After 60 Years, 'Accidental' Career Still Going Strong

Sixty-year industry veteran Harry Carlisle considers himself extra lucky for stumbling upon on a career in dental technology.

Harry Carlisle joined the Navy in 1952, at age 17, during the Korean War. He wanted to join a construction battalion but was told it would be difficult to get in so, instead, he chose dental technology school. He was sent to Parris Island Marine Base in South Carolina followed by the prosthetics school at the U.S. Navy Training Center, Bainbridge, in Maryland.

After leaving the military, Carlisle found a mentor and friend in Lab Owner Nelson Ingersoll. Carlisle credits Ingersoll with making him the C&B technician he is today because Ingersoll pushed him to try new things and create prosthetics he thought impossible to fabricate. "I learned I could do things I never thought I could do," Carlisle says.

In 1972, Carlisle opened his own lab in his home, Carlisle Porcelain Studio, in Freeport, IL, and business...