TXFACS Board of Directors

JACQUELINE LEE BYRD

Jackie’s involvement in animal welfare began in 1994

as a volunteer for The Humane Society of Harlingen.

She was elected to the Board of Directors in 1995.

Served as Vice President, Secretary and Chair of the

Animal Care committee. She served on the Harlingen

Animal Shelter Advisory Committee as Chair for three years. Currently serving as President of the People and Pets Coalition.

Jackie is the Supervisor of the Brownsville Animal Regulation and Care Center located in Olmito Texas. BARCC is a shelter, animal control office and a low cost spay neuter clinic operated by the City of Brownsville.

She also owns Byrd Dog Productions digital video and holds two degrees, one in Social Psychology and one in Business/Marketing. Prior to opening BDP, she worked in the electronic media: radio, television and advertising agency.

Jackie and her husband Rick share their south Texas home with two rescued Springer Spaniels: Cajun and Malabar and a couple of cats, just to keep the dogs honest.

JAMEY CANTRELL

Jamey Cantrell began working with animals

in 1993 and his first job in a shelter was as

a Kennel Technician for the Humane

Society of North Texas in 1995. He learned

to perform every service the shelter

provided, from adoptions to emergency

rescues of injured animals to cruelty

investigations, and worked his way up to the

position of Staff Coordinator by 1997. After a brief stint as an Animal Services Officer for the City of Benbrook, Jamey was lured back to HSNT where he took over the position of Director of Shelter Operations. He held that position for five years, managing the day to day operations of the largest full-service animal shelter in North Texas, until leaving in July of 2003 to become the Animal Services Manager for the City of Lubbock. After making great strides in a relatively short amount of time, Jamey returned to the D/FW area when he accepted the position of Animal Control Supervisor for the City of Bedford in July 2004. He led Bedford to the prestigious Texas Animal Control Association’s Animal Control & Welfare Agency of the Year award for 2005 despite the fact that one third of his staff was laid off due to budget cuts that year. In early 2007, Jamey accepted his current position of Animal Services Manager for the City of Plano where he is working to expand the shelter’s outreach and educational programs and improve upon the city’s placement rate of more than 80% of all animals handled. Jamey has wide-ranging experience and has managed small (1-6 employees), medium (20-25 employees), and large (50+ employees) shelters, private shelters run entirely on donations, private shelters with municipal contracts, and tax-funded municipal shelters.

SHERRY FERGUSON

Sherry began volunteering at the Houston Humane

Society in 1982, finding her life's passion. She served

as Board President for two years before taking the

position as Executive Director.

Currently, Sherry serves on two animal control advisory boards, the Texas Federation of Animal Care Societies, and several other animal care committees and in addition serves on the THLN board, . Her family includes HHS adoptees Taylor, Mytcee and Guillermo.

LEILA MOORE

Unofficially Leila has been rescuing dogs and

cats all her life that was just the way she was

raised. In 1978 upon leaving her 15 year

position as Supervisor of Data Entry for the State

and moving to the country, her family of rescued

pets grew to seven dogs and three cats.

Her official career began in January of 1991 when after finding a litter of half frozen puppies she attended a Bastrop County Humane Society meeting. She was immediately made treasurer of the organization. At that time there was absolutely no provision for stray dogs or cats in the county – no animal control, only this small, young group. Therefore she and an animal loving neighbor began their humane society -“animal control” journey using her pickup with a camper shell and live traps. For over six years, this was the only resource provided for the people and the animals of the county. She and her four legged crew doctored and socialized many strays that were then put up for adoption. During that time she also became a certified cruelty investigator and worked with the Sheriff’s Department.

Through the BCHS’s efforts and record keeping, the County Judges and Commissioners finally realized the need for county wide animal control and a shelter. Therefore in early 1999 the Humane Society began a voucher program working with the local Veterinary Clinics. To date several thousands of dogs and cats have been “fixed”. After seeing the need for representation from rural areas as well as big cities she was asked to join the Texas Federation of Humane Societies and served proudly on that board for almost l4 years.

KAPPY MUENZER

Kappy has worked in the field of animal

protection for 34 years. She began her work to

improve the lives of homeless animals in 1974 as

a volunteer and founded the adoption program

for Citizens for Animal Protection (CAP) in 1975.

She was one of the founders of the CAP Shelter

which opened in 1981. She served as Board President for almost ten years. In 1986 the Board of Directors appointed her as Executive Director of CAP. She has also served as Gala Coordinator for CAP’s nationally renown Celebrity Paws Gala since it’s inception in 1986.

