Meet Our Team
Tammy - Office Manager
Tammy joined the Custom Dental team in December 2014 and brought with her many years of front office experience. As our Office Manager and Patient Care Coordinator, she helps our team navigate through their days and our patients through their treatment. She loves our patients and her goal is to develop relationships that will make them feel like family. Tammy and her husband, Tim, will celebrate 35 years of marriage this year. Although, they have an empty nest their family is growing like crazy. Their three children are all now married and have blessed them with grandchildren, Isaiah, Luke and Emma Rose.
Sarah - Certified Dental Assistant
Sarah, a Certified Dental Assistant, began with us in April 2016. With over 10 years of assisting, she quickly became a huge asset to the team. Her outgoing personality and love for her job has brightened the practice! Sarah and her husband, Cort, have four beautiful daughters and one son. They are huge KC Chiefs fans, love spending their summers at Beaver Lake and vacationing with their family.
Laura- Dental Assistant
Laura has been with Custom Dental since our doors opened in 2011. She graduated from Concorde Career College as a dental assistant and has since taken advanced training in orthodontics and oral sedation. Outside of work, she and her husband Erik, keep themselves plenty busy with their feed store and diesel performance shop. She is a member of the Missouri State Tractor Pullers and the Lucas Oil Pro Pulling league where she is a track official. Laura loves diesel trucks and anything that involves dirt, mud, and horsepower! Her love of animals shows in the cattle they raise along with their two dogs, Gunner and Cinch.
Angie - Certified Dental Assistant
Angie is also a Certified Dental Assistant that has been with us from the beginning. This is her 6th year with Custom Dental, but she has spent more than 20 years in the field. She loves her job and it shows as she puts our patients at ease. The most rewarding part of her job, she says, is meeting new patients and helping the nervous ones become comfortable enough to begin treatment. Angie and her husband Phil have two grown sons. They have one grandson, Brennan, and are excited for the newest addition to the family, their granddaughter, born in May. Angie spends her time off with her family and loves to read and garden.
Alisha- Hygiene Assistant
Alisha is one of our newest team members and a hygiene assistant. Although she is new to the field, her willingness to learn and grow has made her extremely valuable to us. You can't miss her great big smile! When Alisha isn’t working with us, she works as a horse trainer and loves competing at local barrel races on the weekends. She and her boyfriend, Thad, have a spoiled black lab named Dutches.
Reta - Dental Hygienist
Reta is a Registered Dental Hygienist, with over 30 years of experience. Although we would love to see her every day, she works with us only part time. Her bubbly personality is missed when she isn't with us! Reta lives in Lee's Summit with her husband of over 30 years. Their 3 kids have them traveling from Seattle to Chicago for visits.
Dr. Desch - Dentist
Like most people entering college, I was not sure what I wanted to do with my life. I had many interests in multiple fields, with the only common factor being an overwhelming desire to help people. Wanting to keep my options open, I majored in Biology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, with the intent to go into research or into the health care field.
With graduation quickly approaching and after a serious look into pursuing a PhD, I decided that I would pursue a career in nursing, which would allow me a great deal of flexibility in my future. After completing a few prerequisites, I was accepted into an accelerated nursing program at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. It was an exciting and intensive twelve months at Creighton that ultimately opened my eyes to the fact that nursing was not going to be my life long career.
Knowing that nursing would no longer be my lifelong career pursuit and needing a job, I accepted a nursing position working nights in a hospital, while I weighed my options. My time working in the hospital further solidified my desire to help people while confirming my wants to pursue a different path. I had always had a fascination with teeth and was fortunate enough to find an opportunity to work as a dental assistant to ensure that dentistry would be a field that 1 could seriously pursue since looking at teeth all day isn't for everybody! As luck would have it, my time as a dental assistant confirmed that my interest in teeth was not a casual fascination and was leading me towards a career that I was sincerely excited about.
I applied to and was accepted into the University of Missouri-Kansas City Dental School and spent the next 4 years hard at work. My years there were truly some of the most difficult but the most rewarding years I have ever experienced, and I am so glad that I did it! I am blessed to have the opportunity, day in and day out, to directly impact the health and happiness of my patients and to be able to provide a service to the community.