In less than two decades, Wertheim had gone from ne’er-do-well to inventor and entrepreneur. Today BPI has more than 100 patents and copyrights in the area of optics, 49 employees and annual revenues of about $25 million. The company also began making lab equipment, cleaners and accessories for opticians, optometrists and ophthalmologists. Between that chemical and the numerous other products Wertheim invented for lenses-some tints for aesthetics, others to help ease the symptoms of neurological disorders like epilepsy and still others to improve UV protection- BPI became one of the world’s largest manufacturers of optical tints, selling to companies like Bausch & Lomb, Zeiss and Polaroid. Wertheim occasionally lectures on engineering at Florida International University. He showed his wife a coffee can containing his chemical concoction and said, ‘Nicole, what’s in this can is going to make us millionaires.’ ” “I was still seeing patients, I had a little lab,” recalls Wertheim with a smile. This meant opticians no longer needed to carry large inventories of different-colored lenses or dispose of lenses that were improperly tinted. He founded it as a technology consulting firm, but Wertheim soon returned to his habit of researching and tinkering, developing tints, dyes and other technologies for eyewear.Ī year later he concocted one of the world’s first neutralizers, a chemical that restored lenses back to their original clear state. So in 1970 Wertheim decided to get more serious about his inventions and set up a new company, Brain Power Inc. But because of contractual breaches, the royalties never materialized. Demand for Wertheim’s tint grew, and he sold it in a royalty deal for $22,000.
The Vietnam War was under way, and plastics had become the material of choice for eyeglasses and sunglasses. Wertheim spent his evenings tinkering on inventions, and in 1969, he invented an eyeglass tint for plastic lenses that would filter out and absorb dangerous UV rays, helping to prevent cataracts. For 12 years he toiled away, seeing patients who were mostly working-class and who sometimes paid their bills with bushels of mangoes and avocados. In 1963 he received a scholarship to attend the Southern College of Optometry in Memphis and after graduation opened up a practice in South Florida.
His fortune comes not from some flash of entrepreneurial brilliance but from a lifetime of prudent buy-and-hold investing. (Later, the company would invent the 8-track tape and pioneer the business-jet market.) Wertheim was attracted to Lear’s inventions, like the first auto-pilot systems. Wertheim met its founder, Bill Lear, during a visit to a Sikorsky Aircraft factory in Connecticut, where the Navy’s S58 helicopters were manufactured. Wertheim made his first investment at 18, using his Navy stipend to buy stock in Lear Jet, which at the time was known for making aviation products during WWII. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had finally recovered from the losses it suffered more than two decades before during the Crash of 1929, and aerospace stocks were leading the market. It was the Cold War, the military-industrial complex was humming and American industry was on the move. This is about the time Wertheim began investing in stocks. With a newfound confidence, Wertheim studied physics and chemistry in the Navy before working in naval aviation. “They give you tests all the time to see how smart you are, and out of 135 in our class, I think I was in the top-especially in the areas of mechanics and organization.” Wertheim enlisted in 1956 and was stationed in San Diego. Lucky for Wertheim, the judge took pity on him, offering him a choice between the U.S. At age 16 he stood in front of a judge facing truancy charges. He also hitchhiked around Florida picking oranges and grapefruits. He spent much of his time hanging around with the local Seminole Indians, hunting and fishing in the Everglades and selling game, like frog legs, to locals. To me, having time is the most precious thing.”ĭuring his teens, in the 1950s, an abusive father prompted Wertheim to run away periodically.
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“My thing is I wanted to be able to have free time. “I would sit in the corner sometimes with a dunce cap on.” “In those days, they just called you dumb,” he remembers. A dyslexic, Wertheim struggled in school and soon found himself skipping class. In 1945 his parents moved to Hollywood, Florida, and lived in an apartment above the family’s bakery. Born in Philadelphia at the end of the Great Depression, Wertheim is the son of Jewish immigrants who fled Nazi Germany.
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