ORABRUSH
Me at our CVS Drugstore . . . Orabrush modeling.
(Horrible photo of me--great product.)
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Robert "Dr. Bob" Wagstaff Founder & Chairman of the Board Orabrush, Inc. |
THIS IS MY DAD!!!!!!!
After years of coming to watch my piano recitals and school choir performances and play presentations . . . I am now getting to stand back and brag about my dad and what he and Cindy have accomplished with ORABRUSH!!!!! You know how there was always a Teacher and Parent's Night when you were in school . . . your parents would come and sit in your desk and (if it was Elementary School) see your drawings on the bulletin board and read the letter that you'd carefully printed out earlier that day on that gray, learn-to-print paper. Now is World and Business Leaders Night:
This the link to the company website:
http://orabrush.com
This is a cool YouTube video that went viral:
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| Orabrush ready for action |
Dad has always been good at seeing a product (like marigold flowers) and putting them into new applications (Kemin, Inc colour enhancer for eggs and broiler chickens). He made himself one of the first mock-ups of Orabrush more than 10 years ago. He took it to the Philippines when he and Cindy were serving as Mission Leader there. He used it everyday and really loved the way it worked. He put 10s of thousands (that I can guess at, probably more) of dollars and hours into improving and perfecting and trying to get his Orabrush out to the public. People all over the world are using it now and he started a new business when he was 75 years old.
I wonder if it will take me until I'm 75 to become successful in the way that he is--I do everything well, my mom used to chide me, but nothing better than anyone else. My dad is doing something better than everyone else on this earth.
He was always the best father he knew how to be--and, now, is a good example for me to try to emulate. The thing about Orabrush that he is most proud of is the number of people--families--who have a good job and health insurance and are able to be self-sufficient. His satisfaction comes from seeing the success and happiness of those he has helped. He and Cindy still stay at Motel 6 when they travel and drive rather than fly when they go to visit family in the midwest. He lives modestly and has found joy in providing circumstances and things that would otherwise not be available. He served as President of his housing area's board--buying all of the materials and building a children's play area for the 100s of children that live in the apartments in his community. He showed me how he put together a climbing wall for young children. I played on the teeter-totter with my own grown up daughter while he sat nearby and talked with us.
He has had to overcome obstacles from the time his mother died 2 weeks after he was born through rough school years and through to his efforts to show his dad that he had succeeded as a breadwinner. The summer that we drove from our home to Utah for family vacation, we arrived at our grandpa Wagstaff's house in a Lincoln Continental, my mother confided in me that this was the first time that dad had heard his own father tell him that he had finally made something of himself.
Ask about an old trumpet mounted on the wall of his current home and he will tell you that playing in the school band, he discovered that there were different kinds of trumpet parts--and that he could choose what he would play. This discovery opened his eyes to the fact that he could choose other things in his life. Quite a revelation--one that I don't think most people ever find.
I am proud of my dad. He has spent his whole life working--when he comes to my house for a few days, he asks for a list of things that need fixing around the house. I call it the "wears Florsheim shoes on the beach" syndrome. My junior and senior years of high school we lived 30 minutes from Ocean City, Maryland. We would have lunch on the beach and he would come from work to have lunch with us. In his suit and tie, he would walk out on the sand to where we were sitting and kind of hunch over, eat a sandwich, then kiss my mom goodbye and go back to work. He never sat down or took his shoes off. He focused on supporting our family--mom was able to stay home and take care of us.
He is quiet spoken. He and mom never screamed at each other or fought about differences--they had them, of course--but he refused to be angry with mom. The only time that I was told (I don't remember it.) he yelled was when he came home from work and mom would be crying in the bedroom. "What did you kids do to her?" I know now that she was most probably suffering from clinical depression as well as a weak heart from rheumatic fever when she was 6, and a blood disease doctors have only and found a name and a cure for in the last 7 years. I always knew that dad was in love with mom--he told her and the family that she was his sweetheart and companion . . . as a child, I felt secure in the certainty that he would always love her--and us.
He is married now to Cindy. Mom died more than 10 years ago after 8 years fighting non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Cindy's former husband also died of cancer. There is a lot of sad in both their histories--but dad continues to work, to move forward, to find joy and satisfaction in creating new things and new ways to use them.
I am so proud to have him as my father. I am excited to see him off on this adventure now. I will love him always.
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