Copyright Hartford Courant
People have dropped change into iconic chrome and iron 300-pound Tower Optical binocular viewers for generations in order to get a clear view of the sights at popular locations around the country. The company, which has been headquartered in Norwalk since 1932 and services more than 2,000 machines across North America, now has new ownership. The company, founded by Towers S. Hamilton, has remained in the family for five generations before the sale earlier this year. New owners, Adam Rice, Adam Vojdany and Dom Puglisi, that all have backgrounds in software or technology companies, formally acquired Tower Optical in June. The trio purchased the company with the intention of bringing it “into the 21st century” with improvements in technology. “We bring some of that experience to the table with digitizing everything, modernizing our systems, digital marketing. We draw on that experience. I also love having a tangible product we are solving or working with engineering to develop this tap to pay technology. It’s fun working on a product that everyone recognizes,” Rice said. Rice, who moved to Wilton in 2024, saw the historic manufacturing business was for sale and was immediately interested. “I called the broker, made an appointment and went to the headquarters at Tower Optical. I saw all of the machines, and I was amazed. These are iconic machines and so many people in the world would recognize them. You can’t say that about many products,” Rice said. “We just saw a big opportunity to kind of modernize the company. We want to apply 21st century business practices and technology to a great product. That’s what interested us.” The biggest modernization in the works for new ownership is cashless payments. “We’re working on that right now,” Rice said. “We’ve had several of our big partners approach us and ask us if we were able to do that.” The owners are working with a third-party engineering firm to develop the cashless payment options. That cashless option will be battery operated and connected to the internet via cellular. “It will be pretty self-contained, and we are developing some novel technology to do that,” Rice said. “That will allow customers to pay with a credit card or phone because not a lot of people are carrying around quarters these days.” Tower Optical, which is headquartered at 275 East Ave., currently has partners that collect the quarters with a revenue sharing agreement in place. The partners deposit the money into the bank and then the company remits their share of the revenue. The prototype for the cashless machines is expected to be completed this winter with about 10 prototypes in the field by the end of the year. The company is expected to have hundreds of the cashless machines in use by next spring with a complete rollout to follow. Once installed, customers can use credit cards or mobile wallets for payment. “We’ve had some complaints about the quarter mechanism getting jammed or the lens being a bit foggy,” Rice said. “We are starting a whole new maintenance program along with the cashless payments. We want to keep the same experience it’s always been, but be on top of quality control. “We are also exploring incorporating technologies allowing people to use their phones to take pictures of what is seen through the viewers,” he added. “That is something we have in the works. We are also trying to make the brand more widely known. A lot of people see the viewers and recognize the product but don’t know that there’s one company behind them.” In all, there are about 2,000 machines manufactured between the 1930s and 1980s that are scattered around the country but are mostly concentrated in the Northeast. Rice said there are no immediate plans to build more machines, but in addition to revenue sharing, the viewers can be purchased outright for a limited time. “We may eventually build more but what’s cool is we have records for each machine and where they have been over the last 100 years, whether it was at the Empire State Building or the Grand Canyon,” Rice said. Niagara Falls on the U.S. side, Rockefeller Center in New York, Liberty State Park at the location of the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate Bridge are also among the prominent places you can find the Norwalk product. In addition to the three owners, the company currently has three employees at the Norwalk headquarters. The company is also looking to expand the network of maintenance workers on a contractor basis throughout the country. “You’d be surprised how many requests we get. We get double digit requests per week to have these installed,” Rice said. “People want them, and our design is the first one people think of.” David J. Cervero, a partner for HBSG, LLC, a real estate business and consulting company, was behind the sale of Tower Optical. Cervero said his client, Chris Rising, was looking to sell after the passing of her husband, Greg Rising, in February 2024. Greg Rising was the Tower Optical owner for the previous two decades. “There was no line of succession, and all of the kids never anticipated the business being handed to them, they had other careers,” Cervero said. “This was the first time the company was going to be passing on to someone else outside of the family. It was incredibly important — almost more important than the nature of the deal and how much money it was purchased for — was who was purchasing it and what their vision was.” The company went on the market in August 2024, and Cervero said the sellers made their decision to sell it the company to Rice, Vojdany and Puglisi the first week of January 2025. It took until June before everything was finalized., he said. “Those viewers are all over the country and on the rare occasion they sell them, it’s for $12,000 apiece. There were a lot of buyers that were interested in purchasing and liquidating the company to make a quick few million dollars,” Cervero said. “That was not something that Chris wanted to do. She was very much interested in finding someone who was going to carry on the legacy and improve on things.” Cervero said there were “well north of 400 serious inquiries” and that he fielded two dozen offers. Offers were only considered from buyers who were vetted. Ultimately, the decision was made from four finalists. Cervero said he received many offers for the full asking price of $1.75 million, and the eventual selling price was in the ballpark of the asking price. “She actually took less to go with these guys because of their ability to honor what they said they were going to do,” Cervero said. “I had a conversation with Adam Rice and told him we had full-price offers and he said, ‘Why aren’t you taking them?’ It’s not what the offers are, it’s what the buyer intends to do with the company and maintaining that legacy is very important to her. “This was a very difficult decision and a difficult process for Chris,” Cervero added. “Not only was she concerned about the legacy, but the employees that were working for the company and that they were well taken care of.” Cervero said fifth-generation companies aren’t often available. He said he’s sold hundreds of companies, and this was a unique transaction. “It’s a pretty amazing thing that this has lasted this long and it would a shame that a lack of change or quarters was the reason this business finally dissolves because it’s made it through so much,” Cervero said. “We needed a team to realize that and now see it through fruition.” “Tap to pay was a big selling point for us,” Cervero added. “Once I took the listing, I started noticing them everywhere and I took my daughter to the Beardsley Zoo and there are six units there. I watched them and every kid that walked by one of the units interacted with the unit and I didn’t watch one person put a quarter in it. “People don’t carry change, and that’s what it was. If I could have tapped my phone on the side of the unit, even if it cost a buck per view, I would have done it every single time … I think the buyers that she chose are going to do a wonderful job bringing it back to where it needs to be. We feel we made the right decision with these guys,” Cervero said,
