International Optician of the Year Award finalist: Thierry Caillat

The annual IOA / Silmo International Optician of the Year Award recognises the importance of the optician in the optical business and their role in the choice of the optimum products for their clientele. Read on to find out more about one of the opticians who have been shortlisted for this prestigious award.

Thierry Caillat started out in optics by gaining his BTS at the optical school in Morez in 1981. He later went on to do a masters in optometry in Orsay in 2001. In 1986, he opened his first shop and in 1993 opened another store in Lyon, his birth city. In 1998 he expanded and added another store in Francheville and he expanded the first store in 2001 by buying two adjacent premises. In 2008, pushed by his interest in visual health, he created his own brand Thierry Caillat Opticians with a simple philosophy, ‘Excellence by Exigence’.

In parallel, Thierry undertakes a number of other activities all with a link to optics and visual health. He worked in the department of Professor Maugery in Saint Etienne from 1996 to 2002 and for seven years in the service of Professor Burillon. He teaches optometry and low vision at the Faculty of Orsay in Paris and the ISO in Lyon. He is a regular speaker for a number of manufacturers including Topcon, Johnson & Johnson and Essilor, training opticians and interns in ophthalmology.

He is very involved in the defence of the profession, he created the association Vision of the Future which has been active politically in Lyon. He aims to revalorise the image of the optician and re-affirm its importance in the landscape of visual health.
Terry is the winner of the French Optician of the Year prize 2018, a prize which is symbolic of the recognition of the practise of the optical profession, that of the professional health optician, of which Thierry Caillat is typical. His business has consistently grown over the past ten years. His clients come to his business for his professionalism, for his competencies, for the provision of an extra-ordinary service and even unique when it comes to contact lenses. His patients and clients are satisfied as they pay a fair price for his services and products through the price of the free market, not one controlled by insurance companies. Like the ophthalmologists, Thierry and his principal colleagues work on an appointment only basis which can be booked through the website of the store.

Thierry Caillat is the symbol of independence, depending on only himself, not on regulations orany health network, with little publicity and without tying himself to brand images.

He is historically one of the pillars of the Club Optic Libre, which selects only opticians of reference in a geographical region; professionals who share central values of professionalism, excellence, dynamism and sharing of knowledge. A buying group is always the reflection of the opticians who are members. If the Club Optic Libre is progressively becoming the first buying group for independent opticians, it is because of its power and its collective intelligence which mirrors the expression of the strength and intelligence of its opticians. To have Thierry in its midst is stimulating and pushes you to be excellent as he is not afraid of speaking out; he says what he thinks with conviction. This is probably the reason that he prefers to be independent without an established brand.

You can discover who has won the IOA / Silmo International Optician of the Year Award at the Silmo D’Or awards ceremony on Saturday 28th September. Find out more about Silmo and the awards here.

Image source : opticien-presse.fr