Building a strong presence

At age 15, Ryan Kinn walked into the office of Dr. Tim Sulken at the intersection of Main and Fremont streets in Fostoria and said he'd heard the dentist needed someone to clean the business's aquarium. Along with that, the youngster, too, thought he might someday want to be a dentist. Fast forward 15 years and the roles of Kinn and Sulken have flip-flopped. Sulken, 64, is now the one entering the office once a week to help, and he's also eyeing full retirement in the near future. Kinn, 30, is now the owner of the practice, having learned much about dentistry and business from Sulken and looking to maintain and later build on a strong presence in Fostoria. "It's very special," Kinn said of owning and operating a practice in his hometown. "Being a greater part of the community now, it's an honor. I'm happy to be part of the downtown revitalization. Downtown's really starting to look nice and I'm happy to be a part of that." Obviously, Kinn's experience in Sulken's office was a positive one. "I even did that through college, so I did that for six or seven years," said Kinn, who received an undergraduate degree at Ohio State. "Then I went to dental school at the University of Kentucky and it wasn't really an option to come home every weekend and clean it. So, someone else cleans the fish tank now. "That got my foot in the door of exploring dentistry. It allowed me to be here and do some shadowing to see if it's something I really wanted to do." Sulken noted that Kinn graduated as valedictorian of his dentistry class at Kentucky while joking that he was not so fortunate to have done so many years earlier at Ohio State. "He wanted to work in Fostoria and I was going to need a dentist someday, and I actually told him that he graduated a couple of years too early because I wasn't going to be ready to retire when he graduated. But I decided to slow down after Ryan had been in the practice for a while, with my 64th birthday coming up." Kinn was an associate and then a partner in the practice after joining Sulken in 2018. "Our plan had always been, when Dr. Sulken was ready to retire or getting close to it, I would buy the practice and we'd basically switch roles and he would be an associate until he wanted to fully retire," Kinn said. "We started talking last August or September about the plans for me in buying the practice, and on Feb. 22, we signed the papers for the sale of the practice. We signed the papers on 2/22/22 at 2:22 that day. It was Dr. Sulken's (64th) birthday, so he said to sign with all of those numbers lining up, it's time to move on." With owning a practice comes more than being a dentist, and Kinn said he's been fortunate to learn from Sulken and have a solid team already in place. "A lot of (dental) students ask why they don't teach us more business-related things," Kinn said. "And their response is: 'That's not our job. Our job is to teach you dentistry.' "It's up to us to learn how to run a business if that's the route we're going to go. Thankfully, I've been here for four years, so I've learned a lot from Dr. Sulken and (have) just done a lot of my own research. That's made it pretty seamless so far. Things are running pretty smoothly. "One thing I've found with business is having the right advisors -- having a good accountant, having a good dental advisor, a good lawyer, a good financial advisor -- and having these advisors who are willing to work together so we're all trying to achieve the same goal. That's been one of the biggest things (that have) helped me so far. ... My focus is on dentistry first." Sulken, who has worked in the same building since signing on with Dr. Glenn Williams to begin a 38-year career, said the practice is in "excellent" hands with Kinn. "I think he's got a real good handle on everything," Sulken said. "Three and a half years -- that's a long associateship. I think he's learned everything he needs. It's a whole new thing and it's really neat. When I graduated and I started with Dr. Williams, he had one front desk, one chair-side assistant and I had a hygienist two days a week. Now, we have four assistants, three at the front desk, four hygienists. It's quite a difference over 38 years. "He's excellent. Very bright. Very kind. St. Wendelin and Fostoria kid. Just got married to a Tiffin girl. I have nothing I can say bad about Ryan."