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Found Animals Forum Speaker Bios |
Michael M. Arms |
Michael Arms became President of Helen Woodward Animal Center in 1999 after serving ten years as district manager for the ASPCA in New York and twenty years as Director of Operations for North Shore Animal League.
Since he developed the, “Iams Home 4 the Holidays” adoption drive in San Diego in 1999 the campaign has found homes for more than 3,278,000 orphaned pets worldwide. Mike also established the Center’s, “Animal Center Education Services” program to teach, “the business of saving lives” to shelters worldwide.
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Rich Avanzino |
Richard Avanzino has had a major influence on the nation’s animal welfare movement.
As President of the San Francisco SPCA from 1976-1999, Avanzino led San Francisco to become the first City and County in the nation to offer an adoption guarantee for every healthy shelter cat and dog, and saved the vast majority of the City’s sick and injured shelter animals as well.
In 1998, he revolutionized animal sheltering with the opening of Maddie’s Pet Adoption Center, the first facility in the country in which cats and dogs awaiting adoption were housed in cozy home-like settings rather than cages. During his 22-year tenure as President of the SF/SPCA, Avanzino brought euthanasia rates down to the lowest of any urban center in the nation. He also created adoption, animal behavior, feral cat, and spay/neuter programs that have become models for the nation.
Avanzino’s demonstrated leadership prompted Maddie’s Fund founders, Dave and Cheryl Duffield to hire him as the foundation’s first President in 1999. He currently directs the $300 million family foundation's resources in three major areas: building community collaborations where animal welfare organizations come together to develop successful models of lifesaving; in veterinary colleges to help shelter medicine become part of the veterinary curriculum; and in the implementation of a national strategy to promote accountability and transparency in animal shelter operations.
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Bill Bruce |
Bill Bruce joined the City of Calgary in 1981 and has been with Animal & Bylaw Services since 2000. Bill came with a vision of changing the role of Animal & Bylaw Services from enforcement to a broader goal of compliance through raising citizen awareness and voluntary compliance to Calgary’s bylaws by utilizing tools such as clear, understandable bylaws and policies, partnerships, conflict resolution techniques and public education. His priorities have been programs that protect public health and safety, the environment and municipal infrastructure. Bill believes that the municipality’s bylaws must reflect the standards of the community and that service should be delivered in partnership with communities, business groups, other agencies and city departments. In the area of Animal Services, the focus has been to shift from the traditional animal control philosophy to the concept of responsible pet ownership, reduce the number of aggressive dog incidents, increase the return-to-owner rates for both dogs and cats through building a community of responsible pet owners, licensing, eliminating euthanasia as a management strategy and working towards becoming a true best practice municipality in animal services.
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