Relocation Gives Greater Visibility To East Windsor Optician

EAST WINDSOR, CT — Opening a business is always a difficult feat, and opening one just before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic magnifies that difficulty. Add in the fact of a woman starting her own business in a previously male-dominated field, then toss in the factor of a location that is, to put it mildly, out of sight from anywhere. All of these elements have made the success of Soto Optical even more amazing, and a new site overlooking Route 5 will undoubtedly help with the growth of the business.

Owner Rebecca Soto opened the store in Jan. 2020 at 20-A Pasco Commons, at the very peak of a large hill and set in behind another building. The lack of visibility, coupled with the government shutdown of many businesses when the coronavirus pandemic started in mid-March, made getting off the ground a truly demanding task.

Though Soto Optical is just over a year old, its owner is certainly no novice in the optical profession.

"I've been in this business for 25 years," she said in a recent interview with Patch. "I was young when I started. I walked into an office and I needed a job. And I fell in love with it. I did. I worked in corporate for 20 years. And then after that, I got into teaching."

Soto is a professor of vision care technologies, or opticianry, at Goodwin University.

"I always tell people opticians are like the pharmacist to the eye doctor, we fill the scripts," she said. "So your ophthalmologist and your optometrist write the scripts. We fill the scripts."

Opticianry historically had been a male-dominated profession, with about 90 percent of licensed opticians being men. However, that trend has almost completely reversed in recent years.

"Now we're about 80 percent women," she said. "At Goodwin University, out of the last seven years. I've maybe had at the most one or two male students every year. It's flipped 100 percent."

On occasion, Soto still encounters people with the old-fashioned mindset about opticians.

"I remember I was working with a gentleman," she recalled. "An older lady came in, she was probably 80, and she wanted her glasses adjusted. She said, 'I don't want you to help me. I want the man to help me.' She wanted the man to help her. She knows the man was working under me, so she wanted the man to help her. So he went to adjust her glasses, and he broke them."

A big change in the industry in recent years, according to Soto, is that "eyewear has become fashion. So where before it was a necessity, people will buy glasses because they just think they look cute. Ten years ago, people wouldn't be framed for rimmed glasses. My daughter wears glasses."

The pandemic and the hard-to-find location cut deeply into walk-in business for Soto. Fortunately, she has contracts for prescription safety glasses with several aerospace and engineering firms in the area.

Sue Dickinson, a Soto Optical customer, told Patch, "As a nurse, it was so great to find out about the prescription safety glasses. They’re so comfortable and it’s great not to wear glasses then goggles and a face shield in addition to our required face masks. Rebecca was great in helping me find the right pair for me, in a clean safe environment. I highly recommend Soto Optical."

Soto's location situation improved drastically about two weeks ago, when she moved within the Pasco Commons complex to 35-A South Main St., a building adjacent to Route 5 which most recently housed a photography studio.

She believes a common misperception among clients is "people feel like they have to spend a lot of money to get good service. I don't believe in that. And I teach my students that everybody's money is green when they walk in the door. I don't care if they can do a Husky card, or $100. Their money is green, and you treat them the same way you would treat anybody. I don't care if you're a janitor or a CEO; you're spending your hard-earned money, you should demand good service. And if not, then you should leave. Don't spend your money anywhere that is not appreciated. I place my students in opticals and I tell them to treat everybody the same way. When they're working under me at Goodwin, you treat everybody the same, you greet every patient, you give them respect, and you give them honesty. That's a big issue in our industry."

More information about Soto Optical may be found here.

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