Panoramic Corporation has an interesting history. The story begins with Dr. Robert Stetzel graduating from dental school in 1953. He started a private practice 4 years later, after serving in the US Marine Corps. Although he only encouraged them to develop a good work ethic, his two sons—Mark and Eric—followed in his footsteps, but taking different paths in the dental profession.
Mark is a family dentist and practiced with his late father for 26+ years. Their mission was always to treat the patient first. Although he thought being a dentist would make sense for him, Eric was attracted to the entrepreneurial side of things. So he went in the “business of dentistry” direction and in 1986 founded Panoramic Corporation, a market leader in panoramic imaging.
In the family legacy video on the Panoramic Corporation website, Eric explains that when he tried to sell his father a panoramic machine, his dad told him he was not in the market for one and that that if he ever needed a pan x-ray, he’d just pay someone who had one to let him use it. Eric was a wholesale buyer at the time, so he bought a pan, put it in his dad’s office, and said “Here, now you can pay me when you use it.”
Well, of course they started using it more and more, to the point where his dad realized the benefit of the product and how to utilize it in the practice. So he bought it! That changed Eric’s outlook—he had just gotten a dentist who didn’t think he needed a pan x-ray machine to buy one. And the rest, the Panoramic Corporation’s direct business model, is history.
What Eric says he likes best is that he can walk right up to any person involved in manufacturing the machines, ask any question, and they have all the answers. He is also proud of their unparalleled commitment to customer service. He says, “We make it easier for our customers to do business with us than anybody else.”
Eric modeled Panoramic Corporation by putting the quality of the product and his dentist customers first, like his dad and brother put the patient first by making it easier for the patient to receive comprehensive treatment with confidence.