OWA founding member Lorinda Fraboni was inducted into The Vision Council's Lab Division Hall of Fame during Vision Expo West in Las Vegas. Lorinda has been in the optical industry and working at Walman, for 43 ½ years — an astounding feat!
She has contributed to the industry by mentoring, challenging standards, and always accepting new opportunities. One of those opportunities was participating in the creation of the Optical Women's Association.
During her acceptance of the award, she could have shared with us all of the great things that make up her life and career. However, Lorinda chose to highlight and honor the OWA!
Following is an excerpt from her speech where she very eloquently extols the value of the OWA:
The birth of the Optical Women's Association came at just the right time for me 20 years ago. I was a manager of information systems who worked in an office and tried to keep the lights on each day — no one outside of Walman knew me. Being part of the OWA changed that.
The women I met and worked with; Marge Axelrad, Jean Scott, Valerie Manso, Christie Walker Bos, and Linda Little — to name a few — were amazing women to look up to and learn from. This gave me an incentive to get really involved, and I became passionate in my quest to invite other women to join and hopefully find a place to meet great leaders, network, and share their ideas.
20 years ago, I was one of 3 women in management at Walman. Today we have more than 63 women in leadership positions and who are OWA members. This is great for them to be part of such a rich and diverse organization, with access to women in leadership from other companies to learn from.
This is great for Walman because as they support and promote promising individuals into leadership positions, Walman demonstrates our leadership to the rest of industry by supporting the OWA and, as a company; we become stronger because of it.
The OWA loves men and is very inclusive too. We invite them to all of our events and they come in droves — sometimes nearly 50% of the room is men at these events. Why is that? Because they understand this is a place to meet "who's who" in the industry; both men and women.
I encourage every business leader in this room to get your women involved in the OWA and, as a company, support OWA's efforts. It will be good for you and your company because you will see your women become even more professional and stronger leaders.
Congratulations, Lorinda, and Thank You from your fellow OWA members for shining such a bright spotlight on the organization.
Back to: October 2017 : October 2017 Newsletter