New shelter ED in charge

Julie Seal seems perfectly content sitting in a rickety trailer,
an abandoned orange tabby cat on her lap.
“I have a passion for animals, and I have my entire life,” Seal
said, explaining what brought her to this place.
From her humble seat, Seal—the new executive director for the
Healdsburg Animal Shelter, who recently completed her first month
on the job—is poised to take the shelter in exciting new
directions. She’s proud, even, of the old trailer that currently
serves as the organization’s office space: evidence that the
shelter operates on a lean budget and makes the most of each
donation.
“The organization is very lean. We do a lot with a little,” Seal
said. “This shelter is very, very frugal with donor dollars.”
Seal, who has been described as a “dynamo,” “amazing,” and
“incredible” by colleagues and board members, passed up better
paying jobs to do this. In fact, once she heard that the shelter
was without an executive director, she began inquiring about the
job even before it was listed.
Her enthusiasm and passion is evident to all.
“I have to say that everybody’s absolutely thrilled with
Julie—and everybody means the staff, the board, and the volunteers.
Everybody is in total agreement that we’re on the right track. The
board is absolutely in awe of what she has accomplished in the
first four weeks of her tenure,” said Kathleen McCaffrey, board
president.
The cause behind Seal’s passion—and the reason she chose this
path—is perhaps best exemplified by Marmalade. Marmalade is the
skinny orange kitty currently sharing Seal’s trailer space, who can
often be found curled contentedly on her lap.
Marmalade was tossed out of the window of a car. Seal thinks the
owners assumed the underweight cat was on death’s door—even though
Marmalade probably just needed some wet cat food, because her old
mouth couldn’t handle dry kibble.
The plight of unwanted, abandoned animals first struck Seal when
she was living in Phoenix. She visited the local animal control
center, where 200 dogs and cats were euthanized every day. Seal
witnessed cats crammed together in dog runs without litter boxes,
sometimes left without food and water.
“What I saw that day changed my life,” Seal said. “I came home
with a cat. And I knew I had until my husband came home from a
business trip to find it a home.”
That first cat resulted in Seal founding RESCUE (Reducing
Euthanasia at Shelters through Commitment and Underlying
Education). Before she knew it, the organization had blossomed to
include three paid staff members, 400 volunteers, 100 foster
families, and an operating budget of half a million dollars. In the
ten years that Seal led the organization, 10,000 dogs and cats were
saved.
When it came time for the Healdsburg Animal Shelter to hire a
new executive director, that experience stood out on her
résumé.
“If there were one word to describe her, I’d say it’s
‘combination,’” said McCaffrey. “What we found was somebody with a
combination of the empathy and the advocacy for animals that drove
her to found RESCUE, where they would take unwanted dogs and make
sure that they found homes. Plus the skill set in fundraising,
which was extensive,” McCaffrey said.
“In the interview process, she always was careful to state that
she’s had very high returns on her events, but one of the things
that made them so successful was zero operating cost. She does as
much as possible to get everything donated. We knew we had a person
who could take care of the animals as the City of Healdsburg wants
them taken care of, and we knew she could go out and be inventive
and imaginative in fundraising. That combination was what blew us
away.”
While Seal is thrilled with her new seat in the office trailer,
she is also excited to move across the street when the new animal
shelter building is completed, which will hopefully happen this
fall. She noted that although the new facility would be a huge
improvement over the existing building, the shiny new shelter
wouldn’t mean a change in the organization’s commitment to
frugality.
McCaffrey agreed.
“Healdsburg Animal Shelter has always been a very lean
organization. And that’s one of the things that is something that I
want people to know will be continued when we move across the
street,” McCaffrey said.
Seal is an animal lover, surrounded by dogs and cats all day at
work—and she returns to animals at home, as well. Seal has three
cats: two are 21 years old, and one is seven. But even with three
cats at home and a temporary foster feline at work, don’t assume
that Seal is a cat person.
“I’ve had dogs in the past, and my ideal would be to have two
dogs. But I promised my 21 year old cats I’d let them live their
lives out in peace,” Seal said.
When it comes to animals, as Seal put it, “I’m equal
opportunity.”
Staff Writer Lynda Hopkins can be reached at [email protected].