In Touch With… Dr. Richard Laudon

I love when people take action, and that’s exactly what longtime Westwood resident Dr. Richard Laudon did. He saw my invite to join us on the Westwood Living Podcast, called me, set a date and we enjoyed a nice get-to-know-you conversation. His career in eye care, education and financial literacy is fascinating.
 
Tom: What we do is get to know people in town a little bit better, and I find what you have done, over the course of your career, very fascinating because there are some things that intersect that you wouldn’t typically think intersect. You’re focusing on a lot – the confluence of optometry, where you spent so many years of your life, financial health and overall wellness, and you’re doing it at a point where you’re officially retired, is that correct?
 
Dr. Laudon: I am officially retired. I retired on my 70th birthday and decided to change careers. So I gave up my license of being an optometrist, although I still have certain beliefs about optometry and about eye care, and I even call it misperceptions. I also write on Medium. Most of my articles are related to financial well-being, and it keeps me busy. I actually play softball, too.
 
Tom: That’s fantastic. Where do you do that?
 
Dr. Laudon: I am involved with the EMASS Senior Softball. I played softball in the Westwood Over-30 league for 25 years. I retired because my mind and body were out of sync. My mind knew what to do, but my body was on a delay.
 
Tom: That’s not atypical. Well, you’ve had a fascinating career. Let’s go back in time. You were just sharing with me that you’ve spent most of it here in the state of Massachusetts, Fall River, and then you spent a short amount of time in Connecticut at The University of Bridgeport, but you’ve always been, at your heart, an academic, and you went through your schooling, became an optometrist, but also a professor. So I just wanted to learn a little bit about your journey and walk me through how all of that progressed.
 
Dr. Laudon: Well, it’s all been an accident of sorts. I graduated from The University of Bridgeport, which is when I was in Connecticut for that five-year period of time. Coming back, I actually was walking down Commonwealth Avenue. and I ran into somebody I went to school with at The University of Bridgeport, and he said to me, “What are you doing?” And I said, “I’m looking for a job.” And he said, “Well, why don’t you apply to optometry school?” So I did.
 
Tom: That’s a little random.
 
Dr. Laudon: That was a part of my career that was random, and I applied and they accepted me and I went to optometry school to fit contact lenses. I ultimately got involved in vision therapy. I was told I would never work at the New England College of Optometry, and then that summer I started working at the New England College of Optometry, and I spent 42 years there.
 
Tom: That’s incredible. How did the connection from optometry to wealth happen in your life? Because now you’re writing a lot about finance and the balance of wealth and health. So walk me through how you got there.
 
Dr. Laudon: Again, it was an accident of sorts, because basically when I first had a job and I started to accumulate some money, I went to a financial planner, and that did not work out very well. I actually had two incompetent financial planners. One was censored by the SEC and the other was eventually convicted as a pedophile, and what they did was basically take money from me in order to ultimately enrich themselves. So what it taught me was I needed to learn how to deal with money. My mantra became, “If I was gonna lose money, I was gonna do it myself.” I realized that many, many people have similar problems. They are too trusting when it comes to their money, so one of my goals has been to deal with financial illiteracy, and that’s what a lot of my writing is about.
 
In looking at wealth building, there are four components and three of them are free. One is money – you have to have money, but there are three other components which are free. One is compounding, two is time – time in the market, and three is you have to have a strategy. That’s free to everybody. It doesn’t matter where you are. What’s very important is to start as early as possible.
 
Let me give you an example. You take a 19-year-old who puts away $2,000, and he does that from 19 to 27. The second individual starts at 28, puts away $2,000 until they’re 65. The trick question is, “Who had more money?” The one who started at 19, but stopped at 26 or 27, or the one who started at 28 and put $2,000 away until they were 65, and the answer is the first one. It’s not something that we think about and we need to, we need to teach our kids the importance of finance.
 
Tom: Give me your thoughts on living here for as long as you have – since 1977, you said?
 
Dr. Laudon: I love the town of Westwood. I’ve been walking the streets of Westwood since 1977. It’s a wonderful town, educationally. I have two children who’ve gone through the Westwood school system, and what was so fascinating for both of my children is when they went for their first year of college, when they came home, the one thing they said to me is, “It was harder during senior year at Westwood High than it was when they went off to college.”
 
It’s a fantastic town. It has everything that I could have asked for. Obviously I’ve been going back and forth to Boston for 42 years. When we moved in, our first home cost $50,000 and we moved into this home in 1985. If you Google it now, it’s a lot more. It’s a wonderful town and I love living here. When people say to me, “What about moving south?” I don’t have a desire to do that at this point in my life.
 
Tom: That’s great. How do people follow you? Where do they go to read your articles?
 
Dr. Laudon: They can go to Medium. I love Medium. Medium basically is for new writers and for older writers. And for $50, it’s the best bargain in the universe. When you go to Medium and become a member, you can pick any type of topic that you want. Every morning when I get up, I read a couple of articles on Medium. I have a whole series of articles. I’ve been writing on Medium since I believe 2021.
 
Tom: Good for you. Thanks for reaching out. This is the whole essence of what we try to establish here and will continue to develop over the course of a time – just getting to meet new people and hear their stories. Thanks for bringing me into your house
and sharing some information with me.
 
Dr. Laudon: It’s been a pleasure to talk to you, and hopefully some people have gained some knowledge from our discussion.
 

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