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TRANSITIONS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 18, 2009

PALM HARBOR, FLORIDA

GRADY LENSKI: Welcome to the Transitions Championship. I'd like to take an opportunity to first thank the trade and consumer press for joining us today, and also the trade and consumer press that are calling in, along with recognizing our very important partners that have made our sunwear business a reality, and many of those are with us today and many will be calling in.
But before I get into the meat of my presentation, I would like to recognize some people that have really made the sunwear business a reality in the last six months. And first I'll start our research and development team, which are standing up in the back. These guys took the concepts and really made these concepts into reality. So I cannot thank you guys enough for enabling that to happen.
I would like to thank our operations and manufacturing team. As we started to look at exciting new technologies, we needed new processes to develop and actually manufacture these in a very quick period of time; in six months, we have been able to install new lines to enable us to do that. So I want to thank our manufacturing team.
And finally I would like to thank our marketing team, especially Cathy Rauscher and the agencies that work together with us to build what I think is some of the most exciting sunwear marketing that you're going to see in a long time.
So I would like to recognize Roy and Glen from Condon (ph), they helped build our new brand identity for our sunwear brand, which is going to be revealed today. You'll really like that. And in addition to that, obviously Euro RSCG, to get us to a point where we can develop both trade and consumer communications to get us there.
And I would like to recognize my wife and my daughter have joined me today. They don't get a chance to do that very often since I'm not typically here. So thank you for coming.
First, we have a problem, we believe, in sunwear. And the problem is traditional existing sunwear does not adapt to changing light conditions. We believe that eyewear should not inhibit one's ability to live their vision in all lighting conditions.
So this huge market opportunity has opened up to us and our valued partners. If you look at the U.S. sunwear market alone, it's a $4 billion opportunity. But we are not going to be focused on that whole thing. We are focused on that most important segment, the premium sunwear segment, which is the fastest growing segment of sunwear business. You might ask, well how big could that really be? We think it could be huge.
If you just take the model that exists in a clear lens market, prescription market, one out of five prescription lenses, clear lenses sold today are a Transitions product. We believe that the needs for sunwear are equally as great, and so we believe that penetration rates of 20 percent are even greater so that people can actually have eyewear that adapts to their changing needs outdoors is a huge opportunity for us and our partners.
So the next step is, well, how is Transitions going to approach this marketplace. We believe that are five very important areas to focus on. First, we are going to develop both high technology and innovative Transitions products together with our partners to ensure that meet neat consumer expectations and demands.
The second thing we are going to do is we are going to build great partnerships, and not only with industry leaders in the optical business, but also with great sunwear brands.
The next thing we need to be able to do is distribute the product, and to do that we are going to build a global infrastructure to start to deliver these products on a global basis. But obviously we have to be able to manufacture these products and we are going to show you how we are going to get there very quickly; and finally, we are going to build just like we have done for our core business an extremely strong Transitions brand at the trade and consumer level.
I have a team of very experienced people here that are going to get into the details, I'm not known for the details but they will get into the actual meat of what is going to make us different in the marketplace.
And I would like to introduce Cathy Rauscher, our global marketing manager for sunwear. Dr. Chris Baldy who is one of our leading photochromic researchers and also in charge of photochromic testing, and I'm happy to have Dr. Larry Lampert with us today, who is a renowned sports vision specialist who has joined our team to help us develop that real strong value proposition at the consumer level.
First let's talk about products. To be in the sunwear business, we have to be able to deliver both a prescription line and also a non-prescription line, and I'm happy to tell you that we are going to have both prescription and non-prescription available for Transitions sunwear products.
In addition to that, Transitions is a strong believer in research, especially at the eye care professional and the consumer level, to do our product development. Well, I'm happy to announce today, within six months, we are already going to introduce two brand new products that will be released and announced today to add to our existing sunwear products.
In addition to that, Transitions is a strong believer in the science behind the products to ensure that we have a very strong value proposition, so that we can go out and talk to our trade partners and consumers, we have something that they can really embrace and believe it is going to provide for vision enhancement.
To that end I am excited to announce today that our research team has develop two unique product lens concepts that we believe are specific to enhancing performance of golfers. And Dr. Larry Lampert and Dr. Baldy will talk more about our thoughts of how we have developed these products, but we are so excited about our product we have filed a patent on the concepts.
And we are now starting to fit with these lenses on PGA TOUR players. So PGA TOUR players are actually going to provide us feedback on these lens concepts, and then we'll determine how we'll move forward with these lens concepts in the future.
As we talk about product, now it's important to move on to partnerships, and that's why we are in the sunwear business; because we have fantastic partnerships. I'm happy to announce today with new products, we also have two new sunwear partnerships. And those new sunwear partners are Essilor and Specialty Lens Corporation, or SLC, they will join our already existing two very strong and powerful partnerships, one with Oakley, and a second with Younger Optics.
So I think we are going to have a very strong arsenal of products. After six months, we have four products that will meet many of the coming needs that exist in the industry today.
After we talk about partnerships, it is important to note that we will continue to build these partnerships on a global basis to ensure that we have both products and the global reach that we need to get these products out there.
The next thing that I think is important to distribution. Obviously our focus has initially focused here in the U.S., because we wanted to build a strong foundation for our business. But after the Transitions Championship, you're going to see the Transitions team get out there and really start to explore opportunities on a broader, more global basis.
So for the press that's with us today that might exist outside of this country, I want to let you know that we are going to be starting to extend those efforts very quickly after the Championship.
