Good Neighbor Podcast Estero
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of SWFL
Good Neighbor Podcast Estero
EP# 194 - From Corporate to Private Practice: An Optometrist's Inspiring Journey
Ever wondered what it's like to transition from a corporate environment to launching your dream business? Episode 194 of the Good Neighbor Podcast, Estero, features Dr. Joseph Convertino of Estero Optics, who shares his incredible journey from working in Walmart vision centers for 15 years to finally opening his own private practice. Learn about how his childhood visits to an eye doctor who treated the Miami Dolphins sparked his passion for optometry and set him on a path to success. Dr. Convertino discusses the joys and hurdles of balancing a demanding career with family life, providing an honest look at what it takes to build your dream while staying grounded.
Throughout the episode, Dr. Convertino dispels common myths about optometry, particularly the differences between optometrists and ophthalmologists. He highlights the broad scope of services offered by optometrists, from treating eye diseases to managing conditions like glaucoma and diabetes. His dedication to his patients and his family shines through, making this conversation a treasure trove of insights for anyone interested in eye care or the inspiring stories of local entrepreneurs. Tune in to hear how this devoted dad and business owner navigates the complexities of both worlds with grace and determination.
Estero Optics
Dr. Joseph (OD FAAO) Convertino
10131 Estero Town Commons Place
Estero, FL 33928
239-427-1433
dr.convertino@esterooptics.com
esterooptics.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, cabo, jim Schaller.
Speaker 2:Good, how are you doing? Welcome Good Neighbors to episode number 194 of the Good Neighbor Podcast, Estero. Today we have Good Neighbor Dr Joseph Convertino from Estero Optics. Welcome, Good morning, Thank you for having me. Yeah, wonderful, Great to get to know people on the community. I know we've met before out at the Astero Fest, but I wanted to learn a little bit more about what you do over at Estero Optics. So let's jump right in and why don't you share a little bit at first?
Speaker 3:All right. So once again, my name is Joseph Convertino. I am an optometrist. I've been practicing in the area for about 20 years. I grew up in Florida, did a residency in eye disease at a VA hospital at University of Florida and for the last 15 years I've been in Walmart vision centers. I've had six different Walmart vision centers. It's been a long time goal of mine to have my own private practice, so we opened up about three months ago.
Speaker 2:Very nice, you finally did it. Congrats. Yes, I know, thank you. Thank you. Long time coming, so a long story, but I guess how did you get involved in optics in the first place?
Speaker 3:So I once again grew up Fort Lauderdale and, believe it or not, I grew up seeing an eye doctor who used to do the Miami dolphins. So I would go in there get contacts, since I'm 12 years old and every summer I would come home during my summer breaks from college and I would get my contact lens updated. And because this office had a lot of different doctors coming through there who were striving to be eye doctors, I would meet one every summer and they would say what do you study? And I said pre-med. They said what do you want to do with your life? I'm like I don't know. And one of them was like why don't you do optometry? And it just made sense to me yeah, that, that is great.
Speaker 2:So I'm a Dolphins fan, I'm thinking it. I was, yep, very big Dolphins fans grew up going to see watch Dan Marino games that would be, and what a great job that would have been to work on Dolphins on top of that.
Speaker 3:I did yeah, I did some screening on him back in the day when I was in school. It was pretty interesting.
Speaker 2:Very nice, Very nice. So opening your own business obviously not something that's easy. There are challenges along the way, whether personally or professionally. Is there something that happened along your journey that we can look back at now and say you know, it was a challenge, it was an obstacle at the time, but I overcame it.
Speaker 3:I think the biggest challenge for me is trying to balance work family balance. I have a wife who is in health care. She's a speech pathologist at Lee Health. We have two kids, four and six, soon to be five and seven. My biggest challenge is the amount of time and energy and effort that went into getting this up and going, Still continuing to keep it up and going and prosper and still be home for my family. I'm a very big dad guy, I'm the cook in my family and just you know I want to make sure that I'm home doing both, Can't miss those valuable times that are precious and I need to be here to grow the business. So I'm trying to balance that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and family is important. I'm glad it's kind of incorporated into what you do. So, regarding optics, are there certain maybe myths or misconceptions that we can maybe clear up for our listeners surrounding what you guys do?
