Dr. Chuck Verderber & Dr. Lynda Ulrich
You might find it interesting to know that Dr. Lynda and Dr. Chuck were childhood sweethearts, and have shared a life together since they were freshmen in high school, and married in 1981. They grew up in the rural heartland of Illinois in a farming town much like the area we live in now.
They were inspired to choose dentistry by an interesting twist of fate: Dr. Lynda's father was a wonderful medical doctor who devoted his life to his patients, but the family rarely saw him because he was so busy. Conversely, Dr. Lynda's neighbor was a wonderful dentist who would drive into his driveway at 6 pm sharp every evening. Dentistry seemed like a better profession for people who wanted a happy family life. Eventually both of our doctors graduated from the University of Kentucky with Doctoral degrees in Medical Dentistry in 1987.
For sports enthusiasts, you might find it interesting to know that Dr. Chuck played basketball for the University of Kentucky and was the team Captain in 1981 and 1982. Dr. Chuck was one of the top 20 high school All-American players in 1978. In those years, Kentucky was the perennial powerhouse of college basketball, winning the NCAA finals the year that they recruited him. Dr. Chuck played against the likes of Michael Jordan, James Worthy, and Charles Barkley. He was always given the toughest defensive assignment on the court because of his smarts and hustle. Chuck was drafted in the 7th round by the Chicago Bulls, but by then, the couple was overwhelmed by the drama and intensity of "big time basketball." They decided to have an adventure and Chuck chose to play professionally in Spain before they went on to dental school.
When Dr. Lynda and Dr. Chuck moved to Europe for Chuck's professional basketball career, they lived in a remote part of northwestern Spain called Galicia. It was an amazing experience and in a fortunate twist, they also acquired dual citizenship with Ireland. (It's a long story...ask us about it!)
For months, Dr. Chuck was one of the leading scorers and rebounders in Europe, and the future looked secure for a long, fruitful basketball career, but the fates intervened and Chuck's basketball career was ended by a catastrophic broken Achilles Tendon. This sent Lynda and Chuck back to the USA to complete their long-term educational goal of becoming dentists.
Following dental school, the couple took on another adventure: they moved to Italy to take over a dental practice in the town were the Ferrari Automobile plant is located.
When they returned to the U.S., Lynda and Chuck chose to settle in Vermont because of the area's familiar rural quality of life and their love of the outdoors.
And here they are today, just delighted with the way things turned out.
The Doctors have three children:
Liesl, (second from left in the photo below) is the doctors’ eldest child and she is a Harvard graduate.
She co-founded (with Dr. Lynda) a place on the web where people around the world can have instant access to GOOD NEWS for a change. [If you want to find a spring in your step every day again, check out Goodness-Exchange.com: THE home for goodness and process on the web.]
Liesl is responsible for much of the design, coding and content there at the Goodness Exchange. And she is also the founder of a global children’s good news website at EWCed.com.
Liesl has her parents’ artistic eye and made a name for herself in Vermont while she was still in high school as one of the largest single donors to our local battered women’s shelter, selling her original photography at PhrogEyePhoto.com and giving the shelter the proceeds.
Louisa, (far left) is an engineer, an artist and an inventor. She had a patent on an entirely new kind of wind turbine by age 22. Links to all of her work across the spectrum of arts and sciences can be found at LouisaUV.com.
To see her amazing wind turbine design, check out UndulaTech.com. (Scroll down for more about Louisa’s work and extraordinary life journey… she weighed 1 pound when she was born!)
Jens, (far right), has taken after his father at 6' 5", played basketball for Wesleyan University and just recently graduated. He just returned from volunteering to teach English in Poland for an extended time. Jens is now job-searching in places far-flung around the world. Eventually, he aspired to study international law.
In the photo above… Dr. Chuck and the kids are hanging out before the University of Kentucky played in the Final Four basketball game. Dr. Chuck kept all his old gear, and suited everybody up for the occasion.
Here's a few more fun facts about the Ulrich-Verderber tribe...
Louisa has been incorporating her love of science and art into an education pathway she has pioneered for our local high school, BFA. She has documented this unusual educational journey at BeyondTheXtraMile.com. You might also find it interesting to know that Louisa's impulse to "give back" stems from her sense of gratitude: she started life as a 4 month premature baby, weighing only one pound!
