Courtesy Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions

When she was a teenager, Zanna Kruoch got a job at an optometry office — but not because she wanted to become an eye doctor or anything like that. Her motivation? She did the work-study program primarily to get out of taking one of her high school classes.

It turned out to be a serendipitous work-around.

After delving into some other subjects in college after that part-time job, the Dallas, Texas, native began eying optometry as a potential career thanks to her positive experience as a teen employee.

She’s now Dr. Kruoch, having earned a Doctor of Optometry (OD) degree from the University of Houston. In addition, she is an award-winning associate professor at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions (RMU) in Provo who helped establish the graduate healthcare institution’s College of Optometric Medicine.

From teen job to lifelong passion

Coincidentally, Kruoch also met her future husband while working part-time at that optometry office as a junior in high school.

Courtesy Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions

“I just did that job as a job. I didn’t really think anything of it until I went to undergrad,” she said. “It was interesting because my optometrist had told me I should do computer science. I thought that’s not a bad idea, especially because that was about the time tech was really booming.”

For Kruoch, however, tech proved to be more boring than booming. After switching from a computer science major to psychology, she added prerequisite courses to pursue a graduate education in optometry.

Before relocating to Utah Valley to help get RMU’s optometry program up and running as a founding faculty member, Kruoch gained both clinical and academic experience while specializing on the topics of ocular disease and specialty contact lenses. She became a Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry and earned multiple awards in Texas, including Educator of the Year honors by the Texas Optometric Association in 2018 and the American Optometric Association (AOA) in 2019.

While teaching at her alma mater, Kruoch was described by the AOA as a triple threat: “Compassionate. Demanding. Smart.”

Kruoch brought those same admirable qualities — along with 15-plus years of experience as an educator and clinician — with her to Utah when she and her husband, also an optometrist, relocated their family to the Beehive State in 2023 to help RMU become the first optometry school in the Intermountain West.

Ironically, the Texas family moved to the Wasatch Front after Kruoch’s husband jokingly requested that they go “somewhere that’s not cold” because of how chilly their stay in Chicago had been while she completed her residency at the Illinois College of Optometry years ago. (Fortunately for the Kruochs, Utah’s dry cold isn’t as “bone stabbing” as Midwestern winters.)

Along with teaching, she’s been instrumental in building the College of Optometric Medicine curriculum and has thoroughly and thoughtfully developed seven courses for RMU.

“One of the things I really wanted was to make sure that I found a program that really puts students first,” Kruoch said. “So that was one of my major decisions to come here because I felt like that was what the deans wanted as well.”

RMU’s evidence-based, comprehensive medical focus was another draw — and continues to be a reason why the program is flourishing.

“The way the deans have it set up here is they wanted to build a medical model with optometry on top of it,” Kruoch said. “I very much supported that because of the setting that I came from. We had a lot of indigent patients (in Texas). We managed ocular disease. I wanted to teach from the very beginning in that perspective and teach how to take care of the patients in multiple ways — besides just (prescribing) glasses or contacts.”

Recognized as 2025 Utah Educator of the Year

Though she enjoys the classroom and clinic settings, Kruoch particularly loves educating students about the ins and outs of optometry. She’s also big on collaborating with other optometric professionals and multidisciplinary teams, including pediatricians and pharmacists.

Those are among the many reasons why the Utah Optometric Association (UOA) recently awarded Kruoch as the 2025 Utah Educator of the Year.

“I really love teaching. It’s rewarding to see the students take what you tell them, and you can see a change in their patterns,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to do something impactful. I became an optometrist so I could reach my patients directly, but I’ve found that you can reach a lot more through students.”

Two other RMU faculty members — Assistant Dean of Clinical Affairs Dr. Court Wilkins (Community Impact in Vision Care Award) and Assistant Professor Dr. Weston Barney (Optometrist of the Year) — also earned annual awards from the UOA.

Kruoch smiled when asked about her hobbies, like boxing and yoga, and how she’s enjoying Utah. She has picked up skiing, but it turns out that building a first-class optometry school and developing multiple invaluable courses doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to take in all that her new home has to offer. She plans on getting out for more adventures with her husband and two young boys, beginning with an upcoming trip to Yellowstone.

No offense to Utah’s Tex-Mex scene, but Kruoch longs for a taste of home.

“I miss tacos,” she joked. “I don’t miss the traffic. I also don’t miss the heat.”

Kruoch described her rewarding experience as a founding faculty member at RMU as being “very exhausting.” With a satisfying chuckle, she added, “I knew what I was getting myself into.

Jody Genessy is the senior content writer for Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions.