Photo by Korri Kezar
Photo by Korri Kezar
Photo by Korri Kezar
Photo by Korri Kezar
Photo by Korri KezarContact lens producer offers sight solutions
In 1973, Jim Webb started Metro Optics, a contact lens manufacturer that made rigid lenses out of the only available material at the time, poly methyl methacrylate, or acrylic glass.
Today, 40 years later, contact lenses can be made in a variety of styles, out of different materials and by primarily automated processes. Jim's company, which was originally formed in Dallas and had five locations in Texas and Oklahoma, has been condensed into one location in Pflugerville, and is located on Vision Drive.
Jim's son Steve is president of Metro Optics, which produces approximately 400,000 lenses every year for doctors throughout the nation. The business specializes in creating contacts for hard-to-fit prescriptions, and eye professionals can order customized lenses that are not usually stocked by larger lens companies. Although Metro Optics is not typically involved in one-on-one consultations with patients, if a doctor has a hard time fitting lenses, a patient can be custom fitted at Metro Optics' location.
"Everything is made to prescription, just like a custom-made pair of glasses would be," Steve said. "Your big-box manufacturers ... service the standard, easy-to-fit prescriptions, because that's where most people fall. Outside of that range, where people need higher prescriptions, or they have some kind of corneal irregularity where they can't wear standard lenses, that's what we make."
