Co-founder and CEO
Meet Dr. Meredith Walton, OD
Owner of The Vision Collective in San Diego: Heights Optometry, North Park Optometry, and La Mesa Optometry. She built ODpal because running three independent practices taught her exactly what the chains have that independents do not.
ODpal started inside a practice, not a pitch deck.
By 2023, Dr. Walton was running three San Diego practices and hitting the same wall every independent OD knows: the patient experience outside the exam room was held together by an agency here, a scheduling tool there, and a recall system that mostly meant her front desk on the phone. The corporate chains down the street had platforms and marketing departments. She had invoices.
She went looking for one system built for independent optometry and could not find it. So in November 2025 she founded ODpal to build it, with one rule that still governs every release: it proves itself in her practices before it reaches yours.
The road here.
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2011
Doctor of Optometry
Earns her OD from the Southern College of Optometry, then begins her career caring for military families at the US Naval Hospital in Naples, Italy. While there, she teaches as an adjunct professor at the regional Italian optometry school and volunteers with vision health outreach clinics across Europe.
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2015
Heights Optometry
Returns to San Diego and opens her first practice, built on comprehensive exams and real patient education.
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2017
North Park Optometry
Opens her second location as word spreads and the schedule fills.
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2023
La Mesa Optometry
A third practice completes The Vision Collective.
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2025
ODpal
Founds ODpal in November to build the platform she could not buy, so every independent practice can compete the way hers do.
Beyond the practices.
Dr. Walton stays active in local and national optometric societies and volunteers regularly to expand access to eye care, a commitment that started with those outreach clinics in Europe and never stopped.
Away from the chair, she is usually outdoors, traveling, or exploring San Diego's food scene with her husband and their three sons.
Built by an OD who needed it first.
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