New ABDO President

On Thursday, May 9 at a ceremony at the ABDO National Resources Centre in Birmingham, Kevin Gutsell FBDO (Hons) SLD was officially named as the new president of the Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDO).

Kevin’s career in optics spans 40 years. He qualified as a dispensing optician in 1987, working in practice before joining Alcon in 1996 as an area account manager. In 1998 he joined Nikon Optical UK and worked in roles in sales, marketing, and professional services until 2013. He now runs Optical Centre Supplies, supplying CentroStyle products in the UK.

Kevin has also been a distance learning tutor for ABDO College since 1992, the ABDO representative on the Spectacle Lens Committee at the British Standards Institute since April 2014, and has been a member of education visitor panels of the General Optical Council since 2016. He has served as editor of ABDO’s Ophthalmic Lens Availability Online since 2021 and been an ABDO Board member for most of the last 14 years.

At the ceremony, Kevin thanked outgoing president Daryl Newsome for his dedication and hard work. Daryl now becomes an advisor to the ABDO board for a period of two years.

We’d also like to thank Daryl for the chatty blogs he’s provided for The New Optometrist over the last year. He’s been giving us a good-natured insight into the world of the DO, always with an emphasis on the importance of keeping up to date and working in harmony with other eye care professionals. You can find Daryl’s blogs here.