Kaila Nakanishi, CDT, 30

Kaila Nakanishi, CDT, never planned to join the family business, Nakanishi Dental Lab in Bellevue, WA. She went to college for interior design and, after graduating, came home and helped out in the front office at the lab while she looked for full-time work.

After joining a local design firm, she continued to work at the lab, which was short-staffed at the time, getting in at 3am and working until 10am, before starting her day at the design company. But after one of the lab managers encouraged her to try stain and glaze, a department where she could really use her creative skills and understanding of color theory, Kaila was hooked. “Something just stuck and I became a total tooth geek,” she says. Not long after, she began working at the lab full time.

A CDT in Ceramics just like her father, Dave, the lab’s current President, and her late grandfather, H. Ray, the Founder of the lab, Nakanishi manages the digital side of the business, researching new products...