Fill out this form to email this article to a friend

Your name		Your email
Recipient email	You may enter up to 20 multiple email addresses, separated by commas.
Your message
Validation Code	Hear validation code
	Enter validation code

We were unable to send your email.

Click here to try again.

Largo entrepreneur refocused on vision care success

By Kris Hundley, Times Staff Writer
In print: Friday, May 2, 2008

Ted Gillette, former owner of Vision Twenty-One, is back in the eye-care business with a company called InnoVision.
	[JAMES BORCHUCK | Times]

Story Tools E-mail this story Contact the editor Print this story Comment on this story Social Bookmarking Digg Facebook Stumbleupon Reddit Del.icio.us Newsvine

ADVERTISEMENT

ST. PETERSBURG

Dr. Ted Gillette, the optometrist and entrepreneur who rode one eye-care company through boom and bust eight years ago, is back in the business.

His new effort, InnoVision Management Co., has eight locations and nine optometrists in the bay area. Gillette, 54, described the 4-year-old business as a hybrid of existing approaches to delivering routine eye care. At one end is the traditional model of independent optometrists with a loyal patient following. At the other are giant optical chains — and increasingly Wal-Mart — which attract customers on price and use interchangeable optometrists to handle the eye exams.

Gillette said InnoVision wants to group doctors at multiple locations in each market so they can offer technology and efficiencies a solo practitioner can't afford.

In 1984, Gillette started Vision Twenty-One in Largo, hiring optometrists to sublease space at VisionWorks' stores. As refractive surgery became popular, he added ophthalmologists and surgery centers. With the growth of managed care, the company contracted with major carriers. Gillette then aggressively began acquiring practices, offering doctors cash and stock in the company, which went public in August 1997.

At its peak in late 1998, Vision Twenty-One boasted revenues of $240-million, 170 clinics in 14 states and more than 5,700 doctors in its managed care network. Then it crashed.

"We ended up overleveraging," Gillette said. "Our debt-equity ratio was high, and when the equity side got whacked as the appetite for the stock dropped, we couldn't meet the bank covenants. There were poor decisions on my part as CEO."

By mid 2000, Gillette was unwinding the company. The managed-care portion reverted to an earlier owner and now operates as Block Vision in Baltimore.

"I learned more taking the company apart than putting it together," said Gillette, who saw the value of his shares evaporate with the delisting of the company. "We had a sizable net worth that went away, but I sleep easy at night. I don't feel like I took anybody's money."

During a four-year hiatus from the industry, Gillette ran Country Day School, a Montessori school in Largo he and his wife bought in 1998. Though he continues part-time in that role, the entrepreneur is back, preparing InnoVision for growth.

Gillette said technology now makes it easier to integrate patient data from multiple locations, something Vision Twenty-One was never able to do. Gillette said InnoVision became profitable in the middle of last year and is posting double-digit growth, with the larger locations averaging $1-million a year in revenue and the smaller ones about $600,000.

"Before, we were outrunning our headlights," he said. "Now it's natural to build again, but we're building from the ground up, slowly."

Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2996.