Yours truly can remember when OAM annual meetings drew 15 to 20 attendees. Well, let me tell you – there were 296 attendees at the Double Tree in Westborough at 7:00 AM on Sunday November 2. All the usual suspects and a wonderful bump in attendance by a young crowd typified by the addition to the OAM board of people like Kris Morrissey, Martha Hui, and Diane Matuck.

Anyhow, Daylight Savings time ended the night before so we all arrived fresh and alert having gained an extra hour of sleep.

Walking around before classes began, the main topic being discussed in the milling crowd of opticians was the economy, hunkering down, better buying practices, less hiring, etc. (followed by John Simko’s bragging about playing golf three times a week!)

Another interesting bit of gossip was that several people of my generation had buyers for their practices only to have them fall through due to the terrible credit crunch.

Craig Norman, a clinical professor at the Michigan College of Optometry, gave a B&L sponsored morning’s worth of lectures on subjects ranging from dealing with the presbyope, to realities of contact lens care. Excellent, excellent – a bit of humor, loads of info everyone can use, Bravo!

Other nationally noted industry speakers included Deb Kotob, Arlene Murphy, Jeff LaPlante, and Sue Gromacki. It would have been great to attend them all, sadly there are just so many hours in the day and the OAM wisely insists on getting us on the road by three PM.

The conversations continued through lunch, as did the business-meeting portion of the day. We voted on the new officers and board. It was nice sitting next to Gerry Hastings – an optician who I worked with about 30 years earlier. Gerry is now with an Ophthalmology practice after heading up the Fallon Clinic Optical organization, and he hardly looks a day older than when I first met him!

The Optician of the year was named – the well deserved honor going to John Deering for his unselfish work in organizing an industry wide Opticians Meeting in Cincinnati. The Honorary Opticians of the Year (yes, that is plural) went to the dynamic duo, Pat Langone and Norm Marquis for their lifetime dedication to furthering opticianry.