Celebrating 15 Years of Eyeconic with 16 Year Veteran Paul St. Geme
In honor of Eyeconic’s 15-year anniversary, we’re highlighting the people who have helped shape the brand along the way—and few have been as closely tied to its journey as Paul St. Geme. With more than 16 years at VSP and deep involvement in Eyeconic’s evolution, Paul brings a unique perspective that spans both its early challenges and its growth into what it is today. Originally from La Cañada, California, Paul studied English at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and spent four years teaching high school before eventually joining VSP in 2010. Since then, he has supported Eyeconic in multiple roles, from customer service during its early support center days to his current position as operations manager, where he has spent more than half of his VSP career focused on the business. As we celebrate this milestone, Paul’s story offers a firsthand look at how Eyeconic has changed over time—and where it’s headed next.
Tell me a little bit about your background. How did you get started in the field?
I moved from Los Angeles to Sacramento in 1999 to become a Sales Trainer for a real estate software company. Moving from teaching into training felt like a natural step into the business world. Unfortunately, just eight days after Y2K came and went, the dot-com bubble burst, and I was one of its early casualties.
A friend then recommended me for a supervisor role at an outbound telesales company. While I didn’t enjoy the product, I discovered that I truly enjoyed leading a team. That realization eventually led me to a customer service manager role in a call center at a large credit union, which proved to be a much better fit.
Call centers are fast-paced and unpredictable, and I thrived in that environment. During my time there, we transformed the call center from a service-only model into one that combined service and sales. It was a challenging shift, but I found it deeply rewarding to engage the representatives, help them overcome their fear of sales, and support them as they grew into a new way of working.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
There are two things I enjoy most about my job—if I’m allowed to have two “mosts.” The first is the people. I know everyone says that, but I genuinely feel fortunate to work with such talented colleagues. Whether it’s the Ops team, my direct reports, my teammates and manager on the Product & Platform team, or Eyeconic’s business partners, I’m surrounded by people who challenge me, teach me, and make the work rewarding. I learn something new every day, and because I’ve never been comfortable standing still, I value the constant opportunities to grow.
The second is helping people succeed. Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of working with incredibly gifted people, and I’ve always tried to make sure their talents were seen and appreciated. There’s very little that feels more rewarding to me than watching someone earn their next opportunity and knowing I played a part in helping them get there.
What do you want people to know about your job?
It’s an exciting time to be leading Eyeconic Operations. I think many people underestimate how central eCommerce Operations is to both the customer experience and the health of the business. My job is to build the operational foundation that allows us to grow efficiently while still delivering a strong customer experience. That means anticipating issues before they affect the customer, aligning teams around priorities, improving workflows, and helping the organization adapt as the business evolves. When operations are working well, the customer experience feels seamless—and the business is able to move faster and make better decisions.
What makes this especially meaningful right now is that Eyeconic is in the middle of two major projects that will improve the customer experience while also helping the business financially. We are wrapping up the OSCAR project, which automates prescription validation for many orders, and we are in the early stages of ELMO, which helps determine order viability as soon as a customer uploads a prescription. Both efforts are designed to reduce cancelled orders, prevent lost revenue, and make the experience smoother for customers. With ambitious growth targets and plenty of challenges ahead, this kind of work matters more than ever.
You used to teach high school English. Is that a skillset you’ve ever found yourself using in your current role?
Yes—probably more than I expected when I left the classroom. Teaching and coaching gave me tools I still use every day, especially when it comes to communicating clearly, motivating people, and helping others develop. In many ways, those skills matter just as much in business as they do in education.
When I was teaching, I had the daunting task of getting sophomores interested in poetry and seniors engaged in Shakespeare. And over the years, while giving presentations at work, I’ve occasionally seen the same bored, blank stares from colleagues that I used to get when talking about onomatopoeia or Lady Macbeth. No matter the setting, I see it as a personal challenge to keep people from checking out. I try to make the material engaging, but more importantly, I try to make it relevant—because people are much more likely to invest their attention when they understand why something matters.
What has changed most about Eyeconic in the time you’ve worked here?
The biggest change has been Eyeconic’s growth—in both order volume and revenue. Virtually every part of the business has expanded tremendously over the past several years. In 2016, when I was supporting Eyeconic as a customer service supervisor, we handled just over 58,000 orders for the entire year. Today, we exceed that number in just the last 20 days of December. Since inception, Eyeconic has processed more than 2.7 million orders.
To keep up with that demand, the organization has had to grow and evolve. We’ve added business partners, centers of excellence, and shared services to support the scale of the operation. The Ops team has grown significantly as well. When I joined in 2018, there were nine team members. Today there are more than 20, including a supervisor, 15 customer service representatives, a data analyst, three business analysts, and additional contractors during peak season. It’s been remarkable to watch Eyeconic grow from a much smaller operation into something far more complex, capable, and ambitious.
What are you most excited for in Eyeconic’s future?
What excites me most is Eyeconic’s potential within Owned Eye Care. While our growth has plateaued somewhat in recent years, I’m eager to see us return to a period of rapid order growth. We already have ambitious goals, and with the right support, I believe both Eyeconic and OEC can grow significantly in the years ahead.
I can imagine an e-commerce strategy that places Eyeconic Operations and our tools at the center of OEC’s online efforts—from prescription validation and order fulfillment to reverse logistics and customer support. As Eyeconic continues to build scalable solutions like OSCAR and ELMO, we’ll be in an even stronger position to support growth and contribute to the enterprise in a more meaningful way. That opportunity to help shape what comes next is what excites me most.