Oakpoint Chief of Staff Kelly Dye was one of the very first team members to join this amazing group in September 2019. In fact, she was the third person hired to the team, right after CEO Mick Janness and CFO Erik Strang.
“I left my job of 9 years because of Mick and Erik, not just for their personalities, but also for everything they presented to me – I trusted them,” said Kelly Dye. “I’m so glad I took this leap of faith! The culture and core values were exactly in line with mine and everything I wanted in a company.”
Before becoming a central part of the Oakpoint team, Kelly was a dedicated professional in a high-profile retail business. “Being a manager before and having to manage multiple employees helped me understand the value of employee engagement and that finding the right people and treating them well is so important for a business to thrive,” she said. “Mick is a wonderful leader who is so understanding and cares about his employees more than any boss I’ve ever worked for.”
Kelly enjoyed the early stages of helping to build the company. “It was fun being a part of creating the culture which is very important to us here,” said Dye. “I’ve really enjoyed growing with Oakpoint to now 11 employees at the support level and over 300-plus employees that we support at the practice level.”
Having a close working relationship with all the different staff members of the practices has been second nature to Kelly. She’s very organized and a strategic problem-solver with the ability to work across all levels of an organization to partner with others. She also excels at planning, coordinating, focusing on details, taking initiative, and developing talent.
As soon as the integrations happen, once a partnership with a practice is finalized, that’s when Kelly really becomes involved in the day-to-day operations. In addition to being the first point of contact for all the practices and employees Oakpoint partners with, she offers lots of extra support to the offices.
“I do a little of everything. I support the dental offices and let our practices know they can ask for anything,” she said. “I also believe that no question is a wrong question, so they know they can come to me for anything! If I don’t know the answer, I will get the answer. We are doing this together.”
Kelly stays well informed in everything surrounding the business in order to have those answers ready for them. If a practice isn’t sure who to contact for something, they call Kelly and know they will get what they need from her.
Oakpoint employees know they can count on Kelly to help them stay on track if a deadline is coming up. She is sometimes even a human calendar reminder for the teams for upcoming events.
“We developed the Chief of Staff role to help drive cross-functional communication across the entire organization,” said Mick Janness. “Kelly is our air traffic controller for the entire organization. She is the glue that keeps everything moving here at Oakpoint and is very instrumental to the organization.
“Everyone is awesome to work with,” added Kelly. “The growth here has been exciting and we’re still growing each and every day!”
When she’s not keeping all the “planes” up in the air, Kelly’s favorite hobbies consist of fly fishing with her friends and family, running or walking outdoors with her dog, and traveling with her family. She has traveled to 37 out of 50 states and hopes to reach all 50 states one day.
“We have a cabin in northern Michigan and travel there multiple times a year,” she said. “My husband’s family has a beach house in North Carolina where we love to visit. We are very outdoorsy people and super family-oriented.”
There will soon be another family member in the Dye family to attend the extended family dinners that are held every month.
“We are expecting a baby boy in September and also have a 3 1/2-year-old daughter. We are hoping they both will also love to fish!”