ClearVision CEO Gives Advice To Local Businesses

ClearVision Optical President and CEO David Friedfeld told local business owners that keeping a focus on the future is critical to succeed on Long Island.

Friedfeld gave this advice to more than 40 local business leaders on Thursday morning as part of the Hauppauge Industrial Association of Long Island's CEO roundtable series. ClearVision Optical has won two HIA-LI Business Achievements Awards and a Special Award for Growth.

"The truth is if there's one thing you are guaranteed of, there will be changes all the time so you have to adapt," Friedfeld said.

ClearVision Optical is one of Hauppauge's family-owned businesses, started by Fred Friedfeld in 1949 when he was 22. The company started as a distributor of prescription eyewear before expanding in the 1960s to manufacture its own lines.

The company now sells 11 distinct eyewear collections with four designer sunglass collections, manufacturing the largest kids collection, according David Friedfeld. It employs 130 employees in Hauppauge with approximately 15 student interns and many project consultants.

“If you are in business long enough, you will encounter multiple defining moments,” Friedfeld said.

“Often times they point out not the inadequacies of the leader, but the challenges a leader faces. Leaders don’t like to show the challenges they face,” he added.

The president said one obstacle his company survived was when a production partnership turned negative in the 1990s. Friedfeld said he knew it was time to end the contract before it dragged the company down.

“As we wound down one contract overnight, the company lost one-third of its business,” he said.

Friedfeld and his brother spent a year secretly putting together a 57-page document that spelled out a contingency plan to avoid renewing the business contract, while keeping ClearVision operating.

Other challenges the company has faced include finding talented labor on Long Island and difficult employees issues.

One of the innovative strategies the company now relies on is the OFI initiative, short for Opportunity For Improvement. It gives each ClearVision employee a method to suggest cost-saving measures or ways to increase sales at a direct benefit to the company.

Yet, the future of ClearVision Optical as a family-owned business isn’t clear, Friedfeld said.

“There used to be a time I use to say we would never sell the company…” he said. “Now I understand as president my responsibility is to maximize the company for everyone.”

It is another obstacle and decision he will face when the time comes.