Moving on to manufacturing, as I mentioned earlier, one of the important things about what Transitions is trying to do is have that capability to quickly get into market; to be able to do that and to manufacture these unique products, we had to come up with new technologies and new processes to be able to deliver these high-technology, innovative concepts.
And so we have made a significant investment at Transitions to enable us to do that, so that those lines are up and ready to go. So we are going to begin to produce some of these new products we will talk about a little later with Cathy and how we will quickly extend those into the marketplace.
And finally, most importantly from a Transitions perspective we believe that building a strong brand is crucial to our suggest. Just like we have done for our core Transition Lenses, we are going to build a very strong brand for our transition sunwear products.
And I'm happy to announce today that we are going to launch a very exciting and new sunwear brand that will really get at the value proposition that we believe that Transitions and our value partners bring to the table for sunwear. And we think this brand is going to add some additional relevance to our overall Transitions brand. I think it will enhance that lifestyle imagery we are trying to put behind the Transitions brand. And finally, we believe that it's going to attract new and younger users to the Transitions franchise so we are very excited and happy about that.
So what I would like to do is re-introduce Cathy, our global marketing manager for sunwear, but before I do that, I would like to introduce you to our new sunwear brand Transitions SOLFX.
CATHY RAUSCHER: So I want to start off by thanking Grady and also again, thanking everyone for being here today.
We are so excited to talk about our new brand, Transitions SOLFX sun lenses. Transitions Optical conducted extensive research both with consumers and eye care professionals in the development of this brand and based on that research and our unique technology, we feel we have really developed a positioning in Transitions SOLFX that will add extreme value in the sunwear market.
The products that carry this brand, Transitions SOLFX, represents the latest advancement in sun lens technology that helps enhance your visual performance by automatically adapting the degree of darkness to changing outdoor light conditions.
While dynamic performance has applications in pretty much every segment of the sun lens market, Transitions Optical really believes that there's three key segments where we can meet immediately create impact with enhanced performance in our advanced technology, and those segments are sports, specialty and style.
In sports, both professional athlete and the weekend warriors alike are really passionate about the games they play, and are always looking for a way to take their performance to the next level. And because outdoor sports take place in a variety of ever-changing light conditions; and we know that visual performance can really enhance or affect personal performance, we think that Transitions SOLFX lenses really represent an opportunity for athletes of all levels to take their game to the ultimate level.
And specialty. Well while vision is always important and very critical, there are some specific, visually demanding situations where it's even more important, even more critical. So whether it be the unique visual needs of an architect, a construction project manager or the visual needs of drivers, Transitions SOLFX lenses can provide unique value-added solutions to meet these needs and enhance visual performance in these most visually-demanding circumstances.
In style, there's no question that sunglasses can be an expression of personal style, and for many, so much so, it's as much of an expression of style as clothing or accessories. Transitions SOLFX sun lens products combine leading technology with leading frame brands and names to create cutting edge fashion sunwear. Transitions SOLFX sun lens products are compatible with all leading frame brands and styles and will be available in especially-designed colors that will allow individuals to express their unique personal style.
Available in both prescription and nonprescription forms, Transitions SOLFX sunwear lenses are especially designed to help wearers look great, see better and perform at their best.
With partnerships that Grady mentioned earlier, we are very proud to talk about availability in both prescription and non-prescription forms with Oakley. Oakley photochromic lenses offer both style and sports performance. We are also partners with Younger Optics with the offering of dry wear lenses, the first polarized photochromic to operate behind the windshield of a car.
We will continue to offer these products, which have previously been marketed as Activated by Transitions, but as of today, they will be rebranded to carry the Transitions SOLFX brand.
And also today we are pleased to announce we are already expanding our sunwear product offering. We are now partnering with Essilor to introduce DEFINITY FAIRWAY, a new progressive sunwear product that combines the patented technology of DEFINITY lenses with the advanced photochromic technology of Transitions SOLFX lenses to provide golfers with the right color in darkness for optimal vision in changing outdoor light conditions.
We are also proud to partner with Specialty Lens Corporation to a new polarized photochromic sunwear lenses to its existing iRx polaroid line of prescription polarized sunwear. The combination of polarization and choice of photochromic colors will appeal to sports enthusiasts and the fashion conscious alike.
Transitions Optical will be placing significant focus and investment behind building this brand, as Grady mentioned, and growing the category at both trade and consumer level; representing significant opportunity for partners at all level of the value chain to build business and grow.
I would like to invite each of you to visit our new Web site launching today at Transitions.com/sunwear for a brand experience, as well as to sign up for future updates.
I would like to introduce Chris Baldy to talk about the new technology in Transitions SOLFX sunwear lenses.
DR. CHRIS BALDY: As Cathy indicated, I am one of approximately 35 researchers that are at Transitions advance research center located in Pittsburgh, who along with 35 additional researchers, many of whom are in the room today, continue to work on developing the innovative photochromic technology that Transitions offer.
For more than 18 years, Transitions has worked to develop the latest in prescription eyewear to offer the greatest in vision comfort and performance.
In order to achieve this performance, it's important to maintain proper balance of properties, including clarity, darkness and speed, resulting in an overall product that must be exact in it's technology.
The right technology involves having the right photochromic lens matrix, the right photochromic dyes, and the right manufacturing process to be able to provide the properties desired.
We have applied photochromic technology and our knowledge that we have developed with the Transition Lenses into our SOLFX lens technology in order to make them the best achievable performance for lens technology. All lens sunwear products were developed with three key areas in mind, including light filtration, color, and polarization.