Kappy served for many years on the board of the Texas Humane Legislation Network. She was President of that organization for two years and Vice-President for four years. In addition, Kappy served as a board member of the Texas Federation of Humane Societies for over 20 years. She has served on the Advisory Committee for Houston’s Bureau of Animal Regulation & Care (BARC), and she currently serves on the Advisory Committee for the Houston Community College Paramedic Veterinary Program. She holds BA and Masters degrees from Northwestern University where she became a member of Alpha Delta Pi Sorority and Phi Beta Professional Fraternity. Kappy and her husband, Al, share their home with two shelter rescue dogs, MaryBelle, a Border Collie mix, and Jascha, an Australian Shepherd, in addition to their adored kitty cats, Freeway, Miss Minnie, Tinkerbell, Lilly and Truffles.

PATT NORDYKE

Patt Nordyke is the Executive Director of The

Texas Federation of Animal Care Societies.

Patt became involved in animal welfare

after moving to Texas from Massachusetts. After

20 years in the airline industry she returned to

animal welfare.

She has produced numerous Animal Care Conferences where she was responsible for scheduling speakers for workshops, sponsors and exhibitors, for conferences that provided continuing training for all animal welfare agencies in the State of Texas. Patt has been a presenter at conferences on a national and local basis and previously headed the Texas Federation of Humane Socieities Evaluation Program.

Patt, is the mother of two grown children and lives in Austin, Texas with her fur-folk, Oscar a terrier mix and Rufus a German shorthaired pointer mix.

STAN PARKER

Stan Parker has been a member of the Big

Spring Police Department for nearly 20 years.

He was promoted to the Rank Of Lieutenant of

Support Services which included Supervising the

Big Spring Animal Control for five years.

He was on the Board of Directors for the Texas Federation of Humane Societies in 2003-2004.

From 2004 to 2008 Stan was a small business owner in Big Spring Texas and in 2008 was elected Sheriff Of Howard County and took office as Sheriff on January 1, 2009.

SALLIE SCOTT

Sallie has more than 35 years experience in the

animal welfare field, particularly in San Antonio.

She began in the 1970’s on the Board of Man &

Beast, Inc., going to schools to present

programs. She was Executive Director of the

Animal Defense League for over 12 years,

during which time she turned the shelter around

to become the premier shelter in the City, while appearing on all major TV networks, newspaper, and radio with pets for adoption. The Pets & Baby Class was introduced to San Antonio by Sallie as well as the procurement of grants to twice bring the “Link” between animal abuse, child abuse, and family violence workshops to the City. Having been on the first board of the Animal Resource Center, a spay/neuter clinic, she has served on task forces assigned by the mayor.

She founded Animal Friends Humane Society in 2001. Currently President of Friends of Animal Care Services, Board member of the Humane Society of Williamson County, she has served as a board member as well as secretary of the Texas Federation of Humane Societies for over 20 years. She is Secretary/Treasurer of Alamo Area Partners for Animal Welfare, and is on the San Antonio Animal Care Services Advisory Board. Sallie resides in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, Don, three dogs (Charlie, Prince, and Foxy) and two cats (Sweetie and Tigger), all pets being rescues.

Bert Stratemann

Bert Stratemann was born in New Braunfels,

Texas and graduated from New Braunfels High

Class of 1986..

He graduated from Southwest Texas State

University with a degree in Animal Science

Prevet. Medicine Class of 1992.

Bert spent five years as Head of Quality Control for DeKalb Swine Breeders research and development Texas locations.

He spent several years in restaurant management and the auto body industry before working for the City of San Marcos as the Animal Services Manager.

He holds a Basic Animal Control Certificate, Euthanasia Certificate He also holds certificates in Animal Cruelty Investigations and serves as the LRCA for the City of San Marcos.

He is the Vice President of the Southwest Texas Animal Care and Control Association. He is a member of the Texas Association of Municipal Health Officials and is active within his church. He has seen his shelter and operations grow from a small barn with three employees behind the waste water plant, through two expansions to the 15,000 sq/ft Regional facility it is today. The shelter now employs 10 full-time staff and four part-time staff including both animal control operations and animal sheltering operations and serves the City of San Marcos, the City of Kyle and Hays County.

GARY HENDEL

Gary Hendel was appointed Director of the City of San Antonio’s Animal Care Services in May 2009.

As the director, Hendel is responsible for helping the city move toward No Kill status by making what used to be the city’s old style “dog pound” into a modern, well run animal care and control agency.

Prior to becoming a Texan, Gary headed up a humane society in Hawaii and as well as led shelters in both Dayton, Ohio and Portland, Oregon. Helping those in need is something that comes easy to Gary---before joining the humane field, he was a firefighter and arson investigator as well as a business owner who believed in giving back to the community.

Married for 38 years, Gary has two grown children and an 8 year old granddaughter.

Board of Directors