Speaker 3:I think a lot. The only major misconception I think in my field is the difference between optometry and ophthalmologist. Optometrists, like ophthalmologists, treat eye disease. I treat infections, I treat glaucoma, I follow diabetics. We deal with everything that an ophthalmologist would deal with. If you need surgery, I send you to that specific surgeon. If you need cataract surgery, I send you to cataracts. If you need a neuro-evaluation, you see a neuro-ophthalmologist. If you need a pediatric when I say pediatric I'll admit ophthalmologist. But in general we do a lot of the things that most people don't think we do. They just think of us as getting glasses and contacts.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Being a technology I mean, there's a lot of technology in the industry, but do you see, certain things maybe trending or changing in the industry.
Speaker 3:This, yes, I mean. There's some people doing things online. I think that's okay, for if you really can't get to an eye care professional or in your third world country, glasses and contacts online. I'm not the biggest fan of doing exams online. I think things need to be personal. There's a lot of instrumentations. We do infrared imaging of glands. We do corneal topography, like a map of the front of the eye. We look at retinal evaluations. We look at something called OCT. We scan your eye 65,000 times in one second 3D analysis of the retina. Lots of stuff needs to be done in-house and this office has the most technology I've ever seen in any office.
Speaker 2:That is great. That is great. So you mentioned you were from Florida originally, correct? Yes, sir, how did you settle in Southwest Florida?
Speaker 3:I grew up in Fort Lauderdale. I went to St Thomas over on the East Coast for high school. I was a Fort Lauderdale boy, but then I was working in a lot of different offices, not really happy with a lot of the way things were being done. So I started interviewing with people and there became a position actually to have my own practice in a Walmart vision center and, just like any other ProVision or lens crafters these Walmarts are independent doctors I just pay rent to be there. So I have been my own boss for like 20 years and have run a company, but in a whole different level than what I'm doing right now. So I got convinced, uh, to a position that was over here, that was available, and I took it. So that's how we ended up moving over the west coast about 50 years ago now congrats, congrats we would love having you down here in the community and thank you for what you do.
Speaker 2:So I know you mentioned you have kids. Family is very important to you when you do get that tiny little bit of free time. You mentioned cooking as well, what do you enjoy doing?
Speaker 3:Family, family, family. I'm usually on a boat with a friend or hanging out with the kids in my pool. My biggest hobby. If I had a another, um second person that was me, I would be out doing photography. I'm very big into that hobby. I mean, if I had the energy, I would love to get up at four in the morning and watch the sunrise and take pictures and do things that make it complicated. Kids, my wife and I travel a ton, um, there's even a link for my website, joseph convertinoinophotographycom. You can check out some of my photos that we do for fun. But we used to travel and take pictures from cliffs at sunset and just kind of enjoy photographing the moments that we enjoyed that is awesome.
Speaker 2:See, it's all about the eye. You know it is, you know understanding the lens and the optics. It helps, so it helped me, I bet'm going to check out their website. I love talking for you and like to see how you do that. So is there one thing you wish our listeners knew about the sterile optics that maybe you don't think they know?
Speaker 3:um like I said, we're cutting edge. We have a lot of technology. Uh, we do a lot of dry eyes. We have a whole room dedicated to aesthetics. So we do something called in mode, where we we warm the glands with a device called radio frequency which helps stimulate elastin collagen, tighten skin, helps get those glands flowing. We do ipl, which stands for intense pulse light, where we get rid of blemishes on the face, anything brown or red, like sunspots or rosacea. All the dry eyes is inflammatory by nature so we take care of that with treatments instead of medications. We do all natural treatments for these things and then, because of that device, we also do Morpheus microneling, where it's 24 needles that go into your skin and they penetrate skin to tighten skin, help with bags, help with fat, things like that.
Speaker 2:Right, it sounds a lot worse than it is, I'm sure. Right, it is not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not as bad as it sounds but we do have a whole aesthetic part of the clinic that we are very interested in too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very nice, I love that. So how would our listeners go about contacting you if they're interested in learning more, or stopping by?
Speaker 3:The easiest way is just go to asteroopticscom and there's book appointment button and everything's electronic. You get paperwork electronically and everything.
Speaker 2:So any last, any last words for our listeners.
Speaker 3:No, we have a great optical. Any last words for our listeners? No, we have a great optical. We have amazing staff that are really I am blessed with what we have working here. They are all experts at their game. We sell S4 lenses the best lens products that are out there. We would like our inventory and you would love the design of my office. I'm very proud of it.
Speaker 2:Very good, very good. Well, dr Joseph, it's been a pleasure getting to know you. Thank you for being such a good neighbor. Congratulations on opening up and being part of the community here, and I hope to see you out there soon.
Speaker 3:All right. Thank you so much for having me Appreciate you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Estero. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpestero. com. That's gnpestero. com, or call 239-296-2621.