(PRESS RELEASE) SANTA ROSA BEACH, FL — Ivan Samuels is set to retire after 50 years in the optical industry.
Long recognized as an innovator in the eyecare business, Ivan Samuels will be stepping down as president of Optical POS, Inc. (Eye Cloud Pro).
Ivan Samuels graduated from college with a BA in Accounting and began working for the major accounting firm, Ernst & Young in their New York office. He became a CPA working on audit projects for Fortune 500 companies and later transitioned to work in Operations for a company that owned the patents for soft contact lenses. He became the CEO of the Hydron Contact Lens group and built factories in Australia, UK and New York. He was then hired by Ciba Geigy (now Novartis) as President of Ciba Vision Care to develop a business plan and direct the start up in the USA. Ivan’s team developed and introduced the first colored soft contact lenses in America. That start up is now one of the largest contact lens companies worldwide.
Ivan left the corporate world to start The Eye Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia where he used his experience in finance and operations to create an extremely successful chain of high end optical stores. Ivan assembled an ultra experienced staff of opticians and optometrists and set about creating a carefully curated inventory of luxury and independent eyewear collections combined with the very best in eyecare. Over the next 21 years the company would expand to 10 locations in 2 states.
Ivan’s current venture, Optical POS, Inc began life after Ivan sold The Eye Gallery to American Optical Services in 2012. He had begun the software project in 1999, sensing the need for a web based solution to eliminate the need for a computer server in each store to run the day to day activities of the business. The software, Eye Cloud Pro became available to optical retailers and is now the fastest growing, cloud based practice software across the country.
Throughout his career, Ivan Samuels has dedicated his knowledge to providing exceptional service by creating highly efficient strategies and solutions to everyday industry systems and activities. He leaves Optical POS, Inc in good hands with a team of very experienced people, many of whom have worked for him in previous companies over many years.
Dan Wetherell will be taking over as president of the company, having worked with Ivan closely for many years. Dan is also a licensed optician, with an OD father, and has been the face of the software support for Eye Cloud Pro for many years. The senior management team of Brian McGinity, John Evans, Sarah Dirksen and Gregg Seacrist will continue to take the software development to the next level over the coming years.