Leadership Team

Tom is a lifelong Saginaw businessman who has been involved in Hi-Tech Optical since 1987 when he and another investor purchased the company from White-Haines Optical. Mr. Ryan has since bought out his partners and is the Company’s sole owner. In 1982, Mr. Ryan started Phase Liner of Michigan, Inc. a Michigan Corporation which is involved in Energy Reducing Strategies. Phase Liner has worked for many of the top 500 companies in America including Ford Motor, General Motors, Chrysler Corporation, Target Stores, K Mart and many other industrial and municipal accounts. Tom is an avid developer and has a number of commercial rental properties in Michigan and Florida. Tom served three years in the US Army including a one year term in Vietnam in 1968. He and his wife have three children and eight grandchildren.

From 1979 to the present Marshall Brown has been with Hi-Tech Optical, Inc.
Mr. Brown started in the finish department as a production employee for White-Haines Optical. Marshall then became Sales Manager, then Assistant Manager under Neil Coon (former owner). After Neil retired, Marshall took over as General Manager. As General Manager, Marshall oversees the day-to-day operations of Hi-Tech Optical, including maintaining an exceptional relationship between three very different aspects of the business: the retail sales floor, a full service optical laboratory and a professional optometrist’s office. This includes the oversight of all laboratory operations, manufacturing, customer service, pricing and sales activities, materials usage, shipping and receiving, capacity planning, production scheduling, safety and customer service and employee relations. Both of Marshall’s parents worked in optical field, his mother worked at NuVision and Pearle Vision, and his father worked in optical for most of his life.

Denise started her optical career in 1976 at Phoenix Optical, then leaving to work at Art Optical. She took some time off and then entered the workforce once again in the optical field at NuVision. She left after a few months to work at Hi-Tech Optical in 1987. She started in surfacing department as a production employee. After Hi-Tech Optical merged its office buildings, Denise became Production Office Manager and Customer Service Manager.

Before coming to Hi-Tech Optical, Inc. in 1999, Shirley served as Office Manager for Town and Campus Mall in Saginaw, MI. She started as a part time employee as Human Resources and after becoming a full time employee, Shirley took on the Office Manager and Accounts Payable role.

David began his career in the optical industry as an optician at Pearle Vision in Saginaw in 1989. After working for various optical chains throughout the 90’s, David came to Hi-Tech Optical as a dispensing optician in January of 2000. Mr. Asher was promoted to outside sales in 2006.

Originally from Monroe, Michigan, Josh moved to Saginaw to attend Saginaw Valley State University. There, he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting. In addition to his studies, he was also on the SVSU Bowling Team for multiple years. Before coming to work here at Hi-Tech Optical, Inc., Josh was employed with Aramark.

In the early sixties, Dean took his apprenticeship at Bausch & Lomb. After his apprenticeship, he moved to Menlo Park, California to work for Jenkel Davidson Optical, where he was in charge of fitting and manufacturing eyeglasses & contact lenses in many of their 82 retail stores in northern California. Mr. Sheehan then managed Kaiser Permenente in Sunnyvale, California for several years before managing an office for a private ophthalmologist in Mountain View, California for six years. From there, Dean helped to start up a new company called Lens Crafters and then in 1988 managed Franklin Optical as retail and lab manager until the company was sold in 1992 to Benson Optical. Dean went to work for Benson Eyecare Corporation helping to create a vision insurance plan called Superior Vision and as that transpired part of the company was sold to Dispensers Optical Safety Corporation where he became a regional manager. In July, 2008 Dean Sheehan joined Hi Tech Optical, Inc. as Regional Sales Manager.

Merwyn started at General Optical in 1984 as an Optical Technician: fining, generating and polishing plastic lenses and machine repair. In 1985, he started at TK Optical in the surfacing department: blocking, finish, polishing and generating and machine repair. In 1987, Mr. Hirsch started at Riverfront Optical as a production and surface room manager and a group leader in the UAW. He attended Gerber Coburn Technical School where he learned to calibrate and repair Step One Blocker, SGX Calibrator, frame tracer and professional edger. Then in 1997, “Merv” started at Hi-Tech Optical, Inc. as a surfacing manager’s assistant: Surfacing Department, Coating and Lensometer. In 2008, he attended Optronics School for calibration and machine repair. He started in the finish room doing blocking, edging and assembly. Merv attended Satisloh Academy for calibrating and V75 Generator repair. In 2010 he attended Surfacing University Seminar for OLA in Las Vegas for traditional surfacing and to look into Digital Surfacing Equipment and automatic edgers. Merv was recently promoted to Lab Manager in June 2019. As Lab Manager, Merv oversees Hi-Tech Optical’s Surface and Finish Departments.