In 1972, Dr. Marvin Poston was the first African American named "Optometrist of the Year" by the American Optometric Association, the highest professional award from the AOA.

VSP is known for quality service – whether providing eyecare to underprivileged through our number of charitable programs, ensuring patients have access to high-quality vision services or providing doctors with the tools they need to maintain successful private practices. This dedication to service can be directly attributed to the core philosophies of VSP’s founders, one of whom was Dr. Marvin R. Poston.

In 1935, Dr. Poston was the first African American student admitted to the study of optometry at University of California, Berkeley. It took another 23 years for the second African American student to follow in his footsteps and graduate from the Berkeley School of Optometry. Dr. Poston later became the first African American licensed to practice optometry on the West Coast.

Nearly 55 years ago, Dr. Poston, along with several of his fellow optometrists, formed California Vision Services, now known as VSP Vision Care. The company originally was the first to offer a prepaid, vision benefit that provided high quality, cost-effective eyecare. VSP has since grown to become the largest not-for-profit visions benefits provider in the nation, covering 1 in 6 Americans.

Dr. Poston’s optometry practice flourished for four decades in Oakland and Danville, California but his reach extended far beyond those who visited his offices. Befitting one of the founders of a company that prides itself on community support, Dr. Poston began his own tradition of community outreach by establishing vision-screening programs for under-served children and adults. The Children’s Vision Center of the East Bay, the West Oakland Health Group and the East Bay Skill Center are just a few of the organizations that benefited from his efforts.

Dr. Poston received numerous honors during his career, including the Optometric Man of the Year award by the Alameda Contra Costa Optometric Society and Optometrist of the Year by the California Optometric Association and the American Optometric Association. He was also appointed to three terms on the California State Board of Optometry by governors Edmund G. “Pat” Brown and Ronald Reagan. In each of these areas, Dr. Poston was the first African American ever to be honored.

“He was a man of great integrity,” says Norm Jacoby, O.D., a former colleague from Encino, California. “He was very soft-spoken and intelligent, and you listened when he spoke. Marvin was conscious of what new graduates needed when getting started in private practice and that they needed all the help they could get.”

This awareness led Dr. Poston to start Optometric Planning Service (OPS), a company that gave young optometric students access to the resources necessary to start their businesses properly. OPS evolved into Professional Health Management & Planning Services, Inc., which provided services for professionals new to a variety of healthcare fields.

After more than 40 years in optometry, Dr. Poston and his wife, Arlene, relocated to Calistoga, California to open Poston Crest Vineyard. As with his practice, Dr. Poston received recognition for his success as a vintner. In 2004, Wine Business Monthly featured him in an article about diversity in the industry titled “The Changing Face of the American Wine Industry.”

Dr. Poston is remembered as a generous individual and contributor to the success of VSP. “Dr. Poston’s passion for people and their vision is still alive in VSP’s corporate mission, values and the efforts of every doctor,” said Gary Brooks, VSP Vision Care’s president. “Through outreach programs such as VSP Mobile Eyes^® and Sight for Students^®, we continue his legacy of commitment to the community.”

After a satisfying life filled with professional and personal accomplishments, Dr. Poston died July 18, 2002 in St. Helena, California. He was 87 years old.

Will B. works in VSP’s Customer Service department, part of our fabulous team that achieved the prestigious Service Quality Measurement, Inc. (SQM) Award of “World Class Customer Satisfaction” for the seventh year in a row! He shares his experience as a first time Mobile Response Team (MRT) member with the VSP Mobile Eyes® program.

I was fortunate enough to be selected to go on the last Mobile Eyes trip for 2009 and am quickly experiencing first hand, the work is truly some of the most rewarding work I have done with VSP.

We are half way done with our trip to Central California, and so far everything is running smoothly.  Before the trip, I had a general idea of what to expect.  I was impressed that we have most everything onboard that you would find in a VSP doctor’s office.  We can read the prescription off the patient’s current glasses, we can test for Glaucoma and even do an auto-refraction for the doctor.  The VSP doctors who come on board and provide the exams have everything they need to complete a comprehensive exam.  They even dilate patient’s eyes if they need to get a closer look.

