Midwest Animal Sheltering Conference
Speakers.
The Midwest Animal Sheltering Conference is proud to host nationally renowned speakers from across the US. Follow us on Facebook for updates!
2022 Speakers Coming Soon
Sarah Aguilar
Sarah Aguilar recently joined Austin Pets Alive! as the Senior Director of Operations. Her animal welfare history includes roles with Greater Good Charities where the #StayHomeAndFoster movement generated nearly 100,000 foster applicants across the nation; with Pima Animal Care in Tucson, AZ where she developed processes and systems that catapulted the open admission municipal shelter to a 92% live release rate; and in Ventura, CA, where she managed their first formal foster program, placing nearly 3000 animals into foster homes annually, and tripling the number of cats adopted through partner pet stores and offsite events. Her experience as the Training General Manager for a national restaurant chain, combined with degrees in business management and accounting, has enabled Sarah to bring a unique customer service and systemic, data-driven approach, to lifesaving.
Elina Alterman
Elina Alterman officially joined the Lawrence Humane Society in June of 2020. Prior to being named Director of Development & Communications in July 2021, she served as the Senior Manager of Social work, overseeing Lawrence Humane's Pet Resource Center and the community caseworker team. Animal welfare is a professional change for Elina, whose career has spanned philanthropy, nonprofit consulting, direct practice social work, lobbying and government relations, and grassroots organizing. A social worker and grassroots organizer by training, Elina served for five years as program officer at the Kansas Health Foundation (KHF), leading KHF's work around health equity, social determinants of health, and civic and community engagement, including a statewide integrated voter engagement initiative and an intersectional health equity organizing and advocacy movement. Elina then led her own consulting company through which she supported nonprofits, foundations, health care systems and local community groups across the country, building organizational capacity through her experience in campaign development, coalition building, relational organizing and strategic planning. Most important of all, she supported nonprofits in their efforts to comprehensively understand and address diversity, inclusion, systemic racism and their own organizations’ roles in undoing systemic oppression, and figuring out new ways of operating internally and with external partners that center justice and equity. Elina emigrated to the United States with her family in 1991 and grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, establishing deep roots in the community, which was ultimately what brought her back from Washington, D.C., where she had been working on Capitol Hill and later leading government relations for a women’s and family nonprofit. Elina began her career as a foster care social worker and maternity care coordinator in North Carolina. Elina has a bachelor’s degrees in sociology and Latin American and Latino studies from Brandeis University and dual master’s degrees in social work and public health, with a focus on maternal and child health from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Elina lives in Lawrence with her partner, their four senior dogs and nine cats ― the ultimate blended family. She serves on several nonprofit boards, including the local food bank, is a “big sister” through Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and in her spare time volunteers at an equine rescue organization to get her horse and donkey fix.
Michael Arms
Mike has saved more animals than any other person, living or dead, in animal welfare history. Since his arrival at Helen Woodward Animal Center, in 1999, pet adoptions have leaped to record levels. Their education program has multiplied as they continue to teach children about the unconditional love that only comes from animals, and their therapy programs touch the lives of tens of thousands of people each year.
Michael Bricker
Michael Bricker is the Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) and Director of CARE Centers. Michael will be developing organizational strategy and sustaining that through the management of the all our departments. As CARE Center Director, Michael will curate strategies for each CARE Center and develop a national model for workforce development that partners from the community up to local shelters to provide sustainable change and save more animals. Mike comes to us as the former Operations Embed Programs Director at Best Friends Animal Society. He spent most of his time in Texas, as Interim Executive Director at different shelters, where he used his compassion and talent to get to know the staff, put the time in to connect with the community, all while saving more animals. Before Best Friends, Mike was the Director of Operations at Camden County Animal Shelter (CCAS). In addition to rewriting the shelter’s adoption policies, Mike helped to create a Lifesaving Department, launch CCAS’s community cat program, pioneer the Rent-A-Dog program and modernize the shelter’s medical operations.
Dr. Amie Burling
Dr. Amie Burling is an Assistant Teaching Professor with the University of Missouri Shelter Medicine Program. She graduated from the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine and completed a residency in Shelter Medicine with the Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Florida and a Master’s in Public Health degree from the University of South Florida. Her interests include veterinary education, infectious disease control, behavioral welfare, public health, and veterinary social work.
Mindi Callison
Mindi Callison is the Founder and Executive Director of the National nonprofit organization, Bailing Out Benji which focuses on the grassroots effort to combat the puppy mill industry. Mindi founded Bailing Out Benji at 21 years old after falling victim to the puppy mill industry by way of a local pet store, who offered her a credit card with high interest. Upon learning about the pet store/puppy mill connection and learning about the predatory lending practices that these stores utilize to take advantage of low-income families, Mindi knew that she needed to act. Bailing Out Benji and its research have been instrumental in passing humane ordinances across the country, they have also been one of the driving forces behind exposing the national puppy laundering scheme that is currently happening in numerous states.
Jamie Case
Jamie Case is the Maddie's® HASS Project Manager overseeing the organization and management of the Human Animal Support Services Project. Prior to joining the HASS team in January 2021, Jamie was the Executive Director of Gateway Pet Guardians (GPG) for over a decade. GPG’s work is concentrated in the East St. Louis, Illinois community, where almost half of the residents live at or below the poverty line. Jamie led a strong team of volunteers and staff to create community change through boots-on-the-ground outreach efforts. In 2014, she worked with city officials to eliminate breed-specific verbiage and update outdated inhumane verbiage in the city ordinance. Under Jamie's leadership, to solve for the lack of essential services and resources in the area, GPG purchased a former elementary school in March 2019 which has been renovated into the region’s largest pet resource center. This facility which includes the city’s first veterinary clinic opened in the summer of 2020 amid the pandemic that left many people needing low cost and subsidized services. Jamie also currently serves as a member of the St. Louis Petlovers Coalition’s leading Task Force that is dedicated to increasing lifesaving and family support in the entire St. Louis metro region.
Dr. Katie Darr
Katie Darr is on a mission to help those who help animals. Trained as a veterinarian, she has a first-hand perspective of the effects of compassion fatigue, burnout, and lack of boundaries on individuals who have dedicated their lives to helping animals. She currently serves as a Clinical Instructor of Shelter Medicine at Mizzou, patiently walks students through sterilization procedures and teaches classes on well-being, work-life balance, compassion fatigue, and burnout. She is passionate about mental health and embracing that we are all more than just our profession. She an avid reader, amateur watercolorist, and dog enthusiast.
Sharon Davis
Sharon Krinsky Davis is a Regional Gift Officer responsible for overseeing a portfolio of major gift donors and prospects and soliciting for major gifts of $25,000 and above and principal gifts of $1 million and above in her 10 state assigned geographical area. She meets with donors, in person/and or virtually, up to 60 percent of the time. She is also instrumental in creating, implementing, and promoting the goals of Best Friends Animal Society, raising funds, creating strong and solid relationships with significant prospects and donors. Sharon also manages 5 regional gift advisors, to encourage growth of the major gifts program and increased fundraising within the department.
Prior to joining Best Friends 5 years ago, she spent the previous 26 years in non-profit health and 10 years at Jewish Community Centers
Kelly Duer
As Foster Care Specialist for Maddie’s Fund, Kelly's focus is on helping shelters and rescue organizations increase pet walfare through the implementation of robust foster care programs. Her role includes creating and providing training for organizations and their foster coordinators, writing, assisting with research on foster care and consulting with shelters. Her work with foster care and marketing has been featured in many national publications, websites and networks, including Animal Sheltering magazine, the Huffington Post, Best Friends magazine, BarkPost, Catster Magazine, iheartdogs.com and HuffPost Live.
T' Fisher
T’ founded the CAIT (Companion Animal Initiative of Tennessee) program at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine in 2005 and served as the Director for thirteen years. She was a facilitator of a community team that created a humane education curriculum for K-12 grade, Learning to Save Lives. She created multiple courses for veterinary students in outreach and an independent study course in Uganda, Africa partnering with the Big Fix Uganda. She led the efforts to establish a core spay/neuter course for all fourth-year UTCVM veterinary students and secured a mobile spay/neuter unit for students to travel to animal shelters in East Tennessee to provide services to those shelter animals. She led the production of the Animal Laws of TN Book; and she created VPHO (Vets for Pets of homeless Owners), an outreach program to assist homeless citizens and their pets in Knox County and served as a team leader for the Knox County Disaster Animal Response Team. T’ developed Feral Fixin, a TNR program for ferals cats in East TN. She also helped establish the Animal Haven Knox County program to assist victims of domestic violence with their pets. Recently, T’ served as Vice President of Animal Welfare at the Houston SPCA, serving over 40,000 animals a year. In this role, she oversaw cruelty investigations, a 24-hour animal rescue service, the call center, owner surrenders, transports/ transfers, the foster program, on and off-site adoptions, veterinary services and volunteer collaborations. T’ also helped coordinate the Shelter Medicine rotation, a core requirement at Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine, training over 150 veterinary students each year. T’ is a recipient of various awards including the National Hill’s Animal Welfare & Humane Ethics Award in recognition for advancing animal welfare through extraordinary service and furthering humane principles, education and understanding.
Jessica Gercke
Jessica spent over 14 years creating and refining media/publicity campaigns for a wide variety of professional industries. Through it all, her heart and soul belonged to animals. It has been a true joy for her to put her knowledge of marketing and publicity to work for our furry friends in need of forever homes. She currently serves as the Communications Director at Helen Woodward Animal Center.
Jacqueline Kelleher
Jacqueline has over 7 years of experience in utilizing innovative digital marketing solutions, managing content creation, and analyzing data to produce creative campaigns for a variety of private and nonprofit organizations. Her cross-cultural experiences have enabled her to develop a greater understanding of diverse business cultures and have helped her evolve within the diverse context of marketing. She currently serves as the Social Media & Technology Manager at Helen Woodward Animal Center.
Dr. Heather Kennedy
Dr. Kennedy is the Director of Feline Operations at KC Pet Project and recently accepted the position of Chief of Veterinary Medicine as well. In her role as the Director of Feline Operations, she oversees all aspects of feline operations including intake, intake diversion, care, adoptions, pathway planning, and feline fostering. As the Chief of Veterinary Medicine, she oversees an excellent team of dedicated veterinarians and technicians as they care for over 11,000 animals per year. Dr. Kennedy found her calling helping cats as an cat trapper, colony caregiver, and foster caregiver before attending U.C. Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, where her singular commitment to cats earned her numerous scholarships, as well as the AAFP Outstanding Scholar Award. After graduating, she spent four years in feline-only private practice before deciding to dedicate herself to improving the welfare of shelter cats by working first at FieldHaven Feline Center in Lincoln, California, and now at KC Pet Project. Dr. Kennedy’s is recognized as an expert on the humane care of feral cats and is currently sits on the AAFP Committee on free-roaming cats and speaks at national conferences on the work that she is doing in sheltering. She was mentored by Dr. Niels Pedersen, a nationally-recognized expert on Feline Infectious Peritonitis, and she often provides consults to other veterinarians on the diagnosis of the disease. She managed the Alley Cat Allies emergent shelter after Hurricane Katrina and was instrumental in helping Santa Barbara County become no-kill through TNR (Trap Neuter Return) and RTF (Return To Field). She started and managed a feral cat clinic in Yolo County where she mentored veterinary and pre-vet students on TNR and the humane care of feral cats.
Gina Knepp
Gina Knepp is the National Shelter Engagement Director for the Michelson Found Animals Foundation and a leading expert in keeping people and their furry families together. Her primary focus is increasing the return to home rate by engaging animal sheltering organizations in finding innovative ways of locating missing pet people and more importantly, helping people not lose their pets. Gina’s background includes managing the Front Street Animal Shelter in Sacramento, California. Her experience leading a municipal, open intake, high volume shelter adds to her passion for helping lost animals get back home where they belong. Gina is currently on the Board of Directors of the California Animal Welfare Association and on the Executive Committee of Human Animal Support Services (HASS) with American Pets Alive, launching national animal shelter reform.
Renee Resko
Renee has worked in the development field for 20 years and has a breadth of knowledge that includes direct mail, grant writing, cultivating donors, securing major gifts, planning and executing a capital campaign, and managing a planned giving program. She currently serves as the Vice President of Development at Helen Woodward Animal Center.
Liz Stamper
Liz Stamper is the Midwest Regional Strategist with Best Friends Animal Society. Through this position, Liz works with organizations one-on-one assisting various requests, trainings, and needs. Before joining the Best Friends family, Liz was the Medical Manager at the Almost Home Humane Society in Lafayette, Indiana. Throughout her tenure at Almost Home, Liz revamped their foster program, as well as neonate operations, increasing the neonate save rate to just below 90%. Liz also assisted in increasing the health and well-being for the adult populations at the facility through implementing and creating a detailed medical program. Currently, she is working on obtaining her vet tech degree and is Fear Free Certified. Liz resides in Indiana with her husband, daughter, 4 cats, and an ever-revolving door of foster kittens.
Dr. Valarie Tynes
Dr. Valarie Tynes is a native Texan and received her DVM from Texas A&M University. She worked in private practice for 14 years before returning to academia to pursue a residency in clinical animal behavior at the University of California at Davis in 2000. She has been a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists since 2003 and is also Board Certified in Animal Welfare. She is a frequent speaker at veterinary meetings around the world and author of numerous articles and textbook chapters. She joined Ceva Animal Health in October of 2014 as a veterinary services specialist.
Ledy VanKavage
Ledy VanKavage is the Senior Legislative Attorney for Best Friends Animal Society located in Kanab, Utah and a member of the Illinois State Bar Associations animal law section. Before coming to Best Friends Ledy was the Senior Director of Legislation and Legal Training for the ASPCA. She has helped spearhead the passage of over 50 humane state bills during her lobbying tenure and is also a past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Animal Law Committee. Ledy is the recipient of the ABA’s Excellence in Animal Law award for 2014 and the 2018 Wallace Award from the Wallace the Pitbull Foundation. She is a co-author of the USDOJ publication, “The Problem of Dog Related Incidents and Encounters” and is an instructor for the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board. She has been interviewed on MSNBC, NPR, the Chicago Tribune, Time Magazine and the New York Times.
Anna Walton
Anna Walton is the municipal and shelter support coordinator for Best Friends Animal Society, providing logistics support for strategic shelter partnerships and programs across the country. Through Best Friends’ digital learning efforts, Anna creates educational content for a full range of interactive online trainings and tools to support field services professionals. Before stepping into her current role on the shelter outreach team, Anna worked as the community cat program coordinator for the Best Friends Lifesaving Center in Atlanta, Georgia. As part of that work, she mentored municipal shelters and rescue partners in the Southeast, worked with commissioners and government leadership to establish best practices for local animal control agencies, and led grassroots efforts to update county ordinances to ensure the continuation of trap-neuter-return programs for Cobb County's community cats. Prior to joining Best Friends, Anna served as an animal control officer and dispatcher for Fulton County Animal Services through LifeLine Animal Project in Atlanta. While she was an ACO, Anna managed Fulton County’s Doghouse Program, providing humane support for pets and proactive assistance to community members in underserved areas. Before diving into the animal protection and sheltering world, Anna worked as a wildlife care supervisor for Aware Wildlife Center, where she oversaw the rehabilitation of wild animals, trained and managed volunteers in animal care, and developed fundraising and community engagement programs. While completing her bachelor’s degree in psychology at Emory University, Anna traveled to northern Tanzania through the School for International Training to study human-wildlife conflict, animal behavior and the wildlife conservation movement. She also managed to pick up a bit of Swahili.
Renee Wolfgramm
Renee Wolfgramm is a Director of Client Services for Pethealth Inc. After completing a degree in Zoology and working at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Renee fell in love with animal welfare industry in 2007 at the Humane Society of Huron Valley (HSHV). Renee held a variety of leadership positions at HSHV and later at Dane County Humane Society. Renee now applies her customer service background and passion for data and technology to help shelters perform at peak efficiency.
Schedule
Clear your schedule, and join your colleagues from all over the Midwest to learn and network! See the full conference schedule here.
Speakers
Expert speakers are traveling from across the country to present at MASC! See the full line-up here!
Travel
Travel around Columbia is easy and affordable! Find hotel, flight, and parking details here.
“We enjoyed all of the things we learned. We made new friends. Great event for animal people to meet and be educated.”
— MASC 2019 Conference Attendee