Feature Story

Transitions Optical Changing Their Outlook
By David Liller

Pinellas Park-based Transitions Optical, Inc. has emerged from its quiet headquarters off of Belcher Road and into the limelight of professional sports with its recent decision to sponsor the Professional Golf Association (PGA) 2009 tournament at the Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club. The Transitions Championship For Healthy Sight, the new name of the PGA event, will be held March 16-22, 2009 at Innisbrook's Copperhead Course.

“Partnering with the PGA TOUR aligns well with our company and brand,” said Brett Craig, president, Transitions Optical, in a prepared press release. “The tournament makes an important contribution to our local community, and the sponsorship presents a tremendous opportunity to educate consumers about the importance of healthy sight.”

Dave Cole, Transitions Optical's general manager for the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand, reflected Craig's statement. "The PGA tour is a big step for us; it's an evolution for the brand," Cole said. "We were looking at different sponsorships when this came up and it seemed like the right fit at the right time."

Evolution may be the perfect term for describing the history and growth of Transitions Optical as well. The company, which is majority owned by Pittsburgh Plate Glass, Inc. (PPG), (with Essilor International, a lens-making corporation based in Paris, as the minority partner) started in 1990. The company's role in the eye care industry involves adding a unique process to the manufacture of eyeglass lenses. The Transitions lenses change from clear to dark when exposed to the sun's ultraviolet rays. The company's process coats lenses with a special chemical dye that actually infiltrates the special optical plastic of the lens, making it an integral part of the lens, not just a surface coating.

"Transitions® Lenses are as clear as regular eyeglass lenses until dangerous UV rays are present. Then, the brighter the sun, the darker they get – getting as dark as sunglasses, providing protection in bright, glaring light. Since Transitions Lenses darken only as much as needed, they can be worn comfortably year-round to provide convenience and 100 percent automatic UVA, UVB and glare protection every day – sunny, cloudy or in between," company documents state.

For Transitions Optical it all began in 1991 when the company's Pinellas Park manufacturing plant/headquarters began making its first generation of Transitions lenses. A year later, the company completely revamped the way it made lenses and introduced the second generation of lenses. "We have just released our sixth-generation lens," Cole said. "We're unique in that with each generation we completely change our product. It is part of our heritage to make sure our customers benefit from the latest advances in technology."

By 1996 Transitions Optical had opened offices in Asia, South America, and started a new production facility in Australia. In that same year the company opened a sales office in Canada and began its more than decade-long emphasis on eye health and wellness when it initiated The Transitions Academy. The purpose of the academy is to update eye care professionals on the latest trends in eye health. As the decade drew to an end, Transitions Optical introduced its third generation of lenses which featured a new process that allowed the company to treat popular polycarbonate materials. The company also grew, adding a production plant and sales efforts in Brazil, and another production plant in the Philippines.

Growth and changes in technology continued in the succeeding years. In 2001 Transitions began working with the impact-resistant material known as Trivex®, and in 2003 Transitions lenses became the first lens to receive a seal of approval for ultraviolet absorbers/blockers from the American Optometric Association. In 2005 the company continued its educational outreach by beginning a campaign called "Eye Didn't Know That!", which includes a traveling exhibit, youth program and web site. A year later, the company opened a new production facility in Thailand.

Currently, Transitions Optical manufactures lenses in Florida, Ireland, Brazil, Thailand, Australia, and the Philippines with offices in Canada, France, Singapore, Mexico , Brazil, India, Japan, and Shanghai. "This has been a very fast-growing business since we launched in 1991," Cole said. "The brand growth is just phenomenal."

A 2007 article on the Barron’s magazine website confirms Cole's assessment of Transitions Optical's potential, saying the company can expect "double-digit" growth in the coming year. The article states that 15 percent of eyeglass lenses in the US are Transitions lenses, and the article estimates that the private company will contribute $1 billion in sales to its parent firms.

But the rapid rise of Transitions Optical wasn't a sure thing back in 1990. Cole, who had worked with PPG and moved to Florida when Transitions Optical was founded, said it was a risk to leave Pittsburgh for this new venture, but he and others with the new startup believed in the product. At its 1990 inception, Transitions Optical employed just 50 workers in its production facility in an old Val-Pak warehouse in Pinellas Park. The company made lenses for just one client. Now, Transitions Optical claims a workforce of more than 1,200 workers worldwide who make lenses for more than a dozen clients.

Cole said the Transitions lens process grew out of a product PPG had developed during World War II. He said the chemical that was the forerunner of the Transitions product had originally been developed to coat the inside of gas tanks for combat tanks. "The idea was that this chemical treatment would allow bullets to pass right through, making it easier to repair just two bullet holes rather than a bunch of shrapnel punctures," he said.

The product was never use during the war, and sat on the shelf until PPG decided to look into a way of coating plastic lenses. Research and development followed until, in 1990,a method of adding a light-sensitive coating to plastic lenses was developed. Transitions Optical now claims that nearly every possible prescription can be filled with Transitions lenses.

