Opticians Association of Massachusetts

The Opticians Association of Massachusetts was founded as an association of independent opticians in 1936 under the name of the Massachusetts Association of Retail Dispensing Opticians, otherwise known as MARDO.

The association adopted a slightly different name in the 1970s when larger optical companies began to flourish and the membership represented both, independent opticians as well as opticians who were employed by optical conglomerate businesses. The new association name involved changing the word "Retail" to "Registered", thus allowing the MARDO acronym to remain unchanged.

In 2000, the association voted to place the emphasis of the association name upon the word "Optician" rather than "Massachusetts" and approved a name change to our current association name - Opticians Association of Massachusetts. At the time, the association developed a stronger alliance with the national association (Opticians Association of America) and as a demonstration of national unity, changed the association name to better reflect the profession as the focus, and not the individual state. The landmark vote, taken at the 2000 Annual Meeting, was unaminously approved by the membership and the original MARDO acronym became OAM.