DOI: 10.1097/01.opx.0000179970.68043.52

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PMID: 16189486

Issn Print: 1040-5488

Publication Date: 2005/09/01


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Optometric Visionary Completes an Historic Era

Anthony J. Adams

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As a profession, optometry is quite young—basically being both invented and transformed in the twentieth century. So much of its impressive growth and emergence as the primary eye care profession in the U.S. and Canada is marked with the clear imprint of individuals whom it is fair to say are “optometry heroes.” In some cases, the name of a single individual is almost synonymous with the transition from a very immature and struggling aspect of optometry to a proud national and international first-rate resource to optometry and health care in general. In these cases, the single individual will correctly point to the tremendous and critical efforts of others, but nevertheless, his/her name deserves to stand out.
With optometry's first-rate competence assessment and measurement agency, the National Board of Examiners in Optometry (NBEO), that name is Norman Wallis. For over a quarter of a century, Norman Wallis provided the continuity and executive leadership needed to bring the NBEO to its current highly regarded agency. It is among the very best of such institutions in health care competence testing. It is a star in optometry's cap! Norman's vision of what should and could be done has always been far ahead of the crowd, and he sometimes found resistance because of that. He deserves tribute and acknowledgment. His efforts were filled with challenges, lots of important battles, and some occasional small thinking by others that he had to be overcome. He showed admirable persistence and could see farther “down the tunnel” than most can appreciate.
On June 30, 2005, Norman E. Wallis, PhD, OD, DSc (Hons), FAAO, FCOptom, ended a more than 26 year career as executive director of the National Board of Examiners in Optometry. The NBEO board of directors decided to move the NBEO office from Bethesda, Maryland, to Charlotte, North Carolina, and Dr. Wallis chose not to make the move.
I first met Norman Wallis when we were both graduate students in the mid-1960s at Indiana University (IU). The IU graduate program in physiological optics was an international fraternity, with graduate students from the U.K., Australia, Canada, the Philippines, India, Denmark, and, of course, the U.S., including a number of military officers working toward graduate degrees in physiological optics. This international flavor was stimulated by then Dean Henry W. Hofstetter, OD, PhD, an internationalist, who encouraged many young and future leaders of our profession to earn graduate degrees from IU. Norman and I became close friends and have remained so to this day. He had come to IU following his optometric education at the U.K. at the City University, London, and several years of practice. His selection of optometry as a profession was second to his original plan for a career in the Royal Navy. A serious explosion when he was 15 years old left him with 20/200 vision in his left eye, and so a Naval career was out of the question. However, this experience piqued his interest in vision and so optometry was a natural second choice.
What is not widely known about Norman Wallis is that at the same time as being a practicing optometrist in the UK, he was also a professional musician. An amateur trumpet player from an early age, he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Music in London, following his optometry training and prelicensure year, from which he graduated with the L.R.A.M. in trumpet. He performed with a number of the major symphony orchestras in the U.K., and first visited the U.S. in 1964 as a musician with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
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