Billionaire Lifestyle: A smile worth billions, builder of the dental conglomerate, Rick Workman, wasn’t always on his path to a glass cabin. Born to a farmer, he wanted to become a dentist and went on to spearhead Heartland Dental, which became the largest dental operation in the US.
The conglomerate, in 2024, generated a revenue of $3.6 billion, as per a Forbes report. Heartland Dental also welcomed private equity firm, KKR, which manages $744 billion in assets, as a 58 per cent majority stakeholder in 2018 at a $2.8 billion valuation. Today, Workman’s Heartland Dental stands at $6 billion, taking the Chairman’s net worth to nearly $1.6 billion.
Who is Rick Workman?
Born in a family farm in Clay City, Illinois, Workman was largely homeschooled. With six students in his grade school, work started early for Rick. While working on the farm was a natural next step, his first job was gathering eggs at the young age of 4. By 7, he had started milking cows and spent his summer days on a tractor for 10-12 hours. Unlike his peers, summers only meant more chores, cleaning, feeding, and baling hay.
After completing his degree in biological science from Southern Illinois University in 1977, he started his own practice. As a fresh medical graduate, his first paycheck wasn’t a fancy one. He borrowed $35,000 (worth $150,000 today) from his parents and grandparents and set up a two-chair office in a basement location, 40 minutes from his parents’ farm. With an advertisement budget of $15, Workman envisioned his first-year goal to achieve $25,000.
By the next year, he had expanded to another branch and was working 55 hours a week treating patients, and another 30 hours handling the business side of his practice, according to Forbes.
Expanding Workman’s dental practice
Expansion became the norm after he opened the third office in 1982, and there was no looking back. Rick Workman’s group, known as Heartland Dental today, had expanded to 29 locations and was called Workman Management Group then.
A big paycheck came Workman’s way in 1997, when he sold four of nearly 30 practices with 21 employees, for $15.8 million. It raked in $11 million in personal proceeds, and then came Heartland Dental.
Workman also founded a real estate company called WMG Development, which went on to become a $1.4 billion firm across 30 states in the US. Disrupting both industry and real estate norms, Workman’s development trajectory was seen as revolutionary. “Dentistry is the only industry you can think of that has no metrics,” Workman explained. “You can do whatever you want as long as you’re happy.”
As per a Forbes report, an average Heartland dentist earns about $318,000 a year, versus about $208,000 for general practitioners, according to the American Dental Association (ADA).
Rick Workman’s car collection
Known for his swanky car collection, Rick Workman honours it with a massive Cavallino Rampante statue in the driveway of his Florida estate. Owner of one of the world’s biggest car collections, he owns a Bugatti Divo, Bugatti Type 57 S, Ferrari Special Projects SP275 RW Competizione, Ferrari 250 GTO, Ferrari Monza SP2, Ferrari 250 Europa GT, Ferrari 288 GTO, Ferrari F40, Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta, with a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Alloy, Mercedes-Benz 540K, McLaren F1 among others, as per a SuperCars 2024 report.