- 5 things pediatricians should know about eye health
- Advocating for optometry’s littlest patients
- Dry eye treatment creates growth potential for optometrists
- Honoring longtime AOA member and dedicated volunteer Heather Tibbetts
- Paraoptometric associates create caring first impressions for eye care
- Honoring an optometry trailblazer: Richard Hopping, O.D.
- She’s going FAR
- Community outreach creates avenues for vision care access
- What it takes to work on a comprehensive care team
- Honoring optometry’s best and brightest
- Committee spotlight: AOA’s Meetings & Member Experiences Committee
- Making her dream a reality
- Student-centered initiatives promote optometry careers
- 1 year strong, Myopia Collective advancing a new standard of care
- Elevating optometry by advocating for dry eye patients
- Congratulations to the AOA’s 2025 award winners
- Inspiring optometry’s next generation
- A passion for grassroots
- Bringing the optometric community together
- Optometry finds voice in influential society
- Remembering Debbie Hettler
- Part of the solution
- ‘Changing the face of how we practice’
- On the radar: Emerging technologies
- Lessons in staff retention from a 50-year-practicing paraoptometric
- Remembering Virgil Deering
- Understanding the past to inform a better future
- 5 ways to center patient care
- AOA members help Olympians gain an edge
- ‘Advocacy is our history and our future’
- Tennessee Welcomes You to Optometry’s Meeting
- Member in Focus - Dr. Thuy Tran
- Intentional leadership
- 115 years of family eye care
- Optometric foundation’s track record leads to $2.5 million grant for children’s eye care in Ohio
- Honoring Charlotte Ferris’ dedication to optometry
- Representation matters in optometry
- Remembering a true friend of optometry: Patricia Hopping
- AOA’s prestigious leadership program graduates another class
- Inspiring the next gen of contact lens leaders
- Seeing potential
- Taking eye care advocacy to a global scale
- Embracing the journey
- Born to serve: Active duty paraoptometric professionals provide critical care
- ‘Raising the ceiling’
- Honoring the profession’s finest at Optometry’s Meeting 2023
- Why proper documentation is vital
- Change agent
- The power of ‘yes’
- AOA immediate past president: Our biggest challenges
- Optometry through Bubba’s eyes
- Congratulations to the AOAs 2023 award winners
- Andrew Kemp AOA’s 2022 Educator of the Year transitions students from talking in question marks to talking in period
- Distinguishing service
- Successes in diabetes care
- Shantia-Hinderlider-humanitarian-heart
- Glen Steele honored in retirement
- Art Epstein
- Next-level-Loretta-Eriks-CPOT
- Davidoff award
- Leader to leader
- Chicago things to do
- The next generation of optometrys leaders
- 2022 Hall of Fame
- Sullins Award Winner
- A great fit
- Ukrainian refugees find succor in AOA doctor executive director
- Candidates announce bids for Board of Trustees elections
- annual award winners
- women in optometry
- Care close to home
- Emerging leader
- How one doctor lives a life of service
- Jerald Combs Obit
- Connecting with patients as paraoptometrics
- Building relationships
- Persistence pays off
- Advocacy from academia
- Women make giant strides
- AOA Board of Trustee Resolutions 2020
- C Clayton Powell O.D. Obit
- James A Boucher Obit
- Irving Bennett O.D. leaves legacy
- Janet Millis finding her place
- Changing of the guard 2020
- AOA doctors frontline care
- 2020 hall of fame inductees
- members carry the message 2020EyeExam into the future
- When student becomes teacher
- Jeni Kohn Vision Quest Young Optometrist Year
- AOA Board resolves advocacy public awareness in New Year
- nominate Hall of Fame
- AOA honors active-duty sacrifice of Army doctor of optometry
- From small-town to big deal
- AOA Board of Trustee Resolutions 2019
- How doctors of optometry contribute to Air Force mission
- Kneib longtime AOA leader leaves legacy
- Morrow Optometric Family
- AOA member has a super role for NFL team
- Taking pride in what you do
- Longtime AOA volunteer member Frank Fontana OD dies
- a profession of their own
- Doctor of optometry on MasterChef
- Hawaii doctor takes volcano in stride
- A patient person
- Pick Up the Pieces
- Removing the barriers
- Another New Year happily practicing optometry
- 101 years all in the family
- Doctor Levin Obit
- Family tree blooms with doctors of optometry
- Reaping what we sow
- AOA offers condolences to family of Richard L Wallingford Jr OD
- Hollywoods eye experts
- Black History Month AOA doctors rise to occasions
- Longtime AOA California optometric leader and educator dies
- Civil rights leader remembered as heroic and selfless by one doctor of optometry
- All in the family The Castellanos
- All in the Family The Botwins
- War stories Retired doctor receives Frances highest military honor
- All in the family Three generations of eye care
- Opening doors
- Optometrys Family Portrait
- Optometrys eyewitness
- Teachable moments
- doctor of optomtery stays focused in Ferguson Missouri
- Opticals green makeover hits primetime TV
AOA’s 2020-21 officers, trustees elected in historic vote
June 22, 2020
Familiarize yourself with the AOA’s 2020-2021 Board of Trustees and read what AOA’s outgoing President Barbara L. Horn, O.D., had to say about a challenging year.
