Community first: Business of the Year goes to Dr. Michael Kim

By Dixon Bledsoe

Dr. Michael Kim said he didn’t want to be recognized as the “guy with a title or a guy living in a fancy home or having a fancy car,” in an April 2009 article for Our Town.

“I just want to be recognized as a guy who’s just decent and loves baseball,” Kim had said.
Skip ahead three years.

Community members recognize Kim as someone who’s willing to help out wherever and whenever he can, including having fantastic, colorful floats in the Home Davenport Days parade, hosting food drives for Silverton Area Community Aid and contributing to local schools.

A man dedicated to his dental profession, he’s quick to sidestep the spotlight and pass along kudos and recognition to his staff.

The Silverton Chamber of Commerce awarded Kim and his staff with Business of the Year on Feb. 12.
And in typical Kim style, he praised his staff for a job well done.

“It is very ironic that this very prestigious award for Business of the Year is going to the practice of a dentist who trusts the actual business end to others so he can do dentistry,” said Kim, adding he likes being a dentist and helping people feel comfortable visiting a dentist.

He credits his wife Lina Yoo Kim, who is his business manager; Deana Tietze, office manager; Danette Neet, lead dental assistant and Morgan Rodman, hygienist, for refining the details of his ideas, running the business, creating the welcoming atmosphere and working in public relations and advertising.

“(They) have been a wonderful face for the practice in this community,” he said, adding his patients love the spa treatments, gourmet coffee drinks and friendly staff.

“Dr. Kim is just a great dentist and a genuinely nice man. The patients love him and he has been a wonderful man to work with and for,” Tietze said. “He has empowered us to look for ways to be helpful in the community and he trusts us implicitly.”

Kim and his wife Lina have been married for 16 years and have two children – Hailey, 8, and Haiden, 4.

To have an understanding of the benevolence of Dr. Kim and his staff, take a look at what they are doing in the community.

From the “No Cavities Kids’ Club” which gives winners a Nintendo Wii, to conducting food drives for SACA, Kim’s practice gives back.

They are now open one Friday per month to help low-income children get necessary dental work.
Silverton High School has benefited from the practice’s generosity to the tune of more than $40,000 for everything from classic literature books to computers, and Scotts Mills Elementary School has received donations as well.

The practice’s floats in the Homer Davenport Parade have won top awards three years in a row, and its financial support helped the Homer festival make a dramatic and enthusiastic comeback.

At Thanksgiving, 40 families had turkey dinners with all the trimmings and more than 3,000 pounds of food went to the local food bank in 2011 – because Dr. Kim and his staff were eager to lend a hand.

A soft-spoken man, Kim was born in South Korea and grew up in Los Angeles.

“As a teenager I sold sports apparel with my mother in the Watts area of Los Angeles, mostly selling to gangs,” he said in the 2009 interview. “Those were volatile times and not peaceful in L.A. It was a segmented culture of small towns – and I was more of an angry teenager.”

His maternal grandparents were his role models, especially his grandfather.

“They are heroes to me because they made a fortune from hard work, stemming from a hard life that included refugee camps taking up 15 years of their lives. They donated so much and taught me what is important in life,” he said.

Kim’s philosophy is born from his grandparent’s work ethic and values and from being the product of a public education.

“I was taught and believe that public education is what got me here and I want to help get money to schools so their needs are met,” he said.

“I chose not to be a businessman, again ironic considering this award, but want to do good things in my dental practice and great things for my community.”

He also believes strongly that “If you take care of people, in the practice and in the community, they will take care of you. It sounds very simple.

“We want to pay staff a little better, take care of our patients while offering good prices, and it has worked to the point of where we need to grow and to expand.”

“Dr. Kim is a very caring and funny guy. He is compassionate and it’s great to hear him laugh down the hallways,” patient Donna Moen said.

Tietze echoes those sentiments about her boss.

“Dr. Kim is one of the most special people I know. He has given so much of himself to his patients, staff and community, and I have never enjoyed working with someone so much. I sleep well at night because of this job, I know that when I leave at the end of the day and turn out the lights, that we have done our best to make the community a better place.”

The 37-year-old University of California – San Francisco dental school grad is a baseball aficionado who fell in love with America’s national pastime and learned all the intricacies of the game. He sums it up in his understated way – “I like what I do.”

It is obvious the community likes him right back.