Every patient we have encountered has been very gracious.  Many of our patients had either lost their glasses or their glasses were in disrepair.  Some patients had not seen an eye doctor for many years and in a few cases, had not visited an eye doctor for over a decade!  We have been thanked many times over for the service we are providing them. Our community partner has been equally thankful for the service we are able to provide.

So far, I have been able to pre-test patients, help with frame selection and submit orders on Eyefinity.  I have also learned how to set up and tear down the clinic. What a process!

It’s very rewarding to be part of the Mobile Response Team.  I feel a sense of pride working for a company that is actively reaching out to the community to provide a much-needed service, especially during a time when the number of people in need is greater than ever.  I am looking forward to the rest of our trip and many trips to come in the future!

Jill N. is a member of VSP's Corporate Public Relations team.

VSP network Dr. Dennis Delp of Shiloh Eye Care Center in York, PA, has been volunteering his time once a week for the last 20 years with ForSight Vision Center, a not-for-profit serving its community by providing quality, specialized services and opportunities designed to prevent, prepare for and manage loss of vision.

Dr. Delp volunteered with us during our fifth community event providing exams with the clinic back in November of 2007 and we were happy to partner with him again last month when he called to ask for our support of during this important inaugural event with ForSight. Listen to Dr. Delp as he speaks to the results of the event and the impact it had on the community.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Green Dot New York students, Lori, and Liz.

SeeZar at Green Dot New York in the Bronx.

During Rob’s segment, he discusses VSP Vision Care’s not-for-profit business model and the importance of not-for-profits in healthcare. Listen now.

The clinic outside of the Animo Ralph Bunche and Animo Justice campus.

Wednesday was my first day working as a tech on our mobile clinic, and it put me to the test! On our day of a series of events in partnership with Green Dot Public Schools, we visited Animo Ralph Bunche and Animo Justice. These schools share the same campus, so we were able to help students from both schools from one location.

These students were amazing! The results of the Green Dot program are apparent after talking to the kids that we saw. They’d just finished taking their PSAT test, and were articulate, polite, and eager to get their eyes examined. Looking back on myself at that age, I could have taken a cue or two from their manners and poise.

All of the students loved the selection of eyewear on the clinic, and were totally excited about the great brands available to them. Who wouldn’t be glad to wear glasses from Fendi, Coach, or Sean John?

Drs. Kurata and Silverman, the VSP network doctors who volunteered their time on the clinic Wednesday, were so gracious. They put students at ease, and were so efficient that we were able to keep to the schedule.

Vision is key to scholastic success, and these kids are college-bound! We were proud to be part of their path to accomplishment.

Victor was excited to model glasses for us.

Dr. Silverman with a happy student.

VSP embarked on a one-year sponsorship of the Art Ark program, a mobile art museum that travels to schools in the Sacramento region, giving students access to art that they may not otherwise have. Art is so often a visual representation, sharing a close tie with healthy eyesight.

Bev Thorn is a Crocker Art Museum docent and a VSP employee.

The Art Ark sponsorship isn’t VSP’s only support of the Crocker. VSP employees, such as Bev Thorn, are also active with the Crocker Art Museum. Bev, a 20-year veteran of volunteering at the Crocker, shares:

“I think it’s so awesome that VSP is sponsoring the Crocker’s Art Ark! Programs like art and music always seem to be among the first casualties of the budget ax, meaning fewer school kids get to visit the Crocker in person during these tough economic times.

The Art Ark is a perfect fit for VSP. Its traveling nature echoes the Mobile Clinics that support our eyecare outreach. And, it’s a perfect pairing with our ongoing commitment to kids through the Sight for Students^® program.

I’ve been volunteering at the Crocker for years now. After 20 years of helping visitors engage with art in my role as a docent, I suppose I’m biased. But, the museum truly is an incredible asset to our region. And it’s going to get even bigger and better next year with the opening of major expansion.”

