Dr. Gardner attended Southern Arkansas University and earned his Doctorate of Dental Surgery at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry in 1994. He accepted a commission in the US Army Dental Corps at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and attended the advanced education in general dentistry program before serving in Germany as the commander of a remote Army dental clinic.

In 2000, Dr. Gardner was accepted for orthodontic specialty training at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio. After his residency, he moved back to Ft. Campbell to serve as chief of orthodontics, to provide postgraduate orthodontic education in the same program he had attended nine years earlier.

He practiced and taught there for several years before becoming director of training and clinical orthodontics at the Tri-Service Orthodontic Residency Program, with the Air Force Postgraduate Dental School in San Antonio. Throughout his career, Dr. Gardner has helped to train numerous orthodontists, all of whom he proudly regards as colleagues