Harrow - It's taken a lifetime but Anne Miller is seeing the masse production of a whim.

The 56-year old widow is getting the warehouse ready for an initial order of 100,000 Cool Eyes™, the name of her porcelain eye protectors. Sun worshippers in 12 countries are already wearing the cool clay eye caps and Miller has a file of letters from happy customers in England, California and everywhere in between.

Cool Eyes™ cost from $7.99 to $9.99 a pair at most Windsor-area tanning salons.

Miller is the first to admit she's an unlikely candidate for the type of entrepreneurial success she's poised to reap. The devout Baptist calls it a miracle. Sure she's provided the hard work and perseverance, but the long road from sore Florida-baked eyes to placing factory orders in the United States and Pacific Rim she chalks up to a higher force.

It Started 23 years ago when Miller and husband Claude would vacation in a mobile home parked in Boynton Beach, Fla. She was never the beach-bunny type, but when she did spend any extended time under the sun's relentless rays, her eyes became hot and irritated.

Her kitchen table research and development began with egg cartons to keep her eyes from burning. Unfortunately, the wind kept blowing the lightweight cardboard off her face.

Today's winning prototype is made from porcelain because it's a coolant. The design she credits to the day she was laying on the grass in her back yard put her hand down and touched a seashell. She took one look at the shape of that shell and knew. The name Cool Eyes™ came to her while vacuuming.

"I have to believe in miracles. There is no other way to identify this," said the owner of Anne's Place, a general store on Harrow's main street that sells office supplies, is a Sears catalogue outlet and the town's Motor Vehicle License Bureau. "Anybody can have a project but it's been my faith that's carried me

through."

It was in the spring of 1984 that Claude knew something would come of his wife tinkering. Unfortunately, shortly afterwards he was diagnosed with cancer and he died that fall. "My world fell apart." Miller said, and her project was temporarily shelved in her grief.

But Miller took up her project again in 1985. With partner Stephen Lukas, a Windsor Businessman, they had the idea patented and sought the help of scientists at the Ontario Research Foundation to come up with something cool and comfortable. Miller said she wasn't discouraged by statistics that only five of 1,000 ideas make it to marketplace.

The foundation helped develop a cap to fit the contour of the eye with side vents for peripheral vision and air circulation. They needed enough weight to keep them in place but light enough to be comfortable. They are designed to fit over the eyelid without the necessity of a nose bridge, which leaves tan lines.

The final product incorporated studies from the University of Waterloo's school of optometry. Their testing found Cool Eyes™ stayed lower than body temperature even after 20 minutes in a tanning booth.

"Peoples Eyes swell in the heat. You are comfortable if your eyes are comfortable. You feel more refreshed," Miller said. Cool Eyes™ protect against the sun's ultraviolet rays and concerns about the depletion of the ozone layer have stepped up the demand for eye protection.

The Star asked University of Windsor student Darlene Wood to test a pair of Cool Eyes™. The 23-year-old uses a tanning booth every few days with colored plastic goggle to protect her eyes. Wood said Cool Eyes™ were hard to get used to a fist, being heavier than what she was accustomed. But once in place, Wood said she preferred them.

Wood found them

refreshing, "like a cool tea bag on your eyes and if you opened your eyes, you weren't over whelmed by the light. With plastic goggles, if you open your eyes it hurts because it is so bright." She said plastic goggles fall off easily because they are so light while Cools Eyes have enough weight to stay in place.

Wood said not being able to see was not a problem. She usually naps in the tanning booth and there are no controls to set.

Letters Miller has received from tanning bed customers around the world say they prefer Cool Eyes™ over sunglasses which leave tan lines. And those who wear contact lenses say Cool Eyes™ keep their eyes from getting foggy, drying out and feeling sticky.

A Brantford company produced the first 300 pairs from brown clay in 1988 which Miller had tested locally and in Florida. She followed up with 50,000 pair produced by a company in Toledo, Ohio, which wound up on the eyes of Europeans, Americans and Canadians.

The result was a cry for colour and in 1990 Cool Eyes™ went from drab brown to fluorescent. Miller was also on her own by this point, the partnership with Lukas was dissolved in 1989.

Soon beaches around the world were dotted with sun worshippers sporting pink, yellow, orange and green Cool Eyes™ to match their swimsuits. They sold for under $10 a pair and in 1990 Cool Eyes™ had sales of about $100,000 - pretty good for a company that gave many of them away for free to test and promote the product, Miller said.

But the businesswoman was having problems with her distributors: the people selling for her in London, England went bankrupt and the Mexican distributor went into receivership. She had no one in Canada so she sent promotional samples to tanning salons.

Another setback was federal Department of Health and Welfare approved Cool Eyes™ for outdoor use only. Without eye slits, the department

said someone in a tanning salon couldn't see to adjust the controls and thus the product didn't meet the conditions of the Radiation Emitting Devices regulations. It didn't matter that Canadian tanning salons don't have any controls to adjust, Miller said.

On the whole, government agencies have helped Miller learn the ropes, especially the Ontario Development Corporation and Ministry of Industry Trade and Technology. Advertisements have, to her surprise, sprung up in trade magazines in Europe. Miller halted everything last year to restructure the company. She cancelled all distributors and, having learned from past mistakes, has assumed control of selecting new ones. No longer will anyone have exclusive territories, like the European distributor with the rights to 28 countries. "Anyone who wants to, can come aboard.

"She has 10 distributors linked up in Canada, the U.S., the United Kingdom and soon Saudi Arabia is expected to come on board. She is preparing a Harrow warehouse for an initial order of 50,000 pairs of Cool Eyes™, which she hopes, will be sold in a month. They will be white on arrival. The fluorescent spray painting will be done at the warehouse and in Windsor by a businessman in the plastics industry.

Miller plans to start a cottage industry with Harrow women package the product in their homes and returning them to the warehouse for shipping.

Miller said the ceramics division of Tredco, a Detroit plant, will supply the initial order. But it can only handle 500,000 Cool Eyes so Miller has lined up backup suppliers in Singapore if the volume warrants it. She said she couldn't find a Canadian producer.

As the pace picks up, Miller is all smiles and incredulity. With her first profits, she even treated herself. Ten years ago, she lost the diamond from her wedding ring. This year she had the ring reworked in the shape of what else - a Cool Eye.