Since 1977, one family has had roots in the White Bear Lake business community.
What does each generation have in common? A service-related business.
It all started when Jerry Griffith started White Bear Glass in 1977. He chose White Bear Lake because he found “very reasonably” priced property off Highway 61 and Cedar Avenue. “There were no glass businesses out here at all,” he recalled.
Griffith said he wanted to own a business to have “personal freedom.”
“You create your own world. You try to build your world and bring people with you,” he explained. “You teach a lot of people a lot of things. People go through your fingers, through your business and learn from you and they go on (to other things).”
He continued to own and operate the company until 1994, when he sold it to his nephew, Jeff Meyer. Griffith lived in White Bear Lake for several years before moving to Hugo.
Griffith always told his children, “Learn how to do something that everybody needs; then you will always have work.”
His daughter, Chris Dittberner, and her son, Dr. Jordan Dittberner, took that advice.
“They are all service businesses,” Chris reflected. Chris owns Salon Cheveux with her husband Joel, and Jordan recently purchased Lake Area Dental with his business partner, Dr. Thomas Hauge.
Grant residents Chris and Joel have owned Salon Cheveux for 35 years. The business started out in Roseville before it made its way to Maplewood and, ultimately, White Bear Lake in 2015.
“I always loved driving through White Bear Lake. It had the hometown-feel connection of community,” she explained. Joel added, “Our lease was up in Maplewood. One day Chris was driving down Highway 61 and she said, ‘That’s where I want to be.’”
The two happen to know Brian McGoldrick, owner of Admiral D’s, who introduced them to Ron Trach, owner of the Kowalski’s strip mall. “The rest is history,” Joel said.
Their son Jordan, a 2010 Mahtomedi High School graduate, began his dental career in 2018 after earning a bachelor’s degree in physiology from the University of Minnesota and his Doctor of Dental Surgery from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. Since then, he has practiced at Hauge Dental in Osceola, Wisconsin.
A mutual friend of Hauge’s let him know that Dr. Stephen Jaksa was planning to sell his business, Lake Area Dental. Hauge and Jordan officially took over the practice in January.
“I probably would have been a business owner earlier if I didn’t have five kids, that kind of delayed things,” Jordan explained. Jordan and his wife Kaylee are parents to two sets of twins (ages 2 and 6) and a 4-year-old.
Jordan, a Mahtomedi resident, now splits his time between Osceola and White Bear Lake.
One thing all three generations can agree on is that it is all about relationships.
“That’s what makes your business the most successful,” Griffith explained.
