Around 1989 or 1990, the Georgia Board of Dentistry adopted the designation of Expanded Duties Dental Assistant, and we began teaching the original certification courses in 1990.

Dr. Jim Bob Williamson was the driving force behind the development of the very first Expanded Duties courses.  

I joined him in 1990 and helped to develop, teach, and maintain original expanded duties courses.  In 2000, Dr. Williamson turned the program over to me so he could pursue other interests. I continued with the original courses from 2000 until 2022 as the Expanded Duties laiason for the Georgia Dental Association. 

In 2023, I established Expanded Duties LLC because I felt there was a better way to get dental assistants certification they needed in the expanded duties to perform their different jobs.

I have always said that not every assistant needs to be an expanded duties assistant, but I have recently modified that now to state Not every dental assistant position requires the same set of Expanded Duties.

This thought about all assistant positions not requiring the same skill set led us to the development of EDDA courses tailored for those positions.  Being able to add a few duties to promote from within led to Expanding Duties™.

Dr. Joe Hair