Acting Director of Development at the Crocker, Dr. Linda Farley, expresses her thoughts on the sponsorship:

“Nearly half of the Crocker Art Museum’s budget comes from private contributions, making corporate sponsorships like VSP’s vital to our ability to bring the visual arts to the Sacramento community. With VSP’s support, the Crocker’s mobile museum, the Art Ark, will reach nearly 20,000 students next year. We are so grateful to VSP for helping us extend the Crocker’s reach into schools.”

VSP is happy to take an active role in our communities, especially those in our home regions. If you’re in the Sacramento area, and haven’t visited the Crocker Art Museum, I strongly suggest you pop in for a tour. The current exhibition showcases Japanese women ceramic artists, and it is amazing!

Al Schubert

Al Schubert, VSP’s Vice President of Managed Care and Health Policy, was on the air with Tom Sullivan last week, discussing vision care’s place in healthcare reform.

Listen to the interview, and let us know what you think.

Jill N. is a member of VSP's Corporate Public Relations team

The VSP Mobile Eyes® clinic spent a week in the Bay Area of California earlier this year partnering with five local charities. I was lucky enough to have the chance to join Niki M., Mobile Clinic Specialist, at the Bill Graham Auditorium in San Francisco where VSP partnered with Project Homeless Connect (PHC) to provide free comprehensive eye exams and free eyewear to homeless individuals. I left Sacramento early that rainy Wednesday morning excited and energized to finally see the clinic in action.

When I arrived I was fortunate to have Niki take my keys to expertly park my car

behind the clinic. What a gal, not only can she drive a 45 foot RV in the city, she can also parallel park like a champ. Fortunately, the rain had stopped by this time so I was able to take some good pictures before the first rush of patients started arriving.

I was quickly brought up to speed on how to help patients select frames (honesty is always appreciated),

measure for bifocals and note prescriptions. After always hearing Niki talk about the amazing people she meets on a regular basis, it was surreal to witness some of those people first-hand. It was inspirational to realize these were real people, who had dreams, aspirations and truly were in need and were so grateful to have the opportunity to see again. Something so basic and important, yet so many of us take for granted.

Those four hours went by so fast, yet we were able to help so many people. Niki even managed to fit in a quick chat with a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle who was doing a story on veterans and was interested in the work the clinic did, specifically the priors day work it did in the Tenderloin district.

All in all, the Mobile Eyes clinic helped over 411 people in the Bay Area in just five days. I was just as grateful to have the chance to witness our mission in action. You can keep up to date on where the clinics are at vsp.com/community and clicking on the 2009 Event Calendar. You can also follow the clinics on Twitter! @SeeLia & @SeeZar

The core mission of a dedicated healthcare organization is to help patients receive the highest-quality care. And not-for-profit healthcare companies are uniquely structured to achieve this vision.

Since they have no owners, shareholders, or dividends to pay out, not-for-profits reinvest surplus revenue back into the delivery of care rather than removing resources from the system. This provides an important social benefit to the community and delivers the most healthcare for the dollar.

Historically the United States government recognized the value of this community benefit by granting tax-exempt status to not-for-profit healthcare companies. This exemption allowed those companies to invest more resources to expand access to high-quality care.

For more than 40 years, VSP had such an exemption; however the Internal Revenue Service withdrew it in 2003. The decision was puzzling because VSP did not change its business philosophy or commitment to the community. VSP asked the IRS to share the guidelines they use to define what constitutes a tax-exempt, not-for-profit organization. They would not, and VSP sought a court ruling to have its tax-exemption restored.

The Sacramento Business Journal provides a solid overview of the issues in this case. There are broad potential implications for the future of not-for-profit healthcare, and VSP has asked the Supreme Court of the United States to consider this case.

Recently, national media outlets including the New York Times, Fox Business, the Wall Street Journal , and Fortune discussed the case, and I encourage you to consider their perspectives.

If VSP regains our tax exemption, we could devote additional resources now being paid as taxes into our programs that expand the community’s access to the best eyecare. We hope that the Supreme Court recognizes the importance of this case to the delivery of healthcare in the United States.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.