Dr. Chuck and Dr. Lynda have a passion for gardening, wilderness canoe-camping, and the natural world. They have been wildlife rehabilitators for many years. In fact, they have worked with the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife as the only licensed home for orphaned moose calves, raising 4 moose calves over the years successfully.
This is the second baby moose that we raised. named ziggy. we found that the calves thrived as long as they were rarely left by themselves, so we took meals out on our deck as much as possible to include them in "family life." Moose can not be raise and released into the wild because they imprint on humans easily. I found a home for this little fellow at the MILWAUKEE Zoo, where he eventually became the oldest living moose in captivity. He had a wonderful life and we were proud that he was there to teach many visitors about the wonders of North american wildlife.
In our first decade here in vermont, Racoons, fawns, baby foxs, orphaned porcupines and almost any other creature, were common features around our house and yard. we developed some very valuable techniques to eventually see that All but the baby moose were raised to successfully go back to the wild.
This was our first baby moose, Clifford! He found a great home in a north american wildlife park in MINNESOTA where he was essentially free to roam over a vast track of land.
You might also know that Dr. Lynda started this tradition in her family of making giant metal sculptures some 25 years ago. She make large metal sculptures with found objects and junkyard metal pieces too!
Lynda learned to weld on the family farm while growing up and in the early 1990's at our local Adult Learning courses, she mastered the finer points. Since then, Dr. Chuck has had an easy task when buying birthday and Christmas presents - What woman in her right mind wouldn't want a Plasma Cutter, or a new Acetylene Torch tip?!
A tour of our yard and garden is a lesson in true recycling - life imitating art! At our home they have about 30 sculptures made from a wild assortment of metal tools, machine parts, and other scraps.You can see more of Dr. Lynda's artwork by clicking here.
Fun fact, Fiddlehead Dental is a bit of a landmark in St. Albans because of the Dinosaur Dr. Lynda built - a life-sized Stegosaurus named "Fern" - in the front yard of the office!
At the office, in July of 2010, Dr. Lynda's 12 year old daughter and she built a life-sized Stegosaurus, whose head and tail move in the breeze. You can drive by and see it from Congress Street.
In the final analysis, our life experiences have taught us to look at every day and every patient visit as a gift. Chuck and Lynda are about relationships, meaningful work, and connections with their patients and team.
High-quality relationships and high-quality dental care are not accidents. Dr. Lynda and Dr. Chuck enjoy maintaining rigorous continuing education schedules and very often take as much as 3 times the amount of continuing education coursework required for licensing in Vermont.
In fact, Dr. Chuck has served the Vermont State Board of Dentistry for years, where he helps oversee the quality of dental care that all Vermonters receive. Dr. Chuck is past president of the Vermont State Dental Society and remains active in that organization whenever he is called upon.
In the winter of 2014, the doctors embarked on yet another adventure, this one would be an effort to change the world a little. They had gotten so tired of the negativity of the 24-hour news cycle that they decided to do something about it: Dr. Lynda created the Goodness Exchange, a place on the web where people around the globe can go for the good news that is not rising to the top of our feeds.
There, Dr. Lynda, Liesl and a small team write about great people doing remarkable things in science, art, music, sports, technology, philosophy, and almost any subject you can think of. Eight years later now, the website is visited by 50,000 people each month from over 190 countries. Check it out if you want a spring in your step!
Goodness-Exchange.com
Bottom line: Our whole story is full of good people who have been very kind, mentors who were very wise, and now we are surrounded by a team at Fiddlehead who are all wonderful people. We are committed to seeing that you receive the finest skill, care, and judgment in a warm, friendly environment where comfort, conversation and laughter are a priority.
We have made extensive study of leadership and business management for 25 years and are alumni of a 7-year dental management program based on the principles of the Harvard Business School. For this reason, we hope that you will always find a refreshingly eager and knowledgeable team waiting to serve at Fiddlehead Dental with exceptionally good management and communication systems.
Our goal is to work with you in a collaborative relationship to see that you are able to attain, maintain, and enjoy a beautiful smile for a lifetime.
