How I Achieved My American Dream

My love of dental technology began when I was 14 and living in my home country of El Salvador. While helping my mom with her food cart, I delivered to a local dentist’s office who had an in-office lab. I was fascinated by the technicians making teeth and asked if I could learn more; before long, I was working during school breaks as the lab’s delivery person.

Despite the fact that I had to walk miles to deliver cases, it was a turning point in my life. In between deliveries, I began to work at the bench on cases. William Castro, one of the in-house technicians, became my mentor and surrogate father. I worked for him for nearly a decade and by the time I left El Salvador for the U.S. in 1994, I was well versed in all aspects of the laboratory and knew it was the career for me.

When I first arrived, I worked a couple of odd jobs—from dishwashing to landscaping—before I landed my first position at a lab in the metal finishing department....