Robert Dziuban

Having grown up as a self-professed "Army brat," Robert Dziuban had no desire to follow in his father's military footsteps. Instead, after completing both his undergrad and graduate work at Duke University in North Carolina, the future executive director of the Virginia-based Optical Laboratories Association (OLA) chose a much tougher career path -- that of a teacher. For five years, Dziuban did his best to educate future leaders -- not to mention future opticians, ophthalmologists, and optometrists -- by way of high school science.

But when he couldn't envision himself in the classroom forever, and "not seeing other options available in the educational system," Dziuban became a consultant for a private firm that supplied remedial programs to schools. After several years, though, he found himself desiring another career change. Knowing people who worked with associations, Dziuban soon found himself at the National Petroleum refiners Association. For the next 18 years, he held a variety of positions -- from assistant technical director to director of conferences. However, four-and-a-half years ago, he began to get restless again.

"I had a variety of different responsibilities with them," he recalls, "and I was looking for more and there weren't any opportunities there." Fortunately, the OLA was hiring, and Dziuban was just the person they were looking for. Now, the 52-year-old father of three sons, and husband of Nora, is looking forward to taking the OLA into the millenium.

Do you think your teaching background has benefited your association work at all?

Both have lots of opportunities to meet different people on a continuing basis.

What do you like best about your current position?

The opportunity to influence all the associations' activities as opposed to only a portion of them, thereby pulling all of them together so they're working in harmony.

What is it about the OLA that you find challenging?

What's different from my prior association experience is that the optical laboratories don't operate as a stand-alone industry the way petroleum refiners did. [The labs] are far more closely linked to not only the companies that supply them, but the companies whom they supply. So, we have a far greater amount of interaction between those groups. It's a great opportunity for joint work.

What are your goals for the association as we approach the millenium?

To make sure that its historical member activities and services not only remain intact, but also stay current. To reach out to members through as many possible media as they are exposed to. That we become more effectively Web-based and perhaps even e-mail based in some of our communications. And then, that we ensure that the OLA is accurately evaluating the changing nature of the optical eyewear business and adapting the association's structure to the changing structure of the industry.

The optical laboratories are starting to face a situation that dispensaries have been dealing with for quite some time -- that is, smaller independents being acquired by chains or larger companies. What do you see in the future for them?

The optical laboratories have demonstrated -- from what I can see in my short tenure here, and looking at their history -- remarkable resilience in adapting to changing conditions in their industry and the marketplace. I'm not sure I can predict the future of the optical industry for our members, but it's clear that the same smart business strategy that carried people through the prior changes will carry them through the current ones.

Is the popularity of in-house finishing equipment posing a problem to independent labs?

I don't think any business or organization succeeds by ignoring the reality of progress or change and trying to stop it. They succeed by recognizing the reality and adapting to it.

What new services is the OLA providing to its members?

Revised, expanded technical information about producing eyewear and revised, expanded, updated information for members to provide to their accounts -- education on the features and benefits of premium products.

What are your plans for growing OLA's current membership of 500 labs?

I think we as an association will reach out to the existing members and use them as ambassadors to the other laboratory companies that are not members, to encourage them to join. Also, we can look at a groups of laboratories that has been outside of OLA membership -- the surfacing laboratories that are in some way related to an eyecare professional's organization -- and invite membership on their part. That's subject to approval of a bylaws change by the members, but that's nonetheless underway.

How would you describe your management style?

My intent is to have a style that results in the empowering of staff, with the ultimate objective of working myself out of a job. EB