By GPLI President Derrell James, March 2025
Dear all GPLI friends and colleagues,
Welcome to the end of Q1 2025 – hard to believe that this year is passing so quickly and that we are two months removed from a very successful GSLS! I’d like to express my sincerest thanks for your support in electing me as president of the GPLI. Our executive director, Dr. Jenn Harthan and I have some large shoes to fill with Dr. Bennett’s retirement, but I am confident that with your continued support, we will continue the great works done and be blessed with wonderful achievements to come.
With any change in leadership, we have a great opportunity to review our best practices and lessons learned, and to sharpen our strategic focus. Our primary goal is to be the First in Education, and that will not change. My hope is that we will continue to find innovative ways to bring specialty contact lenses to our collective patients by an even closer partnership with doctors and industry. Only together can we thrive in a competitive and challenging market, and only together can we ensure the viability of our businesses in the long-term.
I just finished two years as the president of the CLMA, and its new president, John Hibbs, and I are in lock step with the boards of directors of the CLMA and GPLI to make 2025 the best year ever for specialty lenses! Along with the GPLI advisory board and our more than a dozen committees, there is a conduit for frank and open dialog, an open door for ideas, and the hope that all our members feel empowered to participate and shape the future of specialty contact lenses. We have over 2000 doctor and student members of the GPLI who are enjoying the benefits of the abundant printed and electronic resources, COPE approved webinars, online journals and podcasts, and recognition in our “Find a GP Specialist” locator. Further, the GPLI is approaching $500,000 in sponsorships, donations, partnerships, and other funding, with most coming from the CLMA membership.
I believe we have accomplished much, but there is always so much more to do. I am confident that our institute will continue to improve and thrive. However, it is easy to be overwhelmed with our daily activities and to lose sight (no pun intended) of the fact that it is our collective responsibility to overcome obstacles, find unique solutions, create efficient methods for collaboration, and to push through things that might hold us back from being the best we can be. Let’s continue to dedicate ourselves to “what is possible” and not allow anything to slow us down to achieving that.
So, what’s next? I think we can all agree that, as corporations and private equity continue to consolidate our practices, we face pressures in our businesses that we haven’t had historically. The inventors and researchers in our industry, focused in the universities, seek partners to bring their technologies to market which can be extremely expensive and time consuming to obtain FDA registration. Due to this, we have seen and are seeing “off-label” prescriptions which naturally brings scrutiny and concern, thus slowing the rate of commercialization. We must dedicate ourselves to those innovations that can be commercialized more quickly and look to our doctors to give us more feedback on their needs.
So, what do we do as an association in 2025? We must work together, share best practices and lessons learned, and raise the overall level of business in our industry, thus rewarding those companies who implement those improvements. Send us your thoughts. Volunteer to work on a committee. Network with the CLMA member labs. The optical industry needs us all to be better.
