LSU School of Dentistry

Dr. W. Ben Johnson Honored at LSUSD

Dr. William “Ben” Johnson was honored at the Committee of 100 event in November for his support of the LSUHSC School of Dentistry (LSUSD). An endodontist and an LSUSD visiting professor, he is recognized internationally as a successful inventor, entrepreneur, and founder of Tulsa Dental Company.

In 2001, Dr. Johnson contributed a generous gift to establish three professorships in the LSUSD Department of Endodontics to help attract and retain quality faculty. He believes strongly in investing in education to ensure that students receive the best possible education, and because many new advancements in the field of dentistry come from faculty. Besides giving financial support, he lectures and instructs LSUSD endodontic postgraduates annually.

Dentistry almost happened by default for Ben. “When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, doctor, lawyer, or Indian chief just didn’t sound right,” he said. “So I said a dentist.” He attended the University of Tulsa on a football scholarship, served in Vietnam, and received his D.D.S. and endodontic certificate from the Baylor University School of Dentistry. In private practice in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the early `70s, he developed a new technique for filling root canals. This technique was published and then included in a revision of a prominent endodontic textbook in the `80s, and colleagues encouraged him to make his innovation commercially available. He filed for patents, conducted market research, and approached companies but had no success, so he secured investors and started Tulsa Dental Company. Today, Dentsply-Tulsa Dental is a multimillion-dollar subsidiary of Dentsply-Caulk. Dr. Johnson is still involved, focusing primarily on new product evaluation and development.

His entrepreneurial spirit isn’t confined to dentistry either. Years ago, he began to devote more time to his favorite hobby, fishing (doctor’s orders), and noticed that the metal frames of spinner baits would be better if they were made of nickel titanium instead of stainless steel -- the same concept he used to develop instrumentation for Tulsa Dental Company in the early years. “Nickel titanium works better, has more vibration, doesn’t get bent out of shape and lasts longer,” he said. “I developed the new lure, called it the Terminator Spinner Bait, started a company, and now it is one of the best-selling lures in the world.”

He is also very enthusiastic about his most recent role as a dental educator and holds several faculty positions at schools nationwide. He shares his expertise with students and encourages them to be creative, to ask questions, to analyze current methods, and to determine if something can be done better. He adheres to the saying, “Study principles, not methods, for a man who understands principles can devise his own methods.” Therefore, he doesn’t start with the answer but with identifying the problem, he said.

To stress that point, he lightheartedly stated his admiration for the guy who developed Post-it Notes. “I’m sure he was probably trying to develop something to bond a spaceship or something together and he came up with this idea by accident,” he said. “It was probably serendipity. Serendipity has certainly figured into my life as well.”

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