Tag(s): Inside Optometry, Member Spotlight
Challenging times called for a historic response as the AOA's 2020-2021 Board of Trustees election took place via virtual ballot after the global coronavirus pandemic required the cancellation of Optometry's Meeting® 2020.
In a special webinar broadcast profession-wide on June 22, the AOA welcomed its 2020-2021 President William T. Reynolds, O.D., of Kentucky, into office and affiliate members cast electronic ballots-validated and tallied by the accounting firm BKD-to fill board officer and trustee positions.
The necessary cancellation of Optometry's Meeting 2020 in National Harbor, Maryland/Washington, D.C., due to the current public health emergency prompted many key elements of the profession's premier meeting to be reconfigured virtually, including the board election and a reimagined online education experience-the AOA 2020 Virtual Learning Livecast, June 24-27. As part of that one-time rearrangement, the AOA also will host a board installation ceremony via profession-wide webinar on Saturday, June 27, to formally recognize the newly elected officers and trustees.
The results of AOA's 2020-2021 Board of Trustees election are as follows:
Officers
President William T. Reynolds, O.D. (Kentucky)
President-elect Robert C. Layman, O.D. (Ohio)
Vice President James P. DeVleming, O.D. (Washington)
Secretary-Treasurer Ronald L. Benner, O.D. (Montana)
Immediate Past President Barbara L. Horn, O.D. (South Carolina)
Trustees
Terri A. Gossard, O.D. (Ohio)
Tad R. Kosanovich, O.D. (Florida)
Curtis A. Ono, O.D. (Washington)
Not up for election this year but continuing to serve as AOA Trustees are Jacqueline Bowen, O.D., Colorado; Teri K. Geist, O.D., of Nebraska; Lori L. Grover, O.D., Ph.D., of Illinois; and Steven T. Reed, O.D., of Mississippi.
Positives amidst 2020's challenges
In opening remarks for the AOA's virtual election, outgoing president Dr. Horn acknowledged the great opportunity for optometry's banner year-2020-and the early successes from the AOA's ambitious, multi-pronged awareness campaign centered on the essentialness of routine eye care from doctors of optometry.
"We built tremendous momentum coming into 2020 to position the profession of optometry and ensure that every American made eye health and vision care a priority by getting an eye exam with an AOA doctor of optometry-and we made great strides," Dr. Horn told attendees.
In partnership with affiliates, the innovative "Start with Eye" campaign encouraged Americans to prioritize their eye health and engaged more than 50 organizations, accounting for nearly 375,000 employees and reaching more than 15 million member individuals, in an employer pledge to make comprehensive eye exams part of their annual health routine. So, too, Dr. Horn highlighted a successful, first-ever initiative to host AOA board meetings on optometry campuses, engaging students and faculty at five schools nationwide.
"As we all know, the strong movement we had in the first couple months of 2020 was cut short," Dr. Horn said. "We read news stories and watched through January and February as a foreign virus quickly became an international health issue. Into March, it became the pandemic that has changed our work and lives in ways we still don't fully comprehend. The illness we, today, wearily refer to as COVID-19 has caused us all to reflect on what was and what is going to be moving forward."
Adapting to the change brought on by the public health emergency, the AOA and optometry rallied without hesitation as AOA ensured the full recognition and physician role of doctors of optometry in the federal crisis response and AOA member doctors, themselves, pivoted to providing urgent and emergent care when it mattered most.
Dr. Horn noted the AOA's all-out program reprioritization to support the profession during COVID-19, including offering doctors and optometry practices with crucial information on federal relief, telehealth options, reopening guidance and other resources through the #AskAOA COVID-19 webinar series and AOA COVID-19 Crisis Response webpage, as well as a media advocacy campaign to ensure the public knew the important role optometry played.
"While it isn't over, as we have opened up, we are relearning what we mean to our patients-we all talk about those patients who are coming in and just want to connect," Dr. Horn said.
"We persevered and we will continue to do so, no matter what COVID or other obstacles thrown at us. Because AOA members are resilient and strong, and I am so proud of this incredible family."