Meet Nathan Au of Torrance Vision Center in South Bay

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nathan Au.

Nathan, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I have always been a California boy. I have lived in the Los Angeles region all my life. I always knew I wanted to be in the health profession and serve the community to improve everyone’s quality of life. It wasn’t until my second or third year at the University of California, Irvine that I found my calling. I became fascinated with eyeballs and eyesight as I got more involved in my Biological Sciences major. I completed my four years of graduate school at the Southern California College of Optometry (in Fullerton) with an additional 1 year in residency specializing in Ocular Disease and Low Vision at the Veterans Affairs Hospital Clinic in Downtown Los Angeles. After receiving my doctorate in Optometry, I joined an optometric group in the South Bay and San Fernando Valley and became a stable key figure in the practices for over a decade. In 2016, I decided that it was my time to branch off on my own and create my own brand of quality eyecare service. Torrance Vision Center was born. We are located on the northeast corner of Crenshaw and Sepulveda in Torrance. What sets us apart from everyone else is that we like to stress customer service and patient care as the highest in priority. I value my patient’s opinions in how we can best serve them and fix any problems they have with their vision and eye health.

Has it been a smooth road?
In the initial months after I had taken over Dr. Les Huey, Inc. (previous office name) and convert it to Torrance Vision Center, we were struggling in keeping a steady flow of patients and clients that were coming in. We went from a one doctor practice that is only opened 3 days to a 2 doctors practice that is opened 5 days. There were days when we were busy with a strong number of patients and there are days when we had more time than what we knew what to do with. When you have a practice that is not busy enough in a time of when the economy was also weak, you still have to cover rent for the leased space and employee payroll. So I knew I had to find ways to generate patients and create more exposure of my practice to the community, in addition to letting the many patients who I’ve built a trusting relationship with this past decade know where I’m at. In today’s era, I knew I had to create some exposure via social media by creating some business pages on online sites like Facebook, Yelp! Google, and etc. On days that I’m off, I would be boothing at health fairs and working with partnering companies doing some on-site work to help supply factory employees with various eye protection and eye needs.

So, let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Torrance Vision Center story. Tell us more about the business.
The company that I started and built is named Torrance Vision Center. We are an optometry practice that provides complete eyecare services: vision and eye health examinations, glasses selection and dispensing, contact lens fitting and dispensing, emergency eyecare in diagnosing and treating various ocular pathologies. What sets us apart from others is that we stress service and customer satisfaction as our highest priority in providing eyecare to our patients. I like to be involved in everything that my patients are walked through from the beginning to the end of their visits, meaning from the eye exam portion to the selection of their contact lenses and glasses. What is most important to me in an eye examination is one’s ocular health. I always like to express to my patients that in order for me to get you the best eyeglasses or contact lens prescription, I need to make sure that the eyes are completely healthy. This is why I always check the retina first with the aide of my retinal camera. Every patient that come in for an eye examination will be treated to a snapshot of their retina with most not requiring dilation drops. Once we are able to determine the best Rx’s for glasses and contact lenses, I like to conclude my exams with a nice summary with a show and tell of the retinal images that were taken earlier. Most of the instruments that we use to contact our eye exams are modern, using the latest in technology.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
In the next 5-10 years, I am anticipating on seeing a shift more towards the convenience factor for the consumers. Everyone is constantly looking for ways to get their glasses and contact lenses at a push of a button. Although I do strongly believe that a machine or an app will never replace the optometrists and his or her experience in determining the best suitable Rx for the patients/consumers, I can see folks ordering their contact lens and glasses more online than what they are doing now. There may be more stores like Amazon that will dip their feet in the eye industry. This will cause people to price shop more. This is why I like to make my prices for glasses and contact lenses more consumer friendly and at par with most internet pricing. In the next few years, I do sense a rise in folks who had LASIK done in the 30’s and early 40’s coming back in to see their optometrists once the near vision and reading small fonts at a short distance become a nuisance.

Pricing:

• Frame n Lens specials (on select frames) at $89 for single vision and $139 for progressive (multifocal)

Contact Info:

• Address: 2396 Crenshaw Blvd. Ste. C
  Torrance, CA 90501
• Website: www.torrancevisioncenter.com
• Phone: (310) 320-0081
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/torrancevisioncenter
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/torrancevisioncenter
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/torrance-vision-center-torrance-6

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.