Periodontist Serving San Antonio and Surrounding Areas

Bio in Brief:

- Diplomate of the American Board of Periodontics
- 25 years of clinical and teaching experience
- Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) USAF
- Lectures Nationally, Blogs Routinely (MySA.com)
- Former Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Voxelogix Corporation, San Antonio, Texas
- Developed the surgical and business protocols for the NeXsmile procedure

Broader Background:

Upon graduation in 1973 from Granite Hills High School in El Cajon, California, Ben attended the La Sierra Campus of Loma Linda University in Riverside, California (It is now La Sierra University, but he states he had nothing to do with this). He majored in English, because he reasoned that being a Pre-Dent student would provide him enough science classes. English, he thought, would provide a more balanced college experience. After a little more than two years, Ben was accepted to the dental school at Loma Linda, and so never earned his English degree. He has no plans to go back and get it now.

Ben was in the last group accepted into the United States Air Force as a dental student on the Health Professions Scholarship Program. So he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant as a freshman dental student. Then the scholarship program stopped accepting dental students for 18 years. He had nothing to do with this either. In Ben’s junior year, he won the schools table clinic competition which enabled him to travel to Dallas, Texas his senior year to present the table clinic and represent the school. This trip gave him the opportunity to meet with the Air Force dental assignment’s officer, a Colonel Richardson, and discuss where he might be stationed upon graduation. Col Richardson asked Ben if he had considered going into one of the Air Force’s General Practice Residency programs. This was a one-year program and would simply extend his military obligation by one year. Ben said that he had not considered it. So Col Richardson countered with a suggestion that Ben consider Turkey as an assignment. He said that the basis were improving even though he wasn’t sure about electricity in the base housing area — but then, the base housing likely had a waiting list and it might be best for Ben to consider living in a nearby village. At this point, Ben reconsidered the GPR program, applied and was accepted.

The interesting thing about the one year Air Force GPR program at Barksdale, AFB, Shreveport, LA was that it turned out to be one of the best professional experiences of his then brief professional career. He believes he doubled his skills and knowledge from what he had just learned in four years from this one year program. From Barksdale, Ben and his family moved to Hahn AB, Germany where he practiced general dentistry until 1985.

In 1985 Ben and the family moved to San Antonio, Texas where he began a three-year periodontics residency at Wilford Hall. As part of this training, he spent one full year at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio taking classes and doing research. The second two years were spent at Wilford Hall in clinical training. He graduated in 1988 with a master’s degree from this combined program. His thesis had to do with the utilization of a flow cytometer to detect plaque colonies (don’t ask).

Their next move was to Wichita Falls, Texas and Sheppard Air Force Base, where Ben was one of two clinical periodontists on staff in the clinic and as a part of an Advanced Education in General Dentistry (AEGD) program. This was a wonderful experience because Ben could now teach other young dentists in the same way he was trained at Barksdale. While in this assignment, Ben became a diplomate (board certified) of the American Board of Periodontics.

In 1993, the Youngs moved back to San Antonio, where Ben went on staff as a periodontist in the department that trained him. His unique duty assignment during this time was to oversee the Air Force equivalent to a dental hygiene program for enlisted personnel. In addition to this, he was the dental infection control officer overseeing three clinics and about 150 dentists.

In 1996 Ben was offered an early (15 year) retirement because the Air Force was attempting to thin the Lieutenant Colonel rank in order to improve the rank structure within the dental corps. Because his two daughters by then were in high school, Ben and Linda decided it was best for the family that he retire rather than be moved another time.

In 1997 Ben went into private practice in San Antonio. From 1997-1999 he was part-time faculty at the dental school. When his daughters started college, he had to give this up.

In 2006, Ben became reacquainted with Stephen Schmitt. They met in the Air Force when Steve was chairman of the prosthodontic department and Ben was on staff in the periodontics department. Steve had been working on a research project funded by a National Science Foundation grant for a number of years and was now interested in investigating how his work might help solve some clinical problems having to do with immediate delivery of dental implants and new teeth for patients with failing dentitions. This began the work which resulted in what is now known as the Nexsmile procedure.

Using his many years of experience as a periodontist, Ben now works with general dentists throughout San Antonio, New Braunfels, Kerrville, Castroville and other areas of Texas to provide patients with dental implants and periodontal surgery.