Optical lab makes glasses for the masses

Unique to the region

By Jim Obert

Business Today

Roman tragedian Seneca is said to have read "all the books in Rome" by peering through a glass globe of water.

A thousand years later, myopic Mandarin monks laid segments of glass spheres against reading material to magnify the letters.

Venetian glass blowers later constructed lenses that could be held in a frame in front of the eyes.

And Benjamin Franklin invented the bifocals.

Nowadays they're everywhere -- prescription eyeglasses. About half of all Americans, 140 million people, wear glasses. Some wear them close to the eyes, others perch them on the end of their proboscis. But over the centuries the purpose has been the same -- to bring focus to an otherwise hazy world.

Rhea Optical Co. in Cape Girardeau does a great deal to replace blurring with clarity. Rhea (pronounced Ray) makes about 26,000 pairs of glasses each year. That's 85 to 110 pair a day, five days a week.

The only full-service optical lab between St. Louis and Memphis, Rhea Optical serves optometry professionals in Southeast Missouri, Southern Illinois and Arkansas.

Chuck Ross, president of the company, joined the business in 1978 as a salesman.

"I had taught high school for one year, then heard a salesman position was available at Rhea," said Ross. "I had no experience in sales. It was a whole new world."

Rhea Optical Co. was founded in 1942 by optician C.W. "Charles" Rhea. Rhea sold the company in 1963 to Lester and Jerry Pind who operated it for 37 years. Last June, Ross, who had been sales manager the past 24 years, purchased the company.

When Ross started with the company as a salesman, most lenses were made of glass.

"Now about 85 percent of lenses are made of plastic," he said.

His company sizes, cuts, grinds and polishes single-focus, bifocal, trifocal and progressive lenses before placing them into frames. Much of the work is computerized.

Lenses for each pair of eyeglasses are shaped according to a prescription issued by an opthamologist or optometrist. Color tints can be added.

Ross said computer glasses are increasingly common.

"If you need glasses strictly for computer work, then the focusing distance for most people is 21 inches," said Ross, adding that normal reading distance is from 12 to 14 inches from the eyes.

Bill Dunn, sales manager at Rhea Optical, said computer glasses, with their fixed focal point, are popular for other reasons.

"We get a lot of choir people who want to read words and music at a certain distance," said Dunn.

Ross said all lenses are inspected by a lensometer as the final quality-control check. If a lens doesn't exactly match the prescription, it is rejected and the process starts anew.