By RICK BARRY
Tribune Staff Writer
Sarasota - It's
every business owner's dream: To do well by doing good.
Jim Morrison
is living his dream, and loving it.
Morrison, 37
invented and patented a system for making modular plastic and metal
eyeglasses that can be assembled in two minutes or less, and sell
for as low as, perhaps $12 a pair in volume.
And we're not
talking drugstore reading glasses here, either. These are precision
lenses that correct every common vision problem: nearsightedness,
farsightedness, agstigmatism.
Round plastic
lenses are premolded in about 150 prescriptions. Technicians, who
can be trained in 30 minutes or less to make the glasses, select an
appropriate frame kit and custom assemble it to fit the client's face.
Exact prices
are a somewhat sensitive subject and prices vary depending on a dozen
variables, including which of several contractual agreements are negotioated,
and whether the purchase of eyeglasses is subsidized by a state or
federal program.
Morrison International,
a for-profit operation, sells its eyeglasses wholesale through a variety
of "cause marketing" plans, after convincing major internatrional
corporations ro government agencies to invest in doing a very good
thing:P Restore normal vision to people who can't see well enough
to function. Much as McDonald's sponsors Ronald McDonald houses and
PepsiCo is a major supporter of the Olympic Gameames, Morrison belkkieves
some major corporation will see a cost effective program that helps
people see as an attractive vehicle for investing in their community.
He has two powerfully
oersuasive arguments: It's the right thing to do and it makes
them look good in the eyes of the public, their potential customers.
"And when
you put a pair of eyeglasses on a kid who's never worn them before...
it's quite an experience."
Morrison's Morr-Sight
division has two rugged, custom-built vehicles, replete with self-contained
power generation equiptment supporting computerized examining rooms
and an optometric laboratory. The vehicles are designed to travel
deep into rural areas worldwide - and restore vision on the spot,
to 100 people a day and more.
His glasses are
already in Latvia, Viet Nam, Brazil and Columbia.
The company is
well into an 18-month agreement with Hershey Foods Co. Three Sarasota-based
employees and local optometrist are cruising the hills of central
Pennsylvania in Morr-Sight's $250,000 custom bus. They're bringing
clear vision to 12,000 central Pennsylvanian school children, workers
and senior citrizens - 100 a day - for free, compliments of Hershey.
Mississippi agencies
on aging have provided glasses to thousands of poor senior citizens
in rural areas.
The Veterans
Administration found that older veterans were getting eye examinations
and new perscriptions - but weren't buying new glasses because of
the cost - now are customers of Jim Morrison's.
But the real
need is overseas. That became apparent to Morrison during a post-college
trip overland from France to India, to "broaden his horizons"
- and postpone real work for a year or so, he jokes.
He had spent
summers working in his optomotrist father's laboratory, and he noticed
immediately that in large portions of the world, no one wears glasses.
He has since learned from the United Nation's World Health Organization
that 50 percent of the world's adult population needs glasses, and
doesn't have them.
That translates
to a huge loss of productivity and an adverse impact on quality of
life for millions, and a list of potential clients a billion names
long.
By far, the number
one source of eyeglassesin the Third World is recycled eyeglasses
donated by others, distributed largley by the Lions Club International,
Morrison said. But rendomly trying on glasses prescribed and fitted
for others is less than an ideal solution: One eye may be different
from another; glasses don't work well if the frame doesn't center
the lens in front of the pupil.
The Lions clubs
are now a customer, too, Morrison said.
Most people in
the Third World can't afford eyeglasses, and if they could, there
is a critical shortage of skilled professionals to examine or make
glasses, and many villages in Africa, Asia and Southa America are
absurdly remote from clinics or urban centers.
It's a shocking
need; and in Morrison's view, a golden opportunity: Morrison International
hopes to doi business in volume. Very big volume.
Contracts are
in negotiation with governments and corporations, ach for hundreds
of thousands of pairs. A franchise has negotiated a license to retail
Morrison International's trademarked "Instant eyeglasses,"
including instant prescription sunglasses, coming soon to a mall kiosk
near you.
The company is
just 3-1/2 years old, and it is still concentrating on infrastructure.
Expensive custom lens molds are coming on line. Lens and frame inventories
are growing. Executive and sales staffers are being hired as the company
grows - many of them thanks to recent layoffs at local optical manufacturers,
including, Bausch and Lomb.
But Morrison
International hasn't stopped innovating while that infrastructure
builds. New frame styles, which change the look of the glasses despite
use of the same round lenses; new frame colors and materials and a
whole array of sunglasses.
Morrison grew
up the fortunate son of a fortunate father, Robert J. Morrison, a
prominent Harrisburg, Pa., optometrist, who co-owns the U.S. patent
for the soft contact lens. He is also a medical college professor
and has counted among his patients the royal families of Holland,
Belgium and Monaco; the late Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran,
and celebrities including Bill Cosby and Barbara Walters - several
of whom serve on his advisory board.
The company has
kept a low profile, but has not gone entirely unnoticed.
Morrison's invention
has been awarded a Best of What's New Award by Popular Science magazine
in the science category, one
of 14 winners. Other winners included the discoverers of the sixth
and final quark, a new planet and a black hole, according the magazine's
Candace Golanski. His biggest disappointment (and a blatant pitch):
that he has no program under way in the Tampa Bay area.
"I know
there's a need, especially among migrant farmworkers and others in
rural area, and maybe the inner city," he says. "We talking
to some people, but so far we're not doing anything in own backyard."
