MIAMI--Alan Yuster and Lex Bristol,
two veterans of the ophthalmic lens business, have joined forces to
launch a stock lens business, Gator Lens. The Miami-based company
distributes a wide assortment of stock finished lenses sourced from
China, Taiwan and Korea.  | | Alan
Yuster |
“We offer the flexibility of a small
boutique manufacturer,” said Yuster, who has held management
positions with Rodenstock Lens, Younger Optics and other companies.
“We offer overnight or two-day shipping, we don’t require any
minimums, and special orders are no problem.” Gator offers
competitive prices for both wholesale and retail customers, he
added. “We’re a no frills operation,”
explained Yuster, noting that Gator Lens shares its warehouse and
staff space with Bristol Consulting and Development (BCD), a
separate company run by Bristol that specializes in finished and
semi-finished lenses and sells only to wholesale labs. BCD’s specialty is lenses with
high-base curves. “We have lenses that go up to a 14-base in
plastic,” said Bristol, who recently relaunched BCD, a company
founded by his father, lens designer Alex Bristol. BCD also offers
special products such as polycarbonate flat-top in high base and an
invisible trifocal, which Bristol described as being “more like if
you were to take a single-vision lens and put round bifocal reading
segments in it.” Yuster and Bristol continue to
expand Gator Lens’ product line. They recently added a series of
finished photochromic polycarbonate lenses called PhotoGator Gray,
and plan to offer a brown version soon. The lenses offer a
performance transmittance of 76 to 24 percent, with 80 to 22
percent for an anti-reflective version. The reaction time from
light to dark is eight seconds; dark to light is 60 seconds. The
lens color is uniform independent of the lens power. Yuster noted that all Gator hard
coated lenses in all materials feature a tintable scratch-resistant
coating. All polycarbonate plus power lenses and poly all minus
powers -4.00D and greater feature a proprietary aspheric design to
produce less distortion. The thin and light lenses are up to 30
percent flatter than standard polycarbonate lenses. 1.61 and 1.67
lenses are also available hard-coated as well as with a
factory-applied AR multi-coat. All of Gator’s 1.67 lenses are also
aspheric, he said. Additional details are available on
the company’s Web site, www.gatorlens.com. --Andrew Karp
Volume Number: 21:03 Issue: 3/5/2007 | 
