Board of Directors

Board of Directors

Dave Rosenberg

Chairman of the Board

Dave Rosenberg brings decades of experience in chairing meetings and moving projects forward to successful completion. He has served as Mayor of Davis, Chairman of the Yolo County Board of Supervisors, a member of the California Judicial Council, and as senior adviser to two California Governors. Rosenberg also served as Chair of the California Lottery Commission, Chair of the Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board (the former Board of Control), Chair of the Yolo-Solano Air Quality Management District, Chair of the California Law Revision Commission, Member of the California Commission on State Mandates, and Grand Master of California Odd Fellows. He is a nationally renowned expert on parliamentary procedure and the author of Rosenberg’s Rules of Order, a treatise on parliamentary procedure used by hundreds of cities, counties, special districts, companies and corporations throughout the United States.

Lisa Gaynes

President

As Practice Manager of The MIND Institute at UC Davis Health, Lisa is devoted to growing and reaching the goals of this internationally recognized center for the study and diagnosis of Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Prior to her tenure at UC Davis Health, Lisa spent more than 25 years as principal of Gaynes Consulting, where she earned national recognition for the many unique sales and marketing programs they developed. Her work in industry, as a sales trainer, and successful creator of integrated marketing programs and business development campaigns, includes a client list that represents some of the world’s largest media organizations, including Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, Cox Communications and Reuters USA. Other notable clients include The National Forest Service, California Parks & Recreation, California Travel Association and the California wine industry. Lisa has a passion and history serving on non-profit boards including the California Building industry & Diversity Council and numerous animal rescue organizations.

Sally Ozonoff

Vice President

Brian Christison

Treasurer

Brian Christison is an accounting professional working at Vic Bucher Accountancy in Davis since 1999. Brian has extensive experience in non-profit accounting and tax report and helping non-profits get IRS approval for non-profit. He has always had a love for animals. He lives in Woodland with his wife two kids and many pets.

Lea Rosenberg

Secretary

Lea Rosenberg has a 40-year history of service to the community, and is the epitome of “community volunteer”.   She has been awarded the coveted “Citizen of the Year” award in Davis, and six separate times has been chosen “Most Effective Community Volunteer” in the annual poll of Davis Enterprise readers.   She serves on the Board of Directors of the Yolo County SPCA, the Sutter-Davis Hospital Board of Trustees, and the Trustees of the Davis Odd Fellows.   Lea is a Past President and remains an active member of the Davis Soroptimists, the Davis Odd Fellows, the Davis Rebekah Lodge, the Davis Encampment, and Canton Davis.

Beth Dovi

Director

Beth Dovi is a lifelong animal lover. She has a particular passion for the German Shepherd Dog breed, and has been an active volunteer with several German Shepherd rescue groups over the past 12 years.  She and a rescue colleague co-founded ShepHeroes German Shepherd Rescue in 2018, which in its first two years of operation, has rescued and rehomed over 100 GSDs!  She works full time for a local robotics manufacturing company, and in addition to her rescue work, Beth is an active member of the Davis Odd Fellows Lodge #169 and Rebekah Lodge #253. In her spare time, she enjoys walking, working in her yard, and listening to music. She lives in Davis with her husband and pack of fur kids.

Nancy Lea

Director

Nancy Lea is licensed to practice law in California and also, with her husband Bob, farms walnuts north and west of Woodland in Yolo County.

Nancy has had extensive experience assisting nonprofits, including board memberships on the Sacramento YWCA, San Francisco Hearing and Speech, and the Roseville Hospital Foundation (Founding Chair). She was also the founding chair of Mother Lode Savings and Loan, which was subsequently sold to US Bank. She served the children of Yolo County for 21 years as a Trustee (5th District) on the Yolo County Board of Education. She was a member of the Yolo County Planning Commission. She served on the board, and chaired, Alta California Regional Center, a State funded but privately run agency that provides services for the developmentally disabled in 10 northern California counties, for 7 years, and currently serves as a member of the Executive Committee, and chair of the Tax and Land Use Committee, of the Yolo County Farm Bureau.

Nancy’s interests are delivering the best services possible to constituent groups, always mindful that funds must be handled carefully in the interests of the taxpayers or donors, as relevant.

Nancy and Bob enjoy ranch living with their 6 dogs and 15 cats.

Julielani Chang

Director

Julielani Chang Ph.D/CTC. Eight years ago Julie adopted Kai from a high kill shelter. Through Kai, she learned of the many obstacles faced by the shelters and their animals. A year working with a rescue and three years volunteering at SFSPCA gave her valuable first hand experiences. Graduated as a CTC from Jean Donalson’s Academy for Dog Trainers allows her to combine her science background with her new knowledge of dog behaviors to help homeless shelter and rescue dogs as well as pets in the homes. She strongly believes humane education can be used pro actively as a solution to keep dogs out of the shelters by helping children and adults to understand dogs better and to learn to be kind to them.

