Zachary Tooley, of Hortonville, Wis., was elected president-elect of the Student American Veterinary Medical Association
(SAVMA) during the SAVMA Symposium in March. He will assume the role of SAVMA president during the 2022 SAVMA Symposium.
Tooley, 2LT U.S. Army Veterinary Corps, just completed his second year at the University of Wisconsin School of
Veterinary Medicine (UW SVM). He stepped into the president-elect position as Marie Bucko, also from the UW SVM, completed her term as SAVMA president.
“I was lucky enough to become friends with Marie as she was entering this same role and was inspired by the amazing job she did,” Tooley says. “That was my first exposure to the SAVMA president position.”
Twice Tooley has represented the WVMA and UW SVM at the AVMA Fly-In: in person in 2020 and virtually in 2021. He is a student representative on WVMA’s Legislative Committee, the current UW SVM Senior SAVMA delegate and serves as SAVMA’s Government Affairs Committee chair. In addition, Tooley is involved with the UW chapter of the Christian Veterinary Fellowship.
“Wisconsin has provided the veterinary profession with exceptional leaders, and I hope to do my part in contributing to this by learning and growing as a leader over the course of my term,” Tooley says. “I hope to help promote mental health resources, financial literacy resources, and non-traditional career paths within the veterinary field, while listening to students’ concerns about what they need to be more successful and better supported by SAVMA.”
Tooley is commissioned into the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps on a Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP) scholarship. After graduation, he’ll be promoted to captain in the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps and begin a one-year veterinary externship, followed by a three-year active-duty assignment as an Army Veterinary Corps officer.
