Dr. George Spelios

Spelios is the founder and chairman of the board of directors of Sunrise Communities, an organization he created more than three decades ago to assist people with developmental disabilities.

"It was just something I wanted to do," Spelios said. "I just felt that I should do some community work along with my dentistry. I've been chairman of the board for Sunrise Communities for 33 years. We bought the property in the Redlands for $175,000 and now we're at an $80-million-a-year budget."

From that small beginning, Sunrise has evolved to include a sprawling facility in South Miami-Dade's Redlands and branch operations in Connecticut, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Virginia.

"The people are developmentally disabled or challenged," Spelios explained. "It's not politically correct to call people mentally disabled any longer. This is the type of individual we care for. We don't even call them patients, we call them consumers."

Spelios, who resides in the Redlands, hails from Massachusetts and graduated Boston University in 1959. He went on to the New York University College of Dentistry at Bellevue Medical Center and then into the Air Force, which dispatched him to Homestead AFB in 1963 in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis. After his discharge in 1965, he remained in the reserves, decided to make South Florida his permanent home and established his dental practice. He was called back to active duty for Desert Storm and became the first dentist in the Air Force to be appointed hospital commander for a tactical wing.

Spelios moved his dental practice to Pinecrest in 1993 after Hurricane Andrew devastated the Cutler Ridge area -- including his office -- six months earlier.

"When Hurricane Andrew came along," he said, "I lost my practice and my home on the same night. Wiped us out."

He says there were no plans to rebuild and reopen Cutler Ridge immediately, so he began looking around for

a suitable location and found space in the Colonial Palms Plaza, 13716 So. Dixie Highway. It was an expensive move.

"When we came into a retail facility like this there was nothing, just the four walls," he said. "We had to build and equip everything."

Opening his new offices cost more than $500,000 in new equipment and furnishings. On the positive side, he outfitted the facility with the latest in dentistry equipment and designed a state-of-the art facility.
Spelios' wife Joyce and daughter Janice work in the clinic and were instrumental in the design of the efficient operation.

"My wife can do everything," said Spelios. "When one of the girls is out ill, she fills in. She's been working for me for as long as I've been in practice, about 30 years."

Spelios does all phases of dentistry, from teeth whitening to oral surgery, cleaning to root canals and implants to dentures, bridges and crowns. His clinic is equipped with specific rooms for each area of dentistry.

"We have the hygiene rooms, equipped to do only hygiene and examinations," he explained. "Then we have endodontic or root canal rooms, the surgery room and we have what we call operative dentistry, which includes bridges, dentures and things of that nature. They are specific for those particular modalities of dentistry."

Spelios showcases his sterilization area to allow patients to see the care taken to provide clean, sterile equipment. On one side of a large cabinet all used or contaminated instruments are placed for cleaning. The instruments are bagged in plastic and placed in the autoclave machine for sterilization. Finally, they are placed in drawers on the 'clean' side of the cabinet for use by the dentist or hygienist.

"We let the patient see our sterilization procedure," he explained. "If a new patient comes in and they have any qualms about infection control, we show them exactly what we do."

Spelios was appointed a founding member of the Florida Endowment Foundation for Vocational Rehabilitation -- now the ABLE Trust -- by the late Governor Lawton Chiles. The organization, funded with money from fines for non-moving motor vehicle violations, provides financial assistance to people with disabilities to help train and put them to work. He recently concluded his term on the Trust after chairing the group for six years.

The kindly dentist also is a nominee for the coveted Charles Whited Spirit of Excellence Award.
"I feel that if we take from the community," Spelios said simply, "then we should give back to the community."