Credentials:

• Board member @ Canine Rehabilitation Center and Sanctuary, Nevada 2014-1015.
• Volunteer at SFSPCA 2016-2019
• Certificated in Fear Free Practice since 2017
• Certificated as a Red Rover Humane Educator since 2019
• Member of the Professional Pet Guild since 2016
• Member of the Association of Professional Humane Educator 2019-2021
• Member of BIPOC Selection Committee at the Academy for Dog Trainers since 2020

Conferences and workshops:

• Clicker Expo Karen Pryor – Animal Behavior January 2016
• SFSPCA Symposia on sheltering 2016-2019
• The Shelter Summer Institute in Helena, Montana – The Art and Science to Shelter Dog Welfare August 2017
• Pet Professional Guild behavior and training workshop @ Best Friends – Shelter Pet Management & Rehabilitation for Adoption and Successful Family Integration April 2018
• The Emotional World of Dogs: New Insights into Behavior and Training by Dr. Daniel Mills presented by The Academy for Dog Trainers July 2018
• Veterinary Behavior symposia 2020, PPG – For the Love of Science 2020

Heidy Kellison

Director

Heidy Kellison is a writer who specializes in political and non-profit communication. Heidy was the Founding President of Friends of the Yolo Crisis Nursery. She resumed that role in 2013 and led the successful effort to save the nursery from closure. She is the District 4 Commissioner for First 5 Yolo, which is charged with the local implementation of Proposition 10, a statewide initiative that increased taxes on cigarette sales to fund programs promoting early childhood development for children ages 0-5 and their families. A member of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services State Advisory Committee on Sexual Assault Victim Services, former Press Secretary for the State Senate, and former board member/direct services volunteer for WEAVE (Women Escaping a Violent Environment), she has over 25 years of experience serving public policy needs to combat sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse/neglect. As a mother, she has been active in K-12 educational policymaking including local parcel tax campaigns and homework policy reforms. In her spare time, Heidy is a competitive ballroom dancer and enjoys time with her family, including her SPCA lapdog, Beazley, who is a small, special blend of all things loving and ridiculous (and yes, he knows he spells his name incorrectly).

Bob Schabert

Director

Bob Schabert is the owner of Judgment Enforcement Associates located in West Sacramento where he is also the Executive Director of CAL-SAR California Search and Rescue, a California Non-Profit corporation. Prior to law school, Bob was a member of the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department. In Bob’s spare time, he is a member of the United States Coast Guard Aux Air flying search and rescue missions. Bob is a long-time West Sacramento resident with his wife and three dogs.

Evelyn Dale

Director

Evelyn Dale is an animal welfare advocate who seeks to expand community understanding of pets and their care and to support the human/animal bond through compassionate and inclusive efforts that benefit people and pets. She is a shelter volunteer and writes the pet column Paws for Thought. Her motto is, “The world is a better place for people thanks to their pets!”

Lori Lubin

Director

Lori Lubin, PhD is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UC Davis. She is an observational astronomer whose research focuses on galaxy clusters, which are among the most massive objects in the universe. As her other job, she is a passionate animal lover and animal rescue advocate. For more than a decade, she has volunteered at local animal rescues and shelters and has worked with local officials to bring animal shelter reform, better outcomes for sheltered animals, and improved community services to Yolo County.  She hopes that our County can become a role model in our state by developing a true “animal resource center” that compassionately serves our homeless animals, addresses our community needs, and focuses on education and outreach.

Janis Rosenberg

Founding Director

Janis Rosenberg has been a life long advocate for unwanted animals in Yolo County. Rescuing several dogs her self as well as encouraging others to adopt from local shelters. She’s involved with doing extensive research on current sheltering practices to better understand the needs in her own community as it relates to sheltering including visits to shelters with outstanding practices and outcomes. Actively involved with rescue groups, Yolo County Pet Animal Welfare Society, and attending meetings with the stakeholders from the cities of Yolo County during the JPA process and Yolo Country shelter evaluations.

Janis is deeply invested in positive outcomes and state of the art sheltering services as she was born and raised in Davis and has been a business owner in Yolo Co. She is dedicated to the well-being of all animals owned and sheltered and believes that they should live without cruelty, neglect and in stable, healthy environments. She clearly states her mission to end the suffering for unwanted animals while they wait for forever homes. Shelter animals be treated with diligent care and housed in a comfortable manner that is clean and as stress free as possible. That every animal be treated with respect and has a chance to be matched with home who has support to see them through from adoption to old age. The public be offered services to end overpopulation with affordable or free spay neuter and low cost vaccine clinics. Feral cats are dealt with. Behavioral support is offered to the community with difficult breeds and behavioral cases that may end the dumping of animals on the streets or in shelters by providing education to the owners.

Janis started her nonprofit out of the love for animals and her strong beliefs that we as a community can do better in providing a safe, healthy space for animals to recover from being displaced. That we as a community can better support its animal owners with the services they need to be the very best pet owner they can be. We can reduce overpopulation and the senseless killing of healthy pets in Yolo County. The solutions are there and together we can do it!