By GPLI President Derrell James, August 2025
Dear all GPLI friends and colleagues,
I thought it would be timely to catch up our membership, advisory board, and friends on all the wonderful things the GPLI has been doing and is planning to do as 2025 is moving swiftly past us! Our outstanding Executive Director Jenn Harthan, Associate Director Tom Quinn, and our board of directors continue to focus on the value of membership and bring greater services to you.
In early August, we conducted the GPLI Cornea and Contact Lens Resident Symposium and the Specialty Contact Lens Symposium sponsored by the members of the CLMA as well as other industry leaders, which was attended by nearly 70 doctors. These programs are a great example of our commitment to rising stars and recent Doctors of Optometry. Jenn and Tom, along with our administrative director Beth Anderzhon and marketing specialist Kim Mahrt and the great Ursula Lotzkat coordinated a comprehensive program that was one of the best ever!
Additionally, we have released some new and extremely exciting member benefits including the “Contact Lens Essentials for Staff” which encompasses 17 educational videos covering a complete range of topics from anatomy to specialty lens selection and fitting to instrumentation. The sister program “Contact Lens Essentials for Consultants” is found on the CLMA member website. The intent of these programs is to offer comprehensive training and a step-by-step path to competence and confidence for new office staff and manufacturing lab customer service and lens fitting consultants. However, everyone could benefit from a refresher on the courses, so check it out!
We are also working on additional collaborative opportunities with other industry organizations and hope to bring those to you soon.
One of the key questions at our last board meeting was to discuss ideas on doing a better job as an industry association. Many excellent points were tabled, including improving and expanding our schools’ programs, and updating the GPLI strategic plan and goals/objectives and creating a dashboard to monitor progress.
One item you will have in your inbox soon is the 2025 membership survey of our industry. We will be refreshing the survey from last year to measure changes in approaches, technologies, and the most important requirements for your contact lens practices and the industry partners that support them. We had an excellent response last year, and I hope we get even more this year! Results will be published for all members.
I hope that each of you has had a wonderful summer with your families and friends, and as always, I send best wishes for your health and success. As always, if I can be of service, contact me at djames@xcelspecialtycontacts.com or via the “contact us” link on our website.
Derrell James
President
