Dr. Brett Kessler

Dr. Brett Kessler served as the 161st President of the American Dental Association from 2024 to 2025, the youngest person to hold the office in decades and the first dentist from Colorado. He's a practicing dentist, educator, mentor, and advocate for clinical autonomy and professional well-being. He has been sober since October 21, 1998.

Nearly everything he teaches is connected to something he lived. He walked away from a practice partnership over a conflict in values and lost roughly $250,000 doing it. He built a fee-for-service practice from scratch in a Denver neighborhood that lenders and colleagues told him was the wrong location. He entered dental school with a substance use disorder and speaks openly about his recovery, because he believes the profession can't address what it refuses to acknowledge.

As Foundation Dental Alliance faculty, Dr. Kessler teaches leadership grounded in core values, the communication skills that make fee-for-service dentistry possible, and the disciplines that help dentists build careers they can sustain. His long-term goal is direct. He wants to reduce suicide, substance abuse, burnout, and divorce within the profession.

Recovery and the Blank Page

Dr. Kessler earned a degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Iowa before graduating from the University of Illinois Chicago College of Dentistry in 1995, followed by a general practice residency at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. In his late twenties his substance use disorder became unmanageable. He entered treatment, left believing he didn't have a problem, relapsed, and returned fourteen months later at 29 years old, questioning whether he wanted to keep living, much less practicing dentistry.

Nine months into recovery he sat down with a blank page and wrote about the practice he wanted to build, the person he wanted to become, and the life he wanted to live. He wrote it as though it had already happened, and he has repeated the exercise every five years since.

None of it was an accident. All of it started with a blank page and one question.

Dr. Brett Kessler

He doesn't separate recovery from leadership. Accountability, honest self-assessment, reflection, and consistent daily action became the disciplines behind his practice, his leadership, and his service to the profession.

Building a Fee-for-Service Practice From Scratch

His first major clinical opportunity in Colorado was with a high-end cosmetic fee-for-service practice in downtown Denver. He bought in after a year, then recognised that he and his partner held different definitions of honesty and integrity. He chose to leave, losing approximately $250,000 in the process. What he got back was his ability to sleep at night, and he considers that a fair trade.

He wrote an eighty-page business plan for a scratch-start practice and opened Town Center Dentistry and Orthodontics in Denver's Stapleton neighborhood in 2003, despite repeated warnings that the location was wrong for the model. He built it around comprehensive dentistry, patient relationships, and the Pankey Institute's co-discovery philosophy. Rather than chasing volume, he typically treated four to six patients a day and used careful diagnosis and communication to help patients understand their own health. The practice generated three to four times more revenue per patient than nearby insurance-based practices.

He led it for fourteen years before selling in 2018. Dr. Gina Kessler, his wife and an orthodontist, continues to own and operate it. He has been named a 5280 Magazine Top Dentist every year since the list began in 2005, and in 2015 he received the Denver Post's inaugural Strength in Health Award.

Leadership in Organized Dentistry

After getting sober, Dr. Kessler partnered with Sobriety House, a Denver treatment centre serving people experiencing addiction and homelessness, providing dental treatment at no charge to patients who stayed active in the program. That work led to a committee seat with the Metro Denver Dental Society, then a board position, then media coverage of the oral damage he'd been treating. In October 2007 he testified before the United States Congress on behalf of the ADA about methamphetamine use and oral health. He was nine years sober.

He served as president of the Colorado Dental Association from 2014 to 2015, helping establish the state's first adult Medicaid dental benefit and extending access to roughly 300,000 adults. He received the ADA Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Leadership in Mentoring in 2010, and he holds fellowships in the American College of Dentists, the International College of Dentists, and the Pierre Fauchard Academy.

His ADA presidential theme, The Power of Now, centred on three priorities. Reconnecting oral health with the medical model, creating respect across different practice models, and expanding wellness resources for the profession. The central policy initiative of his term was the ADA's Clinical Autonomy Statement, affirming that treatment decisions belong to the dentist and the patient, free from interference by practice owners, investors, insurers, or production requirements.

The doctor-patient relationship is our sacred cow. All treatment decisions should be made between the doctor and the patient, free of any outside influences.

Dr. Brett Kessler

He also defended evidence-based community water fluoridation, met with White House officials, testified before the FDA, and co-authored a JAMA Health Forum editorial on the health and economic consequences of eliminating it. On practice models his position is equally clear. Dentists in private practice, group practice, and DSOs all deserve professional representation, and every model must protect clinical judgment and place patient care ahead of financial pressure.

Mentoring and the Next Mile

Dr. Kessler is a longtime clinical faculty member and honorary alumnus of the University of Colorado School of Dental Medicine, and he has taught and spoken at Harvard, Tufts, Indiana University School of Dentistry, and dental schools throughout the country. After visiting more than 30 schools as an ADA officer, he helped launch a virtual mastermind for dental students that drew roughly 80 attendees to its first session and continues nationwide. He believes dentists need leadership, communication, and coping skills before the pressures of practice start reshaping their priorities.

He has finished the Ironman World Championship in Kona twice, in 2018 and 2019, raising $70,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in memory of his mother during the first campaign. At mile 112, exhausted and wondering how he could possibly run a marathon, a volunteer gave him simple advice. Just run one mile. That lesson followed him into national leadership. When a problem felt too large to solve at once, he stopped asking how to fix everything and focused on the next decision that could make it better.

Run the mile you are in.

Dr. Brett Kessler

Today he leads The Sweet Spot Leader, a leadership development platform focused on core values, practice culture, communication, resilience, and human-centred leadership.

Faculty Focus

Dr. Kessler's work with Foundation Dental Alliance includes:

• Building and leading a fee-for-service dental practice
• Patient communication, case presentation, and co-discovery
• Clinical autonomy and the doctor-patient relationship
• Leadership grounded in core values, mission, and written vision
• Practice culture, trust, and team accountability
• Dentist wellness, addiction recovery, and burnout prevention
• Oral-systemic health and the integration of dentistry and medicine
• Mentorship and development of the next generation
• Resilience during professional and personal adversity
• Creating a strong second half of a dental career

Dr. Kessler describes the ADA presidency as a catapult rather than a capstone. At Foundation Dental Alliance he brings dentists the lessons behind the title, including what he built, what he endured, and what he believes the profession has to do next.

Booking and Contact

• Base: Denver, Colorado
• Platform: The Sweet Spot Leader
• Available for: Luxury Dental Retreats, Foundation Dental Mastermind implementation sessions, keynote presentations, and Foundation Dental Podcast appearances