Meet Our Board

Friends of the Animal Shelter, like most non-profit organizations, is run by a Board of Directors. FOTAS' part-time employees report to and are accountable to the Board. The Board sets policy and direction for the organization. It also oversees the organization's finances and fundraising.

The members of our Board enjoy the Board meetings and their interactions with one another. At our Board meetings, the input of each member is valued and weighed in a creative atmosphere. All members of the Board are uncompensated volunteers.

If you would like to be considered for a position on our Board, please send us an E-mail for more information.

Barbara Talbert – President

Barbara started walking dogs at the shelter in August 2008, a year after leaving Southern Oregon University, where she spent 15 years in continuing education administration. She quickly got hooked as a FOTAS volunteer and now keeps the adoptable dogs updated on the Petfinder.com website, fosters dogs who need a break from the shelter, uses e-mail and Facebook to inform other volunteers about adoptions and new arrivals at the shelter, and helps with publicity for FOTAS events. When she’s not hanging out with shelter dogs, Barbara volunteers her time in the community to work on projects related to continuing education, recycling, and sustainability.

Barbara lives in Ashland with her husband Kevin and her dog Chaco, a Chesapeake Bay retriever mix, who was adopted from the shelter in August 2008. They enjoy walking, hiking, camping, rafting, and traveling around the country in their van.

Peggy Moore – Vice President

Peggy joined FOTAS in 1999, originally helping with shot clinics and Puss 'n Boots. She joined the Board in 2003, shortly before she retired from a 36 year career in California Community Colleges. She served as a faculty member, Vice President of Instruction and Superintendent/President. In 2004 she became the FOTAS Board President.

Peggy shares her life with her partner, 2 rescue dogs from the Shelter (a shepherd mix, Golda Meir and a mixed 6 breed dog named Pilot). In addition there are four great Pyrenees (Misha, Ioreck, Canis and Nestor) who are guardians to 52 dairy goats. Three cats from the Shelter have recently joined the household - Elmo, Tashi and Tara.

Peggy enjoys working as a dog adoption counselor, still participating in monthly shot clinics, working on dog washes and Puss n Boots as well as a variety of routine tasks to help the organization fulfill its mission. In addition to work with FOTAS, Peggy chairs the Colestin Rural Fire District Board of Directors and volunteers with the Ashland Independent Film Festival. She also works as a consultant to California Community Colleges, specializing in colleges with accreditation issues.

Jeane Lind – Secretary

Jeane, a retired lawyer, became a FOTAS volunteer in 2001. She has worked in the shelter sick room, cat room, shot clinic and community events. She is active in the Puss ‘N Boots Ball auction, Coins for Kitties and transporting animals. She joined the Board in 2003, served as Treasurer and is now Secretary. She and her husband David live in Ashland with their 13-year old shelter Snowshoe Siamese, Duppy, and occasional foster kitty friends. Duppy travels with his family in their little RV and loves the outdoors.

Eliza Kauder - Treasurer

Eliza has had a life-long love affair with all things furry. She has been a volunteer with FOTAS for since 1997 as an adoption counselor, team captain, poster pinner-upper, dog washer, and even did the layout for “Scoop” for 6 years.

Eliza and her husband, Brad, live in Ashland with their black lab/moose mix named Phoebe (nickname: Feed Me) and a forever-kitten named Shira. And there’s always the possibility of coming home with a new furry member of the family every time Eliza volunteers at the Shelter. Eliza and Brad are known for their prize-winning Puss ‘n’ Boots costumes!

Professionally, Eliza is a senior-level manager at a financial services company.

Mary Pfister – Manager of Volunteer Services

Mary joined FOTAS as a volunteer in 2007, helping with administrative tasks, working in the cat room, and fostering kitties and doggies. She became Manager of Volunteer Services in 2008. Mary lives in Talent with her husband Sean, an amateur astronomer; her black lab Lena; and two former Shelter cats she adopted as young adults, Jerry and Clark. Lena is famous for her patented reverse-twist sleeping position. The cats are brothers and they are great explorers, like Lewis and Clark, only it’s more like Jerry Lewis.

Jeani Kimball – Member at Large

Jeani has been a devoted FOTAS volunteer since 2002. She began working one day a week in the cat room, but soon found herself at the Shelter three days a week – and loving it! Jeani is an invaluable resource for the board, as she gets to experience the day-to-day workings at the Shelter. She regularly fosters cats and kittens.

Jeani shares her home with her husband Jon and their two cats, Kit and Kat. Kit and Kat are shelter alumni that she fostered and then adopted when they played their way into her heart. Jeani says she’s learned a lot from all her cats over the years, but still loves to go to the shelter to hang out with all the “street” cats and help them find permanent homes.

Colleen Macuk – Member at Large

Colleen is the Shelter manager and has been working with FOTAS since its inception in 1990. Her place on the board "assures open communications and the kind of understandings that has made our relationship so successful."

Colleen is owned by Bubba, a Shar-pei mix that