Home Optics owner Joy Leedham holds a pair of glasses like the ones worn by Gov. Sarah Palin. Leedham has experienced a surge in business since the governor became a vice presidental contender. Star Photos by Jill Fankhauser

Palin was wearing the new glasses Leedham had mailed to her a few days earlier — the same famous square rimless glasses, only now with an anti-reflective coating. Flashbulbs and lights won't show up reflected in the vice presidential candidates glasses anymore.

The popularity of Palin's fashion — distinguished by her Kazuo Kawasaki titanium designer frames — has spurred a business boom that Leedham didn't see coming. She's surprised and thankful.

Leedham has been getting e-mails from as far away as the Czech Republic about how to buy a pair of Palins. CNN stopped by to do a story on her business. She's gotten calls from London radio stations and been featured in Toronto newspapers. One woman called last week from Nova Scotia. Leedham asked where she had gotten her name and the woman said she looked her up on the Internet.

Before this recent boom, Leedham was like many small business owners — trying to eek out a living and create a prosperous business. It's been a lean few years for Leedham's optic business, which started in 1996.

“I feel like now I am going to make it and I feel like the business has credibility,” Leedham said. “This business has certainly grown my faith I have a courage and a boldness that 12 years ago I didn't have.”

She started Home Optics to sell customized eyewear and contact lenses after her optician job at another company ended. She runs the business out of two rooms in her home.

“I started with absolutely no money, but with this vision of giving people positively outrageous service,” Leedham said. “I worked 11 years at that job. Companies offered positions, but I wanted to move forward not backwards. I was always extremely cognizant of customer service and that really motivated me.”

Leedham started her business with a few eyeglass frame manufacturers willing to let her sell their frames and pay them off as she could. She started doing tradeshows, such as the Great Alaska Sportsman show, selling Maui Jim sunglasses.

Over the last few years she's added other tradeshows like the Eagle River and Anchorage women's shows, holiday gift shows and the Anchorage Downtown Saturday Market.

Those first few frames she first offered have expanded into hundreds.

She also started doing home parties — like a Tupperware show or candle party — bringing cases of frames for people to try on and purchase. Leedham was able to work with each customer and their prescription to create eyewear that worked.

“It's just fun. People say Oh that pair looks really good,' or That pair makes you look like a dork.' Everyone is just brutally honest,” Leedham said about the parties.

Her business has spread by word of mouth. Many times she meets customers at a coffee shop or comes to their home to help them choose a frame that suits them. After the glasses are made, Home Optics will deliver or mail them.

Sometimes Leedham meets with people who don't buy glasses, but that's OK, she said, because ultimately she wants people to have a positive experience with her and her two employees, Hannah Dompier, an apprentice optician and Corinne Caron, a licensed optician and contact technician.

In May, the employees and a few friends helped Leedham with a home party of 50 guests, the biggest home party she's ever had. All of them ordered glasses, and some ordered multiple pairs. Home Optic frames run between $49 and $700 with several pairs ranging between $200 or $300, she said.

A customer in Ulysses, Kan., saw the governor's glasses before she stepped into the national spotlight. The customer asked her doctor for Palin's frames, Leedham said, but the glasses weren't available at that particular office.

“She got in touch with the governor's office and they actually gave her my name and phone number,” she said.

The office continues to get e-mails asking where Palin got her glasses, Leedham said, and they continue to give out her number.

Another of Leedham's clients, also in Kansas, was looking for glasses that would allow her to read music at the piano, as well as look out beyond the music stand. Leedham designed a special lens just for her.

“I listen to find what somebody needs, find all the pieces and parts and create that,” she said.

Leedham works with a few labs Outside to create the actual lenses.

Leedham used to get nervous about making glasses for someone she's never met. The first pair she made over the phone was for a woman in Russia in 1980, when Leedham worked in a regular optician shop.

Leedham used the eyeglass prescription, the shape of the woman's face and the colors that she liked to make a pair of glasses. The woman came to her shop a year later to report how happy she was about Leedham's creation.

Leedham uses a similar formula today for faraway customers.

“We've sent out quite a few and none of them have been returned,” she said.

Leedham custom designed Palin's glasses too. Palin ordered her first pair of glasses in December 2007. Palin called Leedham one day and asked if Leedham would come to her office. When Leedham delivered Palin's glasses, Leedham said she saw that others in Pain's office were wearing her glasses.

The famous frames that Palin wears are on backorder around the world, Leedham said. The manufacturer is telling clients those frames, which cost around $400, won't be available for a couple of months.

In the meantime, Leedham, continues to fill orders for the Kawasaki frames. She has more than a dozen on her desk waiting for labs to send back lens.

With business taking off and getting some national attention, Leedham trademarked her business a couple of weeks ago. She also created a Web site to keep up with the surge in business.

“This is almost surreal,” Leedham said. “It's unreal.”

For more information, visit www.homeoptics.com.

This article published in The Alaska Star on Thursday, October 9, 2008.