Urbach Contact Lens Institute (founded 1970): first contact lens provider in Switzerland
Urbach Contact Lens Institute: a success story – to Hollywood and back!
In the 1950s, J. Urbach emigrated from Switzerland to the United States
and founded the Urbach Optical Company in sunny California in 1958.
In faraway Hollywood, Urbach turned out to be especially innovative.
Soon after founding the company, he was offering an astonishing array
of contact lenses and invented, among other things, the coloured
contact lens. Although Urocon soon belonged to the 10 largest
producers in the USA, the company always remained a Swiss firm.
At the summit of his success, J. Urbach returned to Switzerland
and opened his first branch office in Zurich. However, he
always remained true to his basic philosophy: quality,
diversity and reasonable prices. A major priority for him
was also customer service. A pioneering idea was his
free test and try service for new users of contact lenses.
His son, Steven Urbach, who took over the firm in
1997, kept this service going successfully. Urocon
was renamed the Urbach Contact Lens Institute.
Though the name changed, the successful philosophy
remained the same.
In 2004, Steven Urbach founded Discountlens.ch GmbH,
which has since grown into the largest and
most successful contact lens sales company in Switzerland.
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