Color, the lens must filter light to a particular color; the result of this may be enhancement of contrast. For example, with a yellow or an orange-colored lens, it will work well to remove the blue light that is scattered in the hazy or low-lighting conditions often countered in morning conditions. However, this particular color may not be preferred in brighter lighting conditions, whereby the light intensity is too harsh of an environment.
UV is a driving force behind the darkening performance of photochromic lenses. As the UV increases with the solar intensity; therefore, the lens gets darker, resulting in the fact that we have the optimum light performance that occurs in all situations.
The wearer can experience this optimum lens performance by having the light intensity reduce and keeping the light intensity proper for the level achieved.
Third area is with polarization. Where blocking the light can reflect off of a surface, polarization occurs by blocking the light in a horizontal direction; whereby allowing the light to come through in a vertical direction, resulting in the fact that you have all polarized lenses having about 50 percent transmission.
Combining polarization with SOLFX technology, works well in many situations, is the exact attribute that we want to have in many situations. For example, when you are a fisherman that works well for this; the reflections off the surface of the water are removed, whereby you're able to see the fish swimming underneath the surface. Or the product attributes of the dry wearer lens, where the reflected light coming from the horizontal surfaces are removed, you remove that glare. The result is by the removing that reflected glare, you have enhanced comfort due to the elimination of that glare.
Polarization is not necessarily the proper attribute that you want to have in all lens properties. For example, in a golf lens, it's often important to have the light which is reflected off of the grass to give you visual clues, and the elimination of those visual clues may reduce the ability to determine the contours of the fairway and of the green, and that is important information for the golfer. So it's something that is not proper in all lens and sport lens applications, but may be proper in certain sports lenses.
So in order to talk a little bit further about our latest development in golf lens wear, I would like to introduce Dr. Larry Lampert to describe further our work with the golf lens performance and the clinical study.
DR. LARRY LAMPERT: My background is that I went to optometry school having been an optician first and my understanding was about 20/20 vision and eye disease, and once I got to school I started to learn about an area called vision training and I found this very interesting.
I then did an externship at a practice that did sports vision training and was training the Philadelphia Flyers and I developed a passion for this area.
So right now I have a practice in Boca Raton, Florida and I specialize in sports vision training, and I work with athletes to enhance their visual skills. One of my concerns, I've worked with Yankees, Cubs, Dolphins, Cowboys, PGA pro players, LPGA players, tennis players, and one of my main concerns is protecting their eyes when they are outside in the sunlight because of the harmful UV radiation that can cause cataracts, macular degeneration over time in the back of the eye, which are causes of blindness; especially macular degeneration, there's no reversibility to it.
Sports vision training itself, I look at making an athlete aware of looking at his visual system; different tips based on what goes on with his individual visual system; and then exercises and vision training drills to strengthen the way the eyes focus, track, depth perception and how they do at their sport.
Most of the athletes I work with tell me that enhancing their visual skills, especially the pro-level athletes, is more valuable to them than more lessons in the mechanics. So they find visual enhancement very, very powerful for their game. And I've had players earn millions more dollars after enhancing their visual system.
So the range of visual skills that a golfer needs is eye/hand coordination. He must make proper impact with the ball when he swings. And eye movement skills in order to read the greens, follow the flight of the ball.
Focusing. Again, focusing your eyes in and out of different distances along the greens, the fairways. Depth perception, judgment of location, again for reading the greens and proper alignment are all visual skills that are enhanceable and trainable.
When we talk about photochromics, we have already understood photochromics get darker and lighter with different lighting conditions, and then the color of the photochromic is important in sports.
The current situation is that a lot of our golfers don't wear sunwear glasses when they golf, or they are on the back of their cap, because they are fixed-tint lenses, because they don't change with the different lighting conditions they face going up and down the fairway, sun going in and out behind clouds.
So a lot of times they are just too dark for them to lift them up. So meanwhile their eyes are constantly adjusting to light adaptation, dark adaptation as the lighting conditions change. And also, there's no protection from the UV that we mentioned when their sunglasses are off. So the photochromic lens is beautiful in the sense that it adjusts to the current lighting conditions.
And one of the interesting things with some of the players I've worked with is they will go outside with the lens and they will say: Is it getting darker? Is it getting darker? Because they don't notice the transitioning of the lens, which is great in sports. And I'll ask them: Well, yes, it is darker; are your eyes comfortable.
"Yes, they feel totally relaxed and comfortable, and my vision is great." So they adjust to the outdoor light. They provide acuity, comfort, convenience, and again the UV protection.
And color can be an important aspect of vision enhancement. Again, it can be used to enhance contrast, as we already said. Enhancing contrast allows for an accurate read of the green, the ability to follow the flight of the ball, and reading contours of the fairways as we look down for our golfers.
The new product concept, the benefits are that it reduces eye fatigue, it provides high contrast in low lighting conditions, it reduces glare in bright light conditions, and it facilitates reading of the greens, facilitates following the flight of the ball, and it protects the eyes throughout the course of the game. And again, we mentioned the damage it can have on UV.
And we are now conducting a wearer's test. We are testing a new product with several PGA TOUR players, including Trevor Immelman. The players will help us evaluate the level of darkness or tint in the lens, the optimal color of the lens and how photochromics can improve their game.
So I would like to thank you all for coming today. I'll turn it back over to Grady.
GRADY LENSKI: Thank you, Larry. We want to thank everybody today and especially for our friends of the press, you'll see in your press kits that there is an opportunity to experience some of the existing products that we have from Oakley and also Younger Eye Wear to start to get a feeling for how photochromics in a combination of these different color filtration, polarization and levels of darkness really can improve your visual performance in the activities that you participate in.
And with that I would like to kind of open it up to any questions that folks might have. I know we have a couple more minutes for questions before the next press conference.

