A well-known figure across both industry and profession, ABDO vice president Kevin Gutsell began his career in optics in 1984 as a trainee dispensing optician.
After qualifying, Kevin spent more than 12 years in practice, including management roles, before embarking on a career in sales. “For the next 20 years, I held various sales, marketing and professional services roles with companies supplying contact lens solutions, spectacle lenses and many other products found in practice and optical labs,” says Kevin. “Within this time, and for short periods, I also spent time teaching and leading a sector trade body.”
Since 2017, Kevin has owned a company supplying a range of optical products to practices and laboratories. Over the years, he has also been an ABDO distance learning tutor. “I have always enjoyed helping tomorrow’s qualified dispensing opticians,” he says.
Local level involvement
As a tutor for ABDO since 1992, Kevin’s close affiliation with the Association reaches back almost as far as to when he qualified. “ABDO area meetings – as they were formerly known – have always played an important part in my professional life and I became more involved with local meetings when CET became compulsory. I served as an ABDO area committee member as well as chairman.”
In 2007, Kevin joined the Journal Advisory Committee [now called the Editorial Committee] of Dispensing Optics and became an ABDO College trustee in 2009. “Soon after, I was fortunate to be voted on to the ABDO board and have continued to represent the membership almost ever since,” explains Kevin.
Since 2014, Kevin has represented ABDO on the Spectacle Lens Committee at the British Standards Institute and, more recently, became the editor of ABDO’s Ophthalmic Lens Availability Online resource.
Exciting and challenging times
Speaking about the current state of play in optics, Kevin says: “The Association and the sector are facing exciting and challenging times – straight off the back of a two-year pandemic. In particular, the General Optical Council’s [GOC] Call for Evidence on the Opticians Act – and its consultation on associated GOC policies – is an opportunity for dispensing opticians and the sector at large to influence updates, modernisations and scope of practice. To be vice president and then president of ABDO during this time is very exciting.”
As Kevin notes, the profession is no stranger to testing times. “When you look at the history of ABDO and its predecessor, you will see times of challenge: deregulation, the end of NHS spectacles for all, the addition of VAT on sales and online supply of eyewear and contact lenses to name but a few.
“Yet dispensing opticians have continued to progress during these times because of the professionalism and skills that are obtained and enhanced in practice and through training. New lens designs requiring suitable frames and accurate fitting to slow myopia in children is a perfect example of improving knowledge, understanding suitability and then communicating this new ‘treatment’ to patients and parents in order to improve outcomes in the future. Who would have predicted this 10 years ago?”
As Kevin settles into office, he pledges that ABDO “will continue to support members in many ways, and look to improve and increase the member benefits that sit alongside the important insurance and professional development programmes”.
Kevin adds: “The restrictions caused by recent events have thankfully been lifted in most cases. I hope to see many members over the next four years and understand further the challenges facing dispensing opticians and eye healthcare at large.”
A version of this article first appeared in the June issue of Dispensing Optics.