Cole said part of Transitions Optical's success can be found in the way the company operates. He said that even though the company is a joint venture between two international corporations, it retains its entrepreneurial spirit to this day. "We really do operate on our own like a smaller company, but we have these enormous resources we can draw on," Cole said. The company official said another factor in its success is its adherence to a set of four guiding principles, which include providing customers with the best and most advanced technology, building and maintaining close relationships with the eye care professionals who distribute Transitions lenses, working at growing the Transitions brand, and pursuing operational excellence at all times.

Transitions Optical's emphasis on excellence is reflected in the company's lens-coating procedure itself. A tour of the Pinellas Park manufacturing center shows just how exacting the process is. A non-stop stream of unshaped lenses, which resemble clear, plastic hockey pucks, arrive at the warehouse from lens manufacturers from around the world. Soon the lenses begin rolling through a conveyor belt that takes them through the Transitions process. At the start workers use a laser system to etch identifying marks (later removed by lens manufacturers) so the Transitions Optical employees can track the lenses throughout the procedure. The lenses are then "edged," a way of preparing them for the Transitions process.

The lenses then roll through an enclosed cleaning procedure involving high pressure soap and water, two rinsing takes and then a dryer. Cole said once the lenses have been cleaned, they remain in a closed environment until the coatings have been successfully "imbibed" into the plastic lenses in order to keep them free from even the smallest bit of dirt and contamination.

The various coatings, which depend on the style and purpose of the lens, are applied to each plastic disk. From there the lenses are placed on sheets that resemble large cookie sheets. The sheets are loaded onto a large cart and wheeled into a large oven, where heating at 230 degrees Fahrenheit allows the photochromatic coating's molecules to enter into the plastic lenses. The lenses are rinsed and cleaned again, and then inspected by hand with the use of ultraviolet lights that reveal any defects in the coating process.

Next the lenses are coated again, this time with a "hard" coat to make the plastic lenses more scratch-resistant. The plastic disks are again inspected and defective lenses can often be salvaged and sent back through the coating process. Lenses that pass this final inspection are sent for final curing. After final curing, any special work is done, such as adding a temporary yellow line to show lens makers the top and bottom of "no line" bifocal lenses.

The laser etchings placed on the back of the unformed plastic lenses at the first stages of the process are now used to sort the lenses for shipping back to the manufacturer. The etched codes are read by a machine that prints out bar-coded labels for boxes. The lenses, now Transitions lenses, are carefully wrapped, boxed, and ready to ship out.

Cole pointed out the large flat screen monitors located at the end of the process. These monitors display various types of statistical information derived from the etched codes, and allows the plant managers to keep track of how many lenses are coated over any set amount of time - from minutes to days. Comparing process times with those recorded on previous days helps managers know if the work is going smoothly or if there is a problem with the process, Cole said.

Two such manufacturing lines are located in the Pinellas Park plant, and are duplicated in Transitions Optical's facilities internationally. Cole said research on the coating material takes place in Pennsylvania, while development work on the process occurs at the Pinellas Park headquarters. It’s at the Florida facility that various quality control tests are run to check on characteristics such as shatter resistance and the amount of time it takes a Transitions lens to turn from clear to dark when exposed to UV light.

It is the Transitions lenses' ability to quickly adapt to changing lighting conditions that attracted the attention of premium sunglass manufacturer Oakley. A recent project between Transitions Optical and Oakley has resulted in a series of Oakley sports eyewear activated by Transitions.

"The patented technologies of Transitions Optical combined with Oakley's High Definition Optics mark an evolutionary step in sunglass technology, offering levels of performance, convenience and optical clarity the world has never seen," said Colin Baden, president of Oakley, Inc., in a prepared news release. "Whether you're golfing, cycling or pounding pavement on a dawn training run, you can't maintain peak performance unless your eyes keep up with your environment."

"Transitions and Oakley are committed to advancing eyewear technology, and protecting and promoting healthy sight. Given Oakley's 30 year sports heritage, this is a great opportunity to bring our photochromic technology to outdoor sport performance applications," Cole said in the same news release. "Now, whether you're an athlete, or just involved in outdoor activities, these new sunglass lenses provide convenient protection from UV and glare while maximizing visual performance in all lighting conditions."

So it was perhaps inevitable that Transitions Optical would play a large role in the world of professional sports. Cole said the company's sponsorship of the Transitions Championship For Healthy Sight allows the company to expand its customer base and helps it continue its goal of promoting health sight in the community as well.

"The PGA is a great platform to accelerate that," Cole said, noting that the group organizing the tournament named the Copperheads, after the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook, has provided over $20 million in charity funds over the years.

Sheila Johnson, owner of Innisbrook, also welcomed Transitions Optical as the new tournament sponsor. "This sponsorship from Transitions Optical reinforces the commitment that all the partners in this event have to the Tampa Bay area," said Johnson. "Not only does a PGA TOUR event bring tremendous economic benefit to the community, it also will help to shine a global spotlight on Tampa."

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