Q. You mentioned at the beginning about the availability. Can you tell us when the products are going to be available?
CATHY RAUSCHER: As we mentioned our current partners with both Younger Optics and Oakley, Younger Optics has current availability in prescription sun lens with the dry wear product, Oakley with both prescription and nonprescription lenses, those are currently available on the market today.
The two new products and partners THAT we also introduced with Specialty Lens Corporation as well as Essilor. The special lens corporation product with the iRX polaroid tradition SOLFX lenses will be available in April, and the Essilor DEFINITY FAIRWAY Transition SOLFX sunwear lenses will be available in late June.

Q. In all markets or just the U.S.?
CATHY RAUSCHER: Initially products will be launched in North America, with a focus on U.S. and Canada following.

Q. I have a question about distribution of the non-prescription lenses, obviously the prescription will go through your traditional channels, but what about non-prescription; at this point you have Oakley doing both rx and nonrx.
GRADY LENSKI: Right now we have a strong partnership with Oakley to deliver the non-prescription forms. We are also working with other potential partners for non-prescription. I'm not in a position today to kind after announce those partnerships but you'll see those soon in the coming months.

Q. Just a question in terms of the performance of the sun lens product. I want to just get a better understanding of how high and low temperatures will affect the form answer of this and how that might compare to the performance of Transitions --
CHRIS BALDY: With the performance of the sunwear lenses, that they will darken from essentially either with different products will depend upon the particular ones for the particular golf lenses, we will have darkening performance from 40 percent or 65 percent going down to about ten to 12 percent darkness for each of the different golf lenses that we have.
And then with a number of other products, they will be in that general ballpark depending upon particular applications. As we move forward, a lot that have depends upon the particular color in the low lighting conditions and then in the activated state, but in general, they will be to a much darker -- whereas the performance of the generation six is about 12 percent transmission in the darkened form.

Q. My question really had to do with temperature sensitivity.
CHRIS BALDY: They will have temperature sensitivity of the general order that the transition six lenses do; that with already being a little bit darker in the clear state, you will have activity even in the lower lighting conditions.
GRADY LENSKI: Well, thank you again very much, and please enjoy the Transitions Championship. We are glad to have you here.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297

TRANSITIONS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 18, 2009

Chris Baldy

Lawrence Lampert

Grady Lenski

Cathy Rauscher