Michigan Dental Assistants Association

P. O. Box 118

Lennon, MI 48449

While Jennifer is a new officer at the state level, she has been very active with Mid-MI DAS. Jennifer is the 2011-12 local President and was a delegate to Annual Session the past two years. She has been a member of ADAA since 2006. She is currently employed with Dr. E. Ted Knight in Midland, MI, Christopher and Banks, and ACICS . Jennifer started off running as Legislative Chairperson; we all thought this was going to be a "fundraising" year with little or no new legislation and that she could "mentor" into the position! She has tackled the challenges and is doing a great job!

She attended Puget Sound Institute of Technology, Bellevue, Washington in a six month excelerated program and graduated with a 4.0 GPA, went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Music and a teaching Credential from the state of Washington. Jennifer was looking for something to help pay her way through "real" college so that she could get her teaching degree and selected dental assisting. She accomplished both! Sadly there are not many full-time music teacher positions so she continued doing what she loved – dental assisting.  "I still love my music and still love to teach". After moving to Michigan, she took the R.D.A. exam.

Jennifer's family consists of her husband, Phil, son Jared, and daughter Kimani – both children are in college right now so she is an empty-nester. She is very close to her children because she was a single parent for many years and she is very proud of them and their accomplishments! Her hobbies include music, art, reading, outdoor activities, and watching good action movies!

Jennifer "envisions Registered Dental Assistants being their own entity with their own skills/responsibilities in the dental office.  She sees the R.D.A. focusing on the patients' restorative needs.  It's possible in the future that the R.D.A. will assist the dentist with some restorative procedures and do other procedures by his or herself as assigned by the dentist".