LAS VEGAS—Following up on their planning meeting in May, a group of opticians representing various factions of the profession announced on Friday that they have formed a new non-profit organization called the Opticianry Summit Foundation. Established to move opticianry forward, the organization intends to conduct a comprehensive study in order to develop an educational and testing program to help create the “optician of the future.”

Committees have already been established to determine how to best train and test future opticians, how to better collaborate with third party plans, how to define the role of the optician for both the public and for the profession itself, and how to best pull together the industry’s various stakeholders.

The initial board of directors consists of chairman Ed DeGennaro, Med, ABOM, LDO; vice chairman Sam Morgenstern, FNAO, FOAA; secretary Wesley Scott, BS, LDO, ABOM, NCLE-AC; and treasurer John Girdler, LDO, ABOC, FNAO. For more information, or to sign up to receive regular updates, contact opticianrysummit@gmail.com.