Doug Perkins Doug Perkins Douglas John David Perkins (born April 1943) is a British billionaire businessman. He is the co-founder of Specsavers, an international optical retail chain. Douglas John David Perkins was born in April 1943 in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, Wales. "His father was a policeman and his grandparents were farmers in the county for generations." He was educated at the Llanelli Boys Grammar School, and he graduated from Cardiff University. Perkins began his career as an optometrist in Llanelli and Carmarthen. In the 1970s, he took over his father-in-law's optician store in Bristol and subsequently opened 22 stores. Perkins co-founded Specsavers with
Association of British Dispensing Opticians Association of British Dispensing Opticians The Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDO) is the main professional association for opticians in the UK. ABDO was formed in 1986 from the merger of the Association of Dispensing Opticians and the Faculty of Dispensing Opticians, following the Health and Social Security Act of 1984. The profession of dispensing opticians has been regulated voluntarily since 1926 and, as a statutory profession, by the Opticians Act since 1958. Since such time the conduct of dispensing opticians has thus been regulated partly by legal provisions, by advice given by the General Optical Council, and by ABDO’s