Lindsay Atwood has always been good at learning from his mistakes.

In 1985, he owned a successful meat and seafood company that had pioneered the distribution of chicken nuggets nationwide. He sold that business, investing the proceeds in stock options. When he returned from a vacation, he found that what he had thought was enough money to last the rest of his life was gone.

But Atwood kept looking for opportunities and soon found one in the form of two optical stores and a discount eyeglass program created with UnitedHealthcare. After opening three more locations, Atwood sold that company for five times its revenue.

The optical business had given Atwood the idea for his next business venture, a company that started with selling mail-order contacts and eventually became South Jordan-based TruVision, which offers discounts on contacts and Lasik eye surgery to health plans.

The company partners with more than 100 million health-plan members and refers the most cases of Lasik surgery in the United States.

Atwood sold the company in November 2005 to TLC Vision, but he remains on the firm's senior management team, trying to make it the largest and most profitable laser company in the country.