50 good years

After a career spanning a half-century and multiple continents, Dr. Ronald Woody sets a slightly more relaxing pace in retirement — but not for long.

Dr. Ronald Woody has served Texas A&M University Baylor College of Dentistry for 29 years, 20 of which were spent as director of the very prosthodontic residency program he helped develop. But that’s not all there is to the story of this tenured professor and director of implant dentistry.

Before settling in at TAMBCD, Woody spent 21 years in the U.S. Army Dental Corps, traversing the globe everywhere from Washington — where some early career duties included a stint as chief of fixed prosthodontics at the Pentagon — to Saigon, Vietnam, where he served as a consultant and faculty member at the dental school there.

More than two decades of directing research and residency programs in the Army groomed Woody for the role that lay ahead of him in Dallas, where his first task was developing a 20-course curriculum covering fixed and removable prosthodontics. That was in 1984. By 2004 — the end of Woody’s time as director of graduate prosthodontics — more than 60 residents had successfully completed the program.

June 28 marked the official start of Woody’s retirement, but luckily he’ll be back soon enough. You will find him on campus a couple days a week starting in early August, when he’ll be fine-tuning some special projects like a predoctoral student selective in implant placement set to begin this fall.

“There are so many things I want to be able to do, and this will give me the ability to pursue other avenues,” Woody says of the projects. “My career here has never been a job. It’s about a love of what I do.”