Personal Care Dentistry

Dr. Walter Hunt of Personal Care Dentistry in Roseville, MN has been a long-time customer of North American Banking Company. He purchased his practice in 1977 and has expanded it five times since then, growing to a practice that sees up to 100 patients every day. His son Kyle joined the practice in 2014. 

We spoke with the Hunts about Personal Care Dentistry and the role North American Banking Company has played in their success.

Q: Taking that step from being a dentist then to deciding to start your own practice—what decisions and thoughts led you in that direction?
Walter:  I got out of dental school and I came to work for a dentist in this building who had decided he didn’t want to run the practice himself. He had actually retired from the practice but he was having guys come in and work it for him. I started here in April of 1977 and at the time I was working a couple of days a week for him. He had other associates working the other three days. Over that summer, the other associates left and I picked up their days. So by September, I was working the practice full time. 

In mid-September on a Wednesday, the doctor came in and informed me that he had sold the practice to someone else and that Friday would be my last day. So I was a little upset—I had a kid at home and a house to pay for. So I went back and looked at my contract to see if he should pay me two weeks severance or something and I found in the contract in one of the paragraphs that if he sold the practice, I had the first right of refusal. I had two days to think about it and I thought, “Yes, I can do this. I can run this practice. I’ve already been working with the patients. “ A lot of patients had been leaving the practice because they were seeing a different guy every time they came in for the past two years, so it was on kind of a downhill slide. But I just saw a lot of potential and I just believed in myself. So I informed him two days later that he was selling the practice to me and not the other guy. 

So two weeks later I signed the papers and I owned the practice. I kind of fell into it but it was something that I knew I was going to do eventually. I knew I wasn’t going to be a worker for someone else. It’s just not in my genes. I want to run the show. 

Q: What do you like best about working with North American Banking Company?
Walter:  What I like best is they listen, they try to get all of the facts, they try to understand and they just make the process easy for me. They are really interested in my success.  But I just feel like they a truly a partner when we go into these things. I just feel like I can go to them anytime and it’s not an adversarial relationship. I get a fast decision. Over the years we have worked enough together where I think they trust me.  When Kyle said he wanted to join the practice, that’s when I went over to North American Banking Company and said “Guys, we need to get bigger.” And we did!

Kyle: They really treat you like you’re part of their family which is great because it kind of mirrors the culture that we’ve tried to bring up here in our office.

Walter: Over the years and through the five expansions, they’ve just been wonderful. We wouldn’t have our practice without them.