Jim Pack, who has been founder or CEO of several companies, got a message from a 22-year-old from Canada on his social networking account. Nothing too unusual about that, except in the nature of the missive.

"I get a LinkedIn invitation from a 22-year-old kid who's raised $9 million and built a Web-based dental software application," Pack said.

That contact led to Pack's hiring as CEO of Curve Dental and the relocation of the company's headquarters to Orem from Canada.

The 22-year-old was Matt Dorey, who started writing computer programming at an early age — around 10 years old, Dorey said.

In junior high, Dorey was taking college courses, and at 16 had formed a company that provided computer services to local businesses, such as doctor and dentist offices and retailers. But Dorey said in about 2004, he realized the most lucrative part of his business was with dentists and decided to specialize in that area.

"We found a niche in the dental industry," Dorey said. "Through that experience we realized there wasn't any Web-based software on the market and set out to build really the first fully featured Web-based application for dental offices."

After raising millions of dollars to get the company off the ground, Dorey said he saw that it needed more experienced management.

"The company got to the point where I realized we really needed a seasoned team to take it to the next level," he said.

Enter Pack, who has been president and CEO of AdvancedMD, a company offering Web-based software services to doctor offices and who also had been a founder of Dentrix Dental Systems, Inc. and president of iDent.com, which catered to dentists.

"It was kind of by coincidence or serendipity that Jim also had all of this dental experience," said Dorey. "So from our perspective it was really a slam dunk, or a match made in heaven."

With Pack on board in January of 2009 as CEO of Curve Dental, the companies' management functions were moved to Orem, while its software development operations remained in Calgary.

Dorey has the title of founder and managing director of Curve Dental, which now has about 15 employees in Orem and another 20 in Calgary.

There are competitors in the area who specialize in providing software to dental offices. But Dorey and Pack say Curve Dental is unique in its Web-based approach.

Instead of a practice having to buy expensive computers and software, and then be responsible for maintaining, updating and backing up the data, the Web-based system — starting at about $300 a month — allows an office to access the programs over a browser with no up-front costs for things like software and servers, though other one-time fees to get going range up to $3,000.

The software schedules appointments, keeps medical records, does billing and even receives and stores digital x-rays.

Dentist Adrian Huang sold practices in Arizona and recently opened a new one in Provo using Curve Dental's services. In preparation, Huang said he researched dental practice software and came to the conclusion that he wanted a paperless office and a web-based system so he did not have to buy expensive servers the way he did with his previous practices.

"It probably saved us $25,000 to $30,000 going this direction," he said.

Huang said he also expects future savings from no longer having to maintain servers or endure down time. Another advantage to the software is being able to schedule appointments 24 hours a day, so if someone calls after hours the practice's answering service can access the service online and book an appointment.

tharvey@sltrib.com 'Glee' promos new season

Vince Horiuchi • Attention Gleeks! Anxious for Season 2? "To whet your appetite, here's the promo for the upcoming season that shows off a couple of new characters."

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