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Matt
Matthews, president & CEO, Crown Vision Centers |
CROWN VISION CENTERS
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By Linda F.
Jarrett
From a small optical business in downtown Alton, Ill. to a growing
force in the optical industry, Crown Vision Center continues to
expand with its new laboratory facility that opened last July in
Wood River, Ill.
President and CEO Matt Matthews says that this move took the laboratory
from its downtown Alton, Ill. location, which is the company headquarters.
“This building is our optical lab and production facility for manufacturing
prescription eyewear. We manufacture approximately 60,000 pairs
of eyeglasses a year.”
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Crown
Vision Centers manufactures approximately 60,000 pairs
of eyeglasses a year. |
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The company tripled its space from 4,000 square feet to 12,000 when
it moved into the Enviro-Way Business Park.
“To give credit where credit is due,” Matthews says, “the City of
Wood River did an excellent job of putting incentives together that
allowed us to locate in the business park. The park has been here
for six years, and the building we acquired was a shell.”
They now have a $1.2 million facility sitting on 5.5 acres of land.
“This additional space gives our company a more efficient layout
for manufacturing and production,” Matthews says. “We plan to eventually
put our operations center there as well. Then we would have all
our office functions in one location.”
Besides space, the facility also increased its employee count from
thirty to forty, the majority of whom are from southwestern Illinois.
According to Vision Monday, a publication of Jobson Medical Information,
a specialty healthcare communications, publishing, and medical education
company, Crown Vision Center now ranks 29th out of 50 “Optical Retailers
Ranked by U.S. sales in 2005.”
In 2004 Crown Vision had $18.5 million in sales and ranked 32 out
of 50 leading optical retailing companies. In 2005, they moved up
to 29 with $19.5 million in sales.
“Our philosophy,” he says, is “affordable eye care and every day
low prices in materials, glasses and contacts.” Matthews says that
Dr. Robert Handelman started the business in 1961. “He operated
it successfully for over 30 years in a single location by taking
care of his customers and charging reasonable prices. The current
management team has been with the company for 15 years and has seen
the company grow from a single large group practice location in
Alton, Ill. to 25 primary eye care centers in the St. Louis Metro
area and mid-Missouri. We basically took this doctor’s concept and
opened in convenient, accessible locations in the St. Louis metropolitan
area.
We were assisted along the way by partnering with the health insurance
companies in the greater St. Louis area. They liked the fact that
we had market-wide coverage with our locations, owned and operated
all our sites for the sake of consistency, and were accustomed to
providing services at affordable levels to our customers. We’ve
also put together a managed care panel of eye care providers in
southern Illinois and south Missouri, so we have some outside independent
doctors that send us their work.
Formerly known as Crown Optical, the company changed its name to
Crown Vision Centers last March as a way to inform new and old customers
that their company not only sells eyewear, but also is an integrated
full-service eye care center. “We work with over 20 optometrists
and three ophthalmologists,” Matthews says. “These professionals
perform eye exams, evaluate eye health and diagnose and treat ocular
diseases. A large part of Crown Vision’s business is also refractive
surgery (LASIK) and cataract surgery.
With the aging of America, Matthews says that present and future
“baby boomers” are interested in eye health. More and more people
in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s are coming in for regular eye exams
to make sure that they do not have eye health problems further down
the road.
“One reason” he says, “is that they are taking care of elder parents
or other relatives and see the effect of latent eye conditions like
glaucoma, macular degeneration and cataracts.” This clientele is
also excited about new trends in eyewear.
“This business is part medical and part fashion,” Matthews says.
“The new lens technology enables people that have higher prescriptions
to get lens that are thinner, not the coke bottle glasses of old.
And no way will “Boomers” be caught in bifocals with the obvious
line. The no-line lenses allow the sight-challenged to see and be
fashionable at the same time.
Crown operates 25 primary eye care centers and a laser vision correction
center; 23 in the St. Louis Metro Center, one in Jefferson City,
Mo., and one in Columbia, Mo. The laser vision correction center
is in Creve Coeur, Mo. |
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