Entrepreneurship faculty member’s journey to inspire and serve

When you meet Central Michigan University entrepreneurship faculty member Dr. Cleamon Moorer Jr., it's obvious that you’ve connected with someone that makes things happen. Warm, engaging and full of enthusiasm, Moorer sat down to share his professional journey and celebrate his recent commendation from Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer for his healthcare work through his organization Eye Care for Detroit. 

A vision for change

Growing up in inner city Detroit as the son of entrepreneurial parents—"my father owned a collision shop, and my mother handled the administrative side”—school was a challenge, but not because of academics. Moorer was born with congenital cataracts which progressively worsened and, by his junior year in college, he was legally blind. As a child, medical technology hadn’t yet advanced enough to offer a low-risk solution to his vision impairment and his family couldn’t afford the $6,000 surgery that was then available. 

But all that changed in 1997.

“She [Moorer’s mother] wrote a letter to the Vision Guild of Sinai Grace hospital, which is now DMC – Detroit Medical Center. And the board approved my cataract surgery removal. Following that, I saw colors like never before at all. So, I knew that it was special for me. But I knew that there had to be thousands of other folks out there. In the back of my mind, I always focused on how do I alleviate that burden and stress for others?”

That question would be transformative. Moorer had already started looking into the healthcare space and opportunities to start a business that would be vital to the community, employees and patients equally.

“We started to identify gaps in the current system. How do we serve people that need the care the most, but do it in a financially viable way? Where we're able to maintain a decent balance sheet, P&L for the whole, but take care of a glaring need that will in turn add more value and grow our business and grow our landscape.”

Moorer looked at app-based services, considered broad healthcare access and many other variables, but quickly honed in on the eyecare vertical.

“We happened to stumble across the Vision Detroit project, which crystallized so much of the glaring need that we knew firsthand. Our current patient census had a lot of folks who had poor to low vision, but they weren't being seen at home. And then, as we talked to the eyecare community, they cemented our findings. They shared that due to the pandemic, ‘We're not having the foot traffic at our clinics that we used to have, and we are interested in a different type of model.’”

Making a difference through entrepreneurship

Armed with market research and unwavering tenacity, Moorer founded Eye Care for Detroit in 2022, which today sees 25-30 patients a week with room to grow – “We have great bandwidth to serve a lot more because we have a strong network of eyecare professionals who are able to take on new patients.”

When asked about his recent recognition by Gov. Whitmer, Moorer beamed. “That was unbelievable. As you're doing work on the ground, you're not looking for the attention and the credit. You're trying to solve the problem and meet the need of those stakeholders.”

This passion for service and change, and the experience of creating a successful service-based organization are part of the knowledge that Moorer shares with his CMU entrepreneurship students. “You're looking for that impact and you're building the legacy. You have to be able to teach others how to do it in order for it to continue to transcend – where you can have a student that goes through some of the challenges that you have gone through … They need someone to encourage them and pull them through on the other side.”

When asked what students take away from his classes, Moorer was quick to answer. “You're going to be inspired to be legendary, right? I define legacy as the realized impact, influence and inspiration that is sustainable. Those goals are outside of a particular major – you could be any major at Central and take an entrepreneurship course. But the impact, the inspiration and the influence that is what will carry you and drive you.”

Watch interview highlights or connect with Dr. Moorer at moore18c@cmich.edu.