Association of Technical Opticians

ROATx of the Registered Opticians Association of Texas is an organization that is always ready to advance, they have changed with the times and stand now as a model for many other optical state organizations. Many states hope to duplicate their sucess by emulateing their strategies. I had the pleasure of meeting Sam Johnson the master opticians who is the brains behind the operation a few years back. His speach was calm and collected, his height was average, it threw me off; my expectation was a large grizzly man that chewed nails and spit fire. Sam has managed to turn lemon into lemonade for years now, I oncce had a very respected and admired mentor of mine call him a pit bull, once he gets his mind around something he won’t rest until he reaches success. Well Sam has his eye’s on licensure in Texas and guess what it can’t be but so far off if Sam has sunk his jaws into it. Check out their new site and become involved in their new efforts.:

http://opticians-licensure.roatx.org/

In the past I have heard many rumors mostly in online forums, things like Essilor and Luxottica teaming up. Crazy I know, but lately our industry has seen a twisted and disturbing trend of corporations taking advantage of the independent practitioners. Some of the latest headlines VSP losing their status as a non-profit and then purchaseing Marchon to then further squeezing the same profession their non-profit status was supposed to support. 1800contacts partnering up with Walmart to provide exams, because the law doesn’t allow them to sell contacts to expired prescritpions they need and avenue to get them in valid prescriptions. To the latest Essilor and Frames Direct partnering to provide eyeglasses online.

This trend has been predicted far before I could ever concieve of it, but here we are. ECP’s are at a precipice where a choice needs to be made. Some call to boycott Essilor, but they didn’t start this disturbing trend they just see an oportunity to exploit it. The many ethically bankrupt companies that have traded in sustainable growth for fast cash are growing and the mentality to have ECP’s join them is alarming. I won’t atempt to pursuade anyone into boycotting essilors products, but I personally won’t be using their products or services.

The real problem that needs to be addressed is our professions fractures, until optician, OD and OMD learn to work together large corporations will exploit this weakness. Eyeglasses need to be fitted properly and dispensed by qualified professionals, this cannot be accomplished with online eyewear so our patients are beign swindled and now our vendors want in on it.

I had a request for ABO/NCLE logo’s in digital format, I have always wondered why they are not available on the ABO website. Here is a zip file with the adslick in png format. Crop and use them as you wish.

Certification Adslicks (zip, png)

Great new site with videos, www.opticaled.com created by Brent McCardle from Durham Tech in NC. This is top quality stuff worth a bookmark in my book hands down check it out.

Our very own Donn McCarthy has suggested a podcasting feature and what Donn want’s Donn gets, so here is a link to the ATO podcast.

Feed
http://onlineopticianry.com/podcast/feed.xml

Podcasts
http://podcast.onlineopticianry.com