Passionate Dental Experts
Dr. Nick Raklios is a Board Certified Pediatric Dentist. He is originally from Richland, WA, and now calls the Seattle area home. He and his wife, Colleen, are the proud parents of two young girls: Ivy and Isla. Dr. Raklios is an active member of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, the Washington State Dental Association, and the Washington State Academy of Pediatric Dentistry. When he's not in the office, Dr. Raklios enjoys skiing, golfing, biking, and running.
Dr. J. Kolby Robinson is a Board Certified Pediatric Dentist. He is originally from Salt Lake City, Utah. He and his wife, Jessica, are proud parents of three sons and a daughter: George, Oliver, William and Margaret. Dr. Robinson is an active member of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, Oregon Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, and Oregon Dental Association.
After completing his Masters in Physical Therapy in 1999, Dylan Bates spent more than 20 years building and leading a multi-site healthcare company, ATI Physical Therapy. Touting a relentless obsession for customer service and precision-like focus on operations and growth, Bates was instrumental in building the company from a single-location offering to more than 850 clinics across 35 states when he exited the business. Dylan is an active board member and investor with multiple companies across the US.
Dylan has worked closely with Steve Neumann(founder of Latticework Capital Management(LCM)) over numerous investment cycles over the past 18 years. LCM is the private equity sponsor of SALT Dental and Steve originally recruited Dylan to serve on the Board of Directors when SALT was formed in 2019. Dylan served as an active board member since inception and is excited to be stepping into the SALT CEO seat as of January of ’23.
“I am thrilled to be stepping into the CEO role at SALT at such an exciting time. There is momentum in the business, amazing doctor partners/practices and robust growth opportunities in the years to come. We have the opportunity to build the leading specialty DSO in the market and we are taking intentional steps to position the company to execute at the highest levels across the board.”
Dylan lives between Scottsdale, AZ and Telluride, CO. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, golfing, and travel.
Most recently, Josh was the Chief Growth Officer for Caravel Autism Health, a leading provider of Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) Therapy and diagnostic evaluation services to children with autism spectrum disorder. As the Chief Growth Officer, Josh developed and oversaw Caravel’s growth strategy and execution through the opening of new clinics, mergers and acquisitions, and partnerships with health systems and physicians. Before his time at Caravel, he spent four years at ATI Physical Therapy overseeing its M&A strategy and execution and health system partnerships. He also spent three years at Anheuser-Busch InBev, where he served as the CFO of the Craft Beer Division. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Josh currently lives in Chicago with his wife Nicole, and their two kids Noah (6) and Jonah (3). In his free time, he enjoys running, cycling, golfing, and traveling with his family.
Craig is a business-first IT leader with more than 20 years of healthcare leadership experience. Technology is a core strength, but Craig lives in the world of business challenges. He is focused on solving those challenges first and foremost and delivering pragmatic value to the business. Craig can effectively bridge the often-wide communication gap between specialized technicians and visionary business leaders to connect opportunities through technical innovation.
From an IT perspective, Craig is building infrastructure that empowers and enables the business—enabling partner organizations to study patient outcomes and operational performance, and make better decisions for the future of their practices. He is also responsible for the security and integrity of information. Craig is forward-thinking and actively engaged in finding the best solutions for our doctor partners, our practices, and our patients.
Craig is a Certified Health Care CIO (offered by the College of Health Care Information Management Executives) and a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM offered by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association aka ISACA).
Brian brings over 15 years of experience in M&A, strategy, and growth operations in the healthcare spectrum. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Corporate Development at Covenant Physician Partners, a leading national network of multi-specialty physician practices and surgery centers, where he led M&A and organic growth initiatives. Prior to Covenant, he served as Director of Corporate Development at SAGE Veterinary Centers, one of the leading specialty veterinary platforms on the West Coast, where he was responsible for developing and executing the company's M&A growth strategy.
Previous experience includes founding and leading LeapIQ, a B2B lead generation company, and serving as an investment banker with Harris Williams & Co., where he advised on and executed M&A transactions as a member of the Healthcare and Life Sciences team. Brian received an MBA from Vanderbilt University and a BS from Northwest Missouri State University.
Theresa comes to us with over 20 years of finance expertise. She has held multiple executive financial positions within both the dental and medical industry. Most recently, Theresa served as the financial executive for DentaQuest’s Dental Care Group division which included the Advantage Dental Plan, Dental Care Organization, as well as their affiliated 60+ dental practice locations located throughout Oregon and Washington. Theresa has extensive experience in finance leadership and has successfully led finance reporting, accounting, operations, revenue cycle, payroll, budgeting, and forecasting for multiple large Health Care and Dental organizations.
Theresa and her husband, Brian, raised their family in Green Bay, Wisconsin. And you guessed it… they are huge Green Bay Packer fans! They now call Central Oregon their home, enjoying all the wonderful outdoor adventures the beautiful Pacific Northwest offers.
Jim is a member of the Board of Directors and began serving SALT as CEO in 2021. He brings over 20 years of CEO leadership experience to the company.
Early in his career, Jim worked in Fortune 100 healthcare with Merck & Co., Inc. and rose through the ranks to lead his division’s development activities across North America and Europe while his division was sold two times. He especially enjoyed finding ways to achieve a collaborative relationship between leaders in different countries when it came to his company’s products and services.
Over the years, Jim has been a Board Director and CEO of multi-location companies that solve healthcare challenges for patients including musculoskeletal, sleep disorder, behavioral health, and addiction recovery. He started two of these companies from scratch, as the first employee. He initially gained his knowledge of the DSO space when the organization he led partnered with dentists in 14 states to bring an innovative oral medical device manufactured by SomnoMed to patients suffering from sleep apnea.
Jim embraces a servant-leadership philosophy with the SALT team and believes in exceptional service as the cornerstone of the company’s core values. He’s been happily married for over 25 years and enjoys watching his two teenagers become leaders as they make their way through the “interesting” high school years.
Dr. Dixson is a three-time INC Magazine 500/5000 awarded entrepreneur, and the Founder/CEO of The DSO Project, which is dentistry's first and most exclusive dental support organization accelerator, The DSO Project Consulting, and Dental Capital Partners - a DSO focused M&A Advisory Firm. Formerly, he was the Founder/CEO of Smiles Services LLC and Founder/President of Smiles Dental Group PC. He is a visionary, inspirational, and transformational leader who builds unified individuals, teams, cultures, and world-class organizations.
Dr. Dixson became the managing partner of Smiles Dental in 2008. In 2010 he finalized a buyout of his former partners, assumed the role of President and immediately accomplished a successful re-launch of the organization, setting Smiles Dental on a path to explosive growth. The company proceeded to double its number of locations, triple revenue and quadruple its valuation in the ensuing three years. From 2013 to 2015, Smiles Dental roughly tripled the number of locations, revenue, EBITDA and organizational valuation again. He also concurrently co-developed the dental analytics technology software platform that became Practice Analytics, one of the industry leaders in real-time dental practice management analytics.
Under Dr. Dixson's leadership, Smiles Dental was recognized three years in a row, from 2013-2015, by INC Magazine as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States, topping out at #550 in 2013. Additionally in 2013, he completed a successful private equity transaction.
In addition to his M&A Advising and Consulting work, Dr. Dixson provides Board Services to investment firms. He also currently serves as a trusted DSO/dental industry adviser for private equity firms, dental technology companies, and global dental brands in a variety of capacities.
Dr. Dixson returned in mid-2017 from a one-year sabbatical where he and his family visited six continents and thirty-five countries while homeschooling, with only what they could carry on their backs.