Donald Park and the art of buying a business without losing its people

The first business Donald Park bought with Smile Innovations Group was already old enough to have a history worth protecting. Shanto Dental Ceramics had been founded in Vancouver in 1970. By the time the acquisition took effect on June 1, 2018, its managing partners had spent decades in the trade. They wanted room to concentrate on craftsmanship. Park and his co-founder, Manny Padda, were offering help with the business surrounding it.

That distinction explains a good deal about Park’s work. A laboratory can be purchased in a transaction. The accumulated knowledge of its people requires a longer conversation. Shanto’s owners were looking at rapidly changing digital workflows and asking how to keep pace. Park saw a business with an established culture, technical skill and room to grow. His new company began with that overlap.

There is an unusually personal question inside this kind of deal: what happens to the thing you have spent your working life building? Park’s career at Smile has repeatedly brought him into contact with owners facing that question. Their businesses have names, histories and colleagues who have worked together for years. The purchase agreement has to make financial sense. Monday morning has to make sense, too.

A manufacturing executive meets a succession problem

Before Smile, Park had held senior positions at Etkon USA, Institut Straumann AG, Biomet Orthopedics, Biomet 3i and DenMat. He brought experience from businesses where technology had to become repeatable production. As head of North American operations for Straumann CAD/CAM, he built a manufacturing centre. Computer-aided design and manufacturing were already part of his professional vocabulary long before he began assembling his own laboratory network.

At DenMat, as vice-president of laboratory and technology, he managed more than 180 employees and delivered annual revenue of US$24 million, alongside improvements in margins. Those figures belong to that earlier role. They give his later acquisition strategy a practical background: he had experience running a substantial operation, with the staffing and production demands that accompany it.

Park co-founded Smile in 2018 with Padda as executive chairman and himself as CEO. Their starting point was an existing workshop with existing expertise. It was a consequential choice. Buying a laboratory gave the company a working business and a group of people who knew the trade. It also gave Park obligations to a past he had not created.

Quality first. Then work backwards.

By November 2019, Smile was acquiring JT Ceramics, which would operate under Shanto. Its founder, Charlie Lee, welcomed the attention paid to people and processes. Park offered a compact account of his priorities: “we need to start with quality and then work backwards”. It is an operator’s sentence. Begin with the standard of the finished work, then consider how the organisation should support it.

The company’s physical operation was changing, too. Production and operations had been brought into a newly built facility. Park said the footprint had more than tripled, with an adjacent property providing scope for further expansion. That was a statement about space, rather than revenue or the number of laboratories. Growth had acquired a floor plan.

The deals did not all follow an identical organisational pattern. JT Ceramics came under Shanto. Later acquisitions would retain separate operations and management structures. Park’s network could contain both arrangements. The distinction matters because a promise to preserve expertise can coexist with changes to where and how work gets done.

“we need to start with quality and then work backwards”

Donald Park, on the JT Ceramics acquisition, 2019

A further example came with Echelon Dental Laboratories in December 2021. Founder Loris Campagnolo described centralised manufacturing and digital workflows as previously difficult to access because of resources and cost. Joining Shanto’s expanded facility opened a route into those capabilities. For Park, the transaction brought a business with technical knowledge and established customer relationships into the group.

Ultima Dental Laboratories followed in August 2022. Its founder, Westley Chow, had spent more than 38 years in the industry and still enjoyed the work. He wanted to concentrate on the craft he loved as he joined Shanto. These were acquisitions involving people with considerable experience and a continuing appetite to use it. Retirement was only one possible next chapter.

The owner stays in the picture

Capital Ceramics, acquired in March 2021, carried Park’s company into Edmonton. Founder Steve Yu had built the business over four decades. Keeping the leadership style and culture for existing team members mattered to his decision. The laboratory would operate independently within the portfolio and retain its management structure. Park, in welcoming it, emphasised the longstanding team and the legacy Yu had built.

In May that year, Milident joined from Gatineau, Quebec. The business would continue operating separately, and its management team would remain. Founder Pierre Rozon moved into an executive vice-president role in business development. Selling the business created another job for its founder within the wider organisation. Park’s interest included Milident’s digital approach, its technical work and the experience it provided to customers.

Militech, a sales, service and repair business for dental handpieces, joined in August 2021. Former co-owner Chuck Burley continued in sales. The acquisition extended the group’s services and distribution possibilities beyond its core laboratory work. Once again, a previous owner stayed involved. The people who understood a business were part of what the network was acquiring.

Financing helped make the national ambition concrete. In June 2021, Smile announced debt and equity financing and a partnership with Royal Bank of Canada, intended to integrate existing operations and fund future acquisitions. The announcement did not disclose a transaction value. It did establish that the next stage required financial capacity as well as a list of willing sellers.

A map grows, one local relationship at a time

Park’s expansion also included opening locations. In April 2021, Shanto extended into Kelowna with a production facility called Shanto OKGN, managed by Mark Vickers. Park pointed to retiring laboratory owners and rising demand for digital workflows. The opportunity involved geography as much as ownership: a Vancouver business could establish a closer presence in the Okanagan.

Atlantic Canada added another set of relationships. In May 2023, Smile partnered with Halifax-based Novident and welcomed founder Frank Nutar and his team. In October, Masters Dental Lab joined through a partnership involving Novident. Masters founder Henry Hintze would continue contributing his expertise to the combined laboratory. Here, the network’s growth involved strengthening an existing regional operation.

Dental Crafts in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland, followed with a partnership announced on December 31, 2023. The laboratory had been founded by Craig and Tina’s parents and had served its customers for more than 37 years. Park welcomed Craig Finch, Blair O’Brien and Tina O’Brien, alongside their team. In a business built through acquisitions, family history still had a place in the introduction.

The next generation needs a place to practise

Park’s attention to people also appears at a smaller scale. At Shanto, Julia Izumi returned after a two-year break and became production supervisor. She had previously worked at the bench for more than a decade. Her familiarity with colleagues helped her move into management, where she worked on production flow, materials, workflows and team development.

Park praised her willingness to learn the business side as the laboratory grew and added services. He connected the development of future laboratories with the development of future leaders. Izumi’s example gives that ambition a recognisable shape: an experienced craftsperson taking on responsibility for how the wider operation runs. A bigger facility needs people ready to manage it.

The senior team was growing as well. Trevor Maurer joined Smile’s board in February 2023, bringing experience leading and expanding businesses. David Miller became chief operating officer in January 2024, after a long career at DSG/NDX. His responsibilities included improvement initiatives and putting strategic plans into practice. Park linked the appointment to expansion and new acquisition opportunities.

In May 2024, Second Nature Dental Laboratories in Markham joined through a partnership with its founder, Otto Sabo. Tech-Alliage in Laval followed in November. The latter would retain its identity, operate independently and keep its management team, supported by Smile’s infrastructure. Six years after Shanto, familiar concerns about technology, resources and continuity were still shaping the terms.

Ottawa, and another Monday morning

On September 30, 2025, Smile announced a new Milident laboratory in Ottawa, opening the following day. The expansion brought an existing group business into another location and emphasised closer access and personal technical support. Park described the value of combining a local presence with the capabilities of a national network.

That opening returns his story to the question inside the first acquisition. How does a business gain room to grow while keeping the relationships that made it useful? Park has pursued several answers: separate operations, shared facilities, new locations, continuing roles for founders and opportunities for experienced staff to become managers.

For an owner, a next chapter can mean handing over administration, taking a different role or spending more time on skilled work. For Park, it means another set of people whose knowledge has to survive the transaction. The corporate map keeps growing. At each address, the work still needs someone who knows how to do it.