demand. He opened...