After graduating from Washington State University with an MBA, Tom Johnson spent 10 years with the accounting and consulting firm Coopers and Liebrand. Working as a consultant with a variety of health-care applications, Johnson joined Gargoyles, Inc., an eyewear company that was one of the firm's clients.

After spending four years at Gargoyles, Johnson left the optical industry for two years to concentrate on a couple of medical consulting companies that he owns. But when Apollo Eyewear, maker of sports eyewear, was looking for a new president, and came knocking on the 40-year old Washington native's door, Johnson answered.

How would you describe your management style?

I am a hands-off delegator. I try to be a leader-type manager as opposed to a real hands-on, intense, in-your-face person.

What do you enjoy about it?

Particularly with this company. the sports angle of the business is one; the affiliation that the company has with Ken Griffey Jr.; the ability to tie athletes together with real high quality product; and the ability to build relationships and partnerships with optical partners. There's a lot of sex appeal and a lot of pizzazz that goes along with the sunglass business and that's certainly very attractive to me as well.

Where do you plan to take Apollo over the next year or so?

What we want to do is lay the foundation over the next year for a quality company that can be a very, very strong player. My goals are to really put together the infrastructure, the product offering, and to build the relationships that we can leverage over the long term into quality partnerships for the business.

What changes have you seen in the sports eyewear industry over the last few years and where do you think it's going?

I think the industry over the last few years has shown movement toward the types of things we are trying to do. In other words, to becoming more involved with providing specific product for specific applications, and I do expect to see that continue as the consumers become more sophisticated in terms of what they are looking for and their knowledge base regarding the attributes of products that can meet their sporting needs.

Are sports eyewear companies one step ahead of the consumer-particularly the extreme sports consumer-or a step behind?

Oftentimes what seems to happen is that companies develop products for the sake of differentiating on a theme, and trying to grab space in a marketplace where no one else is. That can be very difficult in a mature and competitive industry, like this is. Often times linking the specific need the customer has to a product is more of an after thought. I think that's driven by the sheer speed that you have to get new products out. EB