Humane society CEO will make his exit

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This article was published 19/12/2014 (4201 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG Humane Society CEO Bill McDonald’s life has gone to the dogs during the past 13 years.

And cats. And bunnies. And rats, guinea pigs and snakes.

That’s all about to change as McDonald has submitted his resignation and will serve his last day at the humane society on Jan. 23, as he prepares to move on to a new challenge.

McDonald, 61, is taking a job with a U.S. foundation funds non-profit animal shelters, rescues, and spay-and-neuter clinics throughout North America. He did not identify the U.S. foundation since there are plans for a formal announcement in the coming weeks.

He said it’s a new opportunity to continue working to make a difference for animals and in animal welfare. The new job, which he starts on Jan. 26, involves assessing applications and awarding funding to non-profit animal groups to assist them in programs and initiatives.

“It’s very exciting. What I’m going to be doing is managing the programs for the Canadian part of the foundation,” McDonald said in an exclusive interview with the Free Press.

“I gave my resignation letter to the chair of the (WHS) board, who I have a great deal of respect for, and I said, ‘This is really with mixed emotions that I’m doing this because this organization is so dear to my heart.’ The things that I’ve done here I will really cherish for the rest of my life.”

He won’t be leaving Winnipeg. The foundation is based in Phoenix but it’s expanding to do more work in Canada, so he will manage the foundation’s Canadian arm from an office at his Winnipeg home.

McDonald joked the job seems too good to be true. “The Canadian headquarters are going to be in the library at my house. I’m telling everybody I get to work in my jammies and I get to travel in Canada and down into the States,” he said, laughing.

McDonald said a whirlwind of events led to his acceptance of the job offer.

He was considering semi-retirement when he travelled to a trade show in Dallas last month, hosted by the Society of Animal Administration. There, he met people from the foundation and briefly chatted. Within a few days of his return home, he was shocked when representatives from the foundation contacted him with a job offer. He was flown to its headquarters in Phoenix for an interview on Dec. 1 and made his decision shortly afterward.

“When this drops on you, I thought that if I stick to my original plan of semi-retirement, three months after or six months after, I would be kicking myself that I didn’t give this a try,” he said.

McDonald joined the humane society in 2002 as a member of the board of directors. He was later appointed chairman of the building facilities committee, which was overseeing the construction of the new humane society building. Former CEO Vicki Burns hired him as the WHS contract manager to take a lead role in completing the new building, which opened in October 2007. He was appointed CEO to replace Burns, who left the humane society in February 2008.

He said the humane society building is like a second home to him.

“I was here at the bare-ground stage and watched it go up to the point where we moved 300 animals in six hours,” McDonald said, referring to moving day prior to the official opening. “My favourite joke is that there are 262 doors in this building and someone had to make the decision which ones should lock so I spent hours on stuff like that.”

McDonald said other changes under his watch he treasures include an increase in investigators and emergency response personnel to five full-time staff from two. He worked to expand the behaviour department, which has expanded from one person doing behaviour assessments to five full-time and three part-time staff members.

He said the increased access to behaviour assessment and therapy has helped make a countless dogs more adoptable and reduced their length of stay at the humane society.

 

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca