Meet a Board Member – Brian Wells, Vice President
I grew up in a large family – I am the third child of nine children. I have 3 brothers and 5 sisters. Since my father was in the army as a West Point graduate and member of the Army Corps of Engineers, I grew up in many different places. I was born in Fort Ord, California and as a child lived in Indiana, Maryland, Europe and the Middle East. However, I spent a large part of my childhood in Maryland, outside of Washington, DC. As a child, I learned to ice skate and developed an interest in figure skating which became my first passion. I became a competitive pairs skater and my first partner was my sister, Ann- Marie. She and I competed at the Junior World Championships in 1988 in Australia and in the former Yugoslavia in 1989. When Ann- Marie retired, we were 3rd in the United States and 6th in the World at the Junior level. I continued on with two more partners, Laura Murphy (who is now a dental hygienist in Delaware) and Shelby Lyons. My skating career took me to Delaware and then Colorado where I lived and trained at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. I competed at the National level for 13 years and had the most success in my skating career with Shelby. In 1998, we finished second at the US Figure Skating championship and qualified as members of the US Olympic Team. That year we also competed at the World Figure Skating Champions and finished10th. IwasnotabletocompeteattheOlympicsbecause a team that was injured during the Nationals were “elected” to the Olympic team. This incident led to my retirement from figure skating in the Spring of 1998. This was a devastating experience that led me to rethink my direction and career. But skating taught me when you fall down, you get up and move on. I was 27 years old and had to decide what I wanted to be when I grow-up. I knew that I didn’t want to be in a rink. At this time, I decided I wanted to attend dental school and needed to finish my college degree. I moved to New York City and attended CUNY Baruch College. When I retired from figure skating, I was at the pinnacle of my career; it was hard going back to school and just being another undergraduate at a large city college. I went from signing autographs to sharpening pencils. But, on my first day of school, a beautiful woman, Maggie, sat down next to me; we married in 2002.
I graduated from Baruch in 2000 with a degree in biology. I started dental school at Harvard University in 2001. While at Harvard, I was president of my class and began my passion for dentistry. I graduated from Harvard in 2005, the year my first child, Olivia, was born. I attended Tufts University School of Dental Medicine for my endodontics residency from 2005-2007. Maggie, my wife, finished her Internal Medicine residency at Tufts while I was there. Maggie, Olivia and I moved to Florida in 2007 to be near family – and we were quite excited to not have to live through another cold, snowy winter. I established my practice, Wells Endodontics, in Wesley Chapel in 2007. Since then, my family has grown with the addition of three children: Ian (9), Eva (7) and Owen (5). I waited years to see this beautiful skating complex open in Wesley Chapel and I have been involved with the Champion’s Edge Skating Club since its inception. I look forward to seeing figure skating success locally.
Member Spotlight Club member Haley Scott was invited to the US Challenge Skate, which is invitation only held in Salt Lake City UT from Sept 12-16th. She will be representing CESC in the Novice Ladies Combined event. Best of luck to you, Haley! Skate great!
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