The air rotor drill and Larry Cohen both hit the scene around the same time in the late 1950s.

Each has had a profound influence on dentistry. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine the industry’s recent past without them—and as Larry turns 90, the tributes have poured in.

By Howard Gensler

EVERY YEAR for a decade, Incisal Edge has set out to identify the 32 Most Influential People in Dentistry—the leaders most strongly shaping where the profession goes next. We assemble each list on considerations of impact, reach and relevance . . . and this year we’re making room for one more.

Larry Cohen is our unofficial No. 33—not because the math demanded it but because our hearts did. Larry turned 90 on February 11, and like that milestone, his decades-long influence on dentistry is quantifiable. As chairman of Benco Dental, the publisher of this magazine, he helped transform the company from a strong regional distributor into a potent national force.

This story is also personal, though, for Incisal Edge would not exist without Larry Cohen. He believed in this magazine in the late 1990s when it was still just an idea, championing a publication that treats dentistry as a business, sure, but also as art, as culture and as a calling. He’s a familiar voice to readers via Larry’s Collection, the dental tools-of-yesteryear column that ends every issue.

Larry—known to all, even his children and grandkids, by his first name only, like Beyoncé—took over Benco from its founder (his father, Ben) in 1959 and piloted it for 34 years. In 1993, he passed the halogen curing light to his sons, Chuck and Rick, and assumed an advisory role. He has been a titan of the profession for more than 60 years.

He comes by his acumen honestly. “Even as a young man my father knew he wanted to own his own business,” Larry says of Ben, whose formal education topped out after sixth grade. “But the only thing he really understood that to mean was to own a store. That’s what immigrants did.”

Ben Cohen got into selling dental equipment almost by accident but proved ideally suited to the work, going door to door tirelessly to move product. “Every dentist was a potential customer,” Larry recalls, “and it was an interesting difference between sitting in a store and waiting for some poor schmuck to walk in.”

As a young man, Larry would make sales calls with his father on Saturdays. He later studied accounting at Wilkes College in northeast Pennsylvania (he’s a prominent donor to the school, now called Wilkes University) and attended Columbia University, where he earned his MS in business in 1958. A Wall Street firm offered him $10,000 a year—about $120,000 in today’s money—but Ben had called and told him three of his employees had offered to buy Benco. “Don’t sell,” Larry urged him. Then he came home. To a job that paid $75 a week, less than half of what he could have made in the canyons of high finance.

There was no better investment than self-belief, however. When Larry took over, Benco was doing a little more than $200,000 in annual sales. When a bout with cancer led him to pass the baton to his sons in 1993, sales were north of $100 million.

Larry’s timing had long been fortuitous: 1959 also witnessed the introduction of the air rotor drill, a critical early tool in the midcentury growth of modern dentistry. As the years passed and the industry changed, Benco expanded into practice development. “We help dentists sell their practices,” Larry explains. “We help them negotiate fees with insurance companies. Insurance companies dictate the fees, and some dentists don’t understand that they can negotiate. We do that for them.”

Dr. Thomas Balshi, a prosthodontist, has known Larry for more than five decades; they met when the doctor was a student at Temple University’s dental school. Says Dr. Balshi’s wife, Joanne: “When we opened our dental clinic, laboratory and teaching center in the 1980s in what was once a racquetball club, Benco worked day and night to complete the enormous installation so we were able to open on time. Larry is not just another great guy; he’s a legend.” (“I am very likeable,” Larry admits.)

Larry the Mensch

By Susan M. Evans

AS WE CELEBRATE Larry Cohen’s 90th birthday, we’re celebrating far more than a milestone—we’re celebrating a legacy of leadership, integrity and heart that has shaped Benco Dental and everyone fortunate enough to be part of it. “Just do the right thing by the customer, and everything else will work out,” Larry has always said. “If we don’t take care of the customer, the customer won’t take care of us.” This philosophy became the foundation of Benco Dental and remains the standard we live by today.

But never mind the business for now: Larry’s impact on me personally has been simple, yet profound: He believed in me. And when Larry Cohen believes in you, you don’t ever want to let him down.

When I joined Benco, I was young and raising a family. My husband had been severely injured while serving in the U.S. military. It was a defining moment in my life—I knew I had to step up and do whatever it took to keep my family moving forward.

Larry was in the office the day I arrived at Benco. He listened to my story, then paused. “You know,” he said, “I think we should give you a chance.” From that moment, everything changed. Larry consistently gave me opportunities to grow, to lead and to challenge myself. His confidence in me shaped my career and my life in ways I’ll always be grateful for.

One of my favorite Larry stories says it all. I had just returned from vacation when Larry called me into his office and said, “I want you to go into the equipment department and get those guys straightened out. Light a fire under their ass. I’m going to make you a manager—let’s see how you do.”

Happy 90th birthday, Larry. Your leadership, generosity and belief in people are your greatest legacy—and we are all better because of you.

Susan M. Evans is Benco Dental’s Senior Vice President of Equipment Sales and Partnerships.

Larry with Chuck (second from left), Dr. Allan Olitsky and his son Dr. Stephen Olitsky;

His sales strategy sought to ensure the best for his customers as well. A dentist once complained that prices had gotten a bit egregious of late, carping that he was spending too high a percentage of his revenue with Benco. “It’s not that my prices are too high,” Larry told him. “It’s that you’re not charging enough for your services.”

“That story has always stuck with me,” says Benj Cohen, 29, Chuck’s son, who runs Proton.ai, a business that uses artificial intelligence to streamline product distribution of the sort Benj’s great-grandfather (and namesake) could only have dreamed about. “Your job as a salesperson is to help your customer, and part of that sometimes is telling them that they don’t have it right,” he adds. “But you’re going to help them get it right because when they win, you win.”

Cutting the ribbon at Benco’s new showroom in Costa Mesa, California, in 2012;

Technological advances have vastly improved the patient experience as well, even for patients who are far more knowledgeable than your average chair po­tato. “I recently broke off a central tooth,” Larry says. “In half an hour, my dentist stuck a piece of plastic composite material onto the bottom of the tooth. You can’t even tell. It’s amazing. You could never do that kind of stuff years ago.”

Charles, Larry, Rick and Sally back in the day;

Larry hasn’t officially run Benco since the early Bill Clinton years. But he still sits in on meetings, chats with longtime customers and knows more about the business of dentistry, we’d wager, than just about anyone. “These days, you’ve got to be big to survive,” he says, “and we’re getting to that level.”

His use of we is instinctual, and telling. His forecast for Benco’s next century: “We must have 40 people in our computer department, and we’re writing software all the time. We’ve got sophisticated ways to order supplies and equipment. These small guys, they can’t afford the computer department. It’s hard for them to compete. So we’re in good shape. Dentists are always going to need somebody like us.”

The decline of the independent practitioner in the wake of the remorseless advance of dental support organizations (DSOs) and investment firms has been one of the biggest developments to roil the industry in recent decades. Larry cites Aspen Dental and its ilk as the primary game changers.

Celebrating the big guy’s 90th birthday at Benco’s home office in Pittston, Pennsylvania, in February.

“Now all these dentists are hooking up. They get 50 offices to­gether and want to buy as a 50-office block,” he marvels. “We have customers now that spend a million dollars a year, they have so many offices. It’s a whole different game.” He pauses, pondering his beloved industry and his Mt. Rushmore–worthy place in it, his mind wandering perhaps to 1959. “Dentistry has become big business,” he says. “And it all started with the air rotor drill.”