Below are the speakers for the 2017 NE Ohio Feral Cat Summit 3:
Sharon Harvey, president and CEO of the Cleveland Animal Protective League. Sharon began her career at the Cleveland Clinic where she spent a fulfilling 18 years in healthcare management. In 2003, she left the Clinic to follow her passion for helping animals, joining Geauga Humane Society’s Rescue Village as their executive director. Sharon became the President and CEO of the Cleveland Animal Protective League in 2007, which is a private, nonprofit humane society that assists more than 14,000 animals annually. Her first priority was to guide the organization and community through a strategic shift in philosophy that today is saving more lives and preserving the human-animal bond. She and her hard-working and passionate team have also placed a high priority on fostering collaborative relationships with the animal welfare community in the Greater Cleveland area and beyond .One such critical collaboration was starting a Trap-Neuter-Return program in 2008, through which the APL offers extremely low cost spay/neuter surgery to rescue groups and caretakers who are helping community cats. Since the program’s Inception, more than 43,000 community cats have been sterilized. Sharon regularly speaks at national and regional conferences on topics such as innovative adoption programs, managing admissions, Trap-Neuter-Return, and pet retention strategies. She is also honored to be invited to participate in strategic, national conversations about the future direction of animal welfare. Sharon serves on the Board of Directors of the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators and Ohio Federated Humane Societies. Finally, and most importantly, Sharon is owned by four dogs, Roo, Wilbur, Emily, and Eddie, a formerly community cat named Phoebe, and is efficiently managed by her office cat Ozzy!
Alice Stanford, shelter director of the Wayne County Humane Society. Alice accepted the role of shelter director in January of 2016 and has since brought a unique TNR Program, Low Cost Spay/Neuter Clinics, and a “Ferals for Farmers” program to the WCHS. She is currently in the beginning stages of establishing a Free Roaming Community Cat Housing program. Prior to being director, Alice’s love of rescue landed her the position of animal placement coordinator at the WCHS. This entailed building friendships with rescue organizations nationwide to take on animals that could not be placed up for adoption. Also, she built friendships with local establishments to hold educational and adoption events at their facilities. Between TNR, low cost S/N, rescue, and building a larger foster base, Stanford has brought down the feline euthanasia rate from 75% when she started 4 years ago – to 21% today, and hopes to continue the downward spiral.
Dr. Meg Geldhof, medical director at One of A Kind Pet Rescue. Since its founding in 2007, One of A Kind Pet Rescue’s Spay & Neuter Clinic has performed nearly 125,000 sterilization surgeries for dogs and cats. Dr. Geldhof oversees all of these procedures and performs many of them herself. She was responsible for designing the clinic’s operational practices and protocols, including those for community cats. Dr. Geldhof utilizes her vast experience in shelter medicine, as well as private practice, to provide veterinary care for sick and injured animals before they are made available for adoption ant One of A Kind. Dr. Geldhof is a 2003 graduate of The Ohio State University School of Veterinary Medicine and is an alumnus of Hiram College.
Toby Franks has been practicing Trap-Neuter-Return for over 12 years and has TNRed over 1,000 feral cats. Toby is co-founder of the Together Initiative for Ohio’s Community Cats, serves on the Board of Directors for Spay-Neuter Ohio, and is a member of Alley Cat Allies Feral Friends Network. He is past clinic director at One of a Kind Pet Rescue’s Spay-Neuter Clinic and is a past recipient of the HSUS Community Cat Hero Award and the Alley Cat Allies Hometown Hero Award, both in 2013.
Dan Spehar is co-founder of the Together Initiative for Ohio’s Community Cats. He is a long-time animal advocate, who has served for the past four years as a Senior District Leader Volunteer for the Humane Society of the United States. Since 2013, Dan has conducted research on community cats and TNR. He will be presenting the findings of a recently-completed TNR case study at the 2018 HSUS Animal Care Expo. He has been a practitioner of TNR for over 14 years. Dan lives with his wife and eleven cats (nine of whom formerly lived as community cats).