Elaine Baily, Klauer Optical

By Rebecca Groff, correspondent

Name: Elaine Baily

Title: Certified optician/office manager

Company: Klauer Optical

Address: 4330 Czech Lane NE, Cedar Rapids

Phone: (319) 378-0066

Website: www.klaueroptical.com

Elevator pitch: “You don't garden in your Sunday clothes.”

In 1985, when Elaine Baily was 20 and working as a receptionist for Klauer Optical in the I.E. tower downtown, she'd hear people talk about “Mr. Bode over at Bode Optical” - she never knew the famous Mr. Bode's first name.

They were “wondering where they were going to go to get their eyewear fittings done when he retired. I told myself I could fill those shoes and make a career out of this opportunity that was before me,” she recalled.

Klauer Optical, a family-owned independent optical company, was started by Clarence Klauer in Dubuque in 1939. Baily credits Don Klauer, Clarence's son, as her mentor.

“Don was the one who hired me and showed me the ropes of the business,” she said. “Don Klauer had a saying: ‘You don't garden in your Sunday clothes.'

“That means proper certification training for fitting glasses and keeping up with technology. I feel it is very important that we set ourselves apart from other dispensaries knowing we are excelling to be able to offer our customers the best the optical industry has to offer.”

The new backside digital technology for progressive lens is one example.

“Progressive lenses have been around for many years and they have always been known as a front design, where the manufacturer designs and presets the channel corridor of the reading for the patient,” she explained.

“The backside digital design allows us to go onto the back surface of the lens and grind the distance, the intermediate and the near, to be a more complementary fit for a patient's prescription and frame measurements, so we are able to control the channel corridor width to actually make it a little bit wider with a little less distortion into the peripheral. The patient then has a better adaption into the progressive lens,” Baily added.

“Any time we can grind optics on the back surface of a lens and get those optics closer to the patient's eyes, the fit will be more successful.”

Baily says this also enables them to fit a progressive lens into a wider choice of frames for their clients.

“One of the nicest compliments I get is referrals from ophthalmology offices,” she said.

Her reputation for fitting glasses could be demonstrated by the longevity she enjoys with her client base.

“I have families that I've taken care of their parents, I've taken care of their children and now I'm taking care of their children as well.

“It's very nice to have that with people. That's what keeps me going.”

Baily and her husband have a standing appointment with their boat every Saturday when she gets home from work. She also gardens, and not, as you'd suspect, in her Sunday clothes.