Industry Veteran's Gamble Pays Off

In 2006, Mike Mellon, CDT, a 24-year industry veteran, moved from Delaware to Central Florida to take an exciting new position as the department manager for a large laboratory. But two years later, he found himself out of work, yet another victim of the recession.

While searching for a new position, the owner of a local denture lab offered Mellon a deal: "He couldn't give me a job but he was willing to rent me a 500-sq-ft space in his lab if I would do his partial denture frameworks," he says. Mellon took him up on his offer and four weeks later opened M&J Partials--named for himself and his wife, Jodie, who co-owns the lab--using $45,000 of his personal savings to invest in equipment and supplies.

Pleased with the frameworks he received, the owner began to spread the word about Mellon's services to other labs and, as a result, M&J Partials began to grow. By the beginning of 2010, Mellon had hired his first employee on a part-time basis--his stepson, Kent, also...