A Visionary North Dakota Eyecare Center Expands Main Facility and Services

BISMARCK, N.D. • More than 30 years ago, Charles Volk had a vision about eye care. He wanted to bring quality care to his own community. Like his business, that vision – one he’s shared with business partner Dr. George “Rocky” Hilts – expanded over the years.

Thanks to technology, recruiting additional doctors, and a newly expanded main facility the Dakota Eye Institute now offers many more services so patients can be treated close to home instead of traveling long distances.

“Our vision was very small at the time,” he said in an interview with Prairie Business. “We just wanted to do our own thing and it ended up that we were able to recruit a lot of like-minded people who had an interest in high-quality medicine but also were interested in being business owners and having a stake in the business. … That has always been our emphasis, to look for physicians who wanted to do more than just practice medicine.”

Drs. Volk and Hilts started Dakota Eye Institute in 1989 with just 20 people in a 10,000 square-foot office in Bismarck, but three decades later the business has grown to four clinics and an 18,000 square-foot main office with 131 employees. Sixteen of those are doctors.

The multi-phase expansion of its Bismarck office was completed in November, and includes a new surgery center. It helped further bring Volk’s initial vision to life –providing an array of quality eyecare services to patients close to home.

Satellite offices are located in Beulah, Dickinson, Hazen, Jamestown and Mandan. Volk attributes the success and growth of the institute to its doctors and staff. Over the years the institute has attracted some of the best and brightest eye doctors in the upper Midwest, he said.

While many new faces have been added to the team, others have been there for years. Administrator Bill Marion has been with the company for 19 years and said he’s seen a lot of change in that time. The biggest change, besides having a larger main facility, is the expanded services it now offers patients.

“When we first started the practice we were predominantly a cataract services business, taking care of patients that had cataracts or maybe glaucoma, but we've continued on page 30

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