David Gamotis learned an important lesson about balance that has served him well as an orthodontist.

Their story begins at a beach house on Dauphin Island.

Imagine a young boy fishing on a boat dock, catching pinfish and croakers. A Hobie Cat sailboat is tied up nearby, ready to go as soon as the wind conditions are right. Meanwhile his father toils under the hot sun, working to repair damage from the most recent hurricane to hit the island.

“Look what I caught dad!” he says, seeking his father’s approval.

And the father looks at him with pride in his eyes.

Indeed, some of David Gamotis’ fondest memories of his growing up years were at this beach house on Dauphin Island, where the interplay between father and son formed the foundation of their relationship and a story that threaded through their lives.

The son of a schoolteacher and a Chevron refinery worker, David describes his younger self as an “average kid.” “There was nothing about me that was a standout thing, nothing that would catch your attention,” David says. “I was blessed with great parents, and it was always clear that they wanted the best for me and my brother. They always supported and encouraged us but in those days I’m sure most of their sage advice fell on deaf ears. I would have moments of academic success and then get off the rails for a while. I always did well enough to feel like I had some potential to do something, but I didn’t have that direction or motivation.”

As David got older, his father would share the stories of his own life. It wasn’t just the funny anecdotes or the highlight reel kinds of stories where every at bat was a home run, but real-life stuff. The kind of stuff that takes honesty, courage, and vulnerability to talk about. “I think my Dad is brilliant and hilarious. There is no television in his house, it’s just stacks of books everywhere. He’s deeply curious about how the world works and reads more than anyone I know,” David says. “When I was in my late teens, he sat me down and explained that, when he was my age, he felt like he had allowed the window of opportunity on his formal education to pass him by, and that his advice would be that I not do the same.” 

At that moment the seeds were planted, but it would take a while longer for them to begin to grow.

Nice and well-behaved, David graduated rather inconspicuously from Murphy High School in Mobile and spent the first three years of college at the University of South Alabama.

Enjoying the fraternity and social life, he initially languished in his studies, amassing an unimpressive 2.2 GPA. But as he looked around and noticed other guys still hanging around the college scene when they probably should have graduated, something clicked inside of him: he needed to get his act together soon, because time was running out.

David then made the life-altering decision to transfer to Auburn University. As it turns out, it was one of the best decisions he ever made, describing his shift in mindset as he transferred schools as “military-like.”

“Once I made that shift, there was no going back,” David recalls. “I would get up every morning and make my bed. For the first time in my life, I was truly organized. I knew which direction I needed to go and was highly motivated to get there. I started working as hard as I could, and just didn’t stop. From that point on I did really well.”

David learned an important lesson about balance. He says he was able to enjoy his free time a lot more because he knew he was putting in the work in the classroom—“always make time for leisure, make it a priority, but not so high of a priority that it keeps you from getting the job done.”

The hard work was paying off and David had his sights set on dental school. Several family friends were in that profession, and he began to observe and ask questions. The only question was, “could he get in?”

The answer came later, and in a remarkable way.

As the story goes, part of David’s application to dental school was an in-person interview with the seven-member admissions committee. After the interview was over, David walked out into the lobby and was chatting with the secretary at her desk when the dean called him back into the interview room. “He said, ‘we don’t usually do this, but we want to go ahead and offer you a spot right now. We’ve never seen someone go from this bad to this good,’” David laughs.

David was so excited to be admitted that he rushed back home to tell his parents the good news. He ran into the kitchen and held up his acceptance letter as the family celebrated his achievement.

The average kid was now doing something exceptional.

The highlight of David’s dental school experience was an exchange student trip to Japan. Five men and five women were accepted, and as fate would have it, one of the females was a young pediatric dentistry student named Jill Barton. The two met while in Japan, began dating, and were married in June 2004.

After graduation, the couple discussed options and decided to move back to Jill’s hometown of Jasper. Jill opened her pediatric dentistry practice while David opened his orthodontics practice. As one could imagine, getting a business off the ground was initially tough sledding.

“In the beginning, I started with zero employees. I was answering the phone and filing insurance myself,” David says. “I remember having a professor that would tell me when he started his practice, he’d intentionally try to schedule his two patients of the day right next to each other so they’d see each other walking in and out of the office. In the beginning, I was not expecting it to be a very quick start.”

Slowly, though, as patients continued to roll in, he was able to begin hiring staff. Then he’d hire another, and another. Through the years, David and his team have built up a successful orthodontics practice and many of the staff members he originally hired have been with him for over a decade.

“I have to give my staff so much credit,” David says. “They are phenomenal.”

There are a lot of things David likes about orthodontics. There is a problem-solving component that he says “scratches an itch” for him. Then there’s the artistic side to it—working with your hands to create something beautiful. Then there’s the healthcare component, enhancing smiles while creating a healthier dentition. And finally, the human component, interacting with patients and their families and building those relationships. But more than anything, David enjoys his job because he can touch people’s lives in a meaningful way.

“In the grand scheme of things, on a global scale, there are way bigger problems than what we are solving here,” David says. “But for our patients, on an individual scale, I think we are making meaningful changes in their lives. To be able to do that for somebody is very rewarding. We get so much satisfaction out of doing that. You go home at the end of the day and you may be physically tired, but for me, I go home every day and I feel almost energized in a way. Like, man, we did good work today. We’ve created a little bit of order out of chaos.”

One of the most poignant story arcs of David’s life is that of father and son—the father’s transparency about his own life and the son’s ability to fulfill an unresolved void. But perhaps the true beauty of the dynamic is that the father was able to share his story without pushing and exasperating his son with his own sense of unfulfillment. He let him choose his own path, and in that path the son has made a success.

Over the last few years, David’s dad has battled health problems and has been in and out of the hospital. In one of the more recent visits, David asked him, “Dad, what were the most meaningful moments of your life?”

“When you came home with that acceptance letter from dental school,” his father replied.

David was taken aback at the answer. “It was just a really cool moment,” he says. “I knew that I wanted (dental school) for myself. Until that moment, I didn’t know how much he wanted it for me also.”

For now, David will continue practicing orthodontics, be a husband to Jill and a father to Anna, Andrew, and Abby. He will care for and protect his aging parents, returning the favor for once providing him the safety and stability that every child needs.

And he will always hold dear the memories from Dauphin Island. He will remember the little boy who used to fish, swim, and sail along her coastline.

And the way his father looked at him with pride in his eyes. 78