Forty Under 40: Tammy Grammer

When Tammy Grammer was 14, she took for granted that the world she was seeing was about as good as it got. She now helps others realize that the fuzzy world they’re viewing can be more in focus.

Grammer, 31, an optometrist with The Eye Center in Fayetteville, knew she always wanted to be in health care. Her father, grandfather, uncle and a cousin were dentists. But a trip to the eye doctor as a young teenager steered her into a different direction.

“I had no idea you could see leaves on trees or a license plate on a car in front of you,” Grammer said. “When I got my first pair of glasses my dad encouraged me to look into [optometry].”

Grammer, 31, recently returned from Jamaica on her third trip with the national Give the Gift of Sight Program. She estimated glasses were distributed to 8,500 Jamaicans who otherwise would have never received eye care. She has been on similar missions to the Philippines and Costa Rica.

Grammer is a member of the Junior League of Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas State Board for the Institute for the Advocacy of the Blind.

She graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1990 and from Southern College of Optometry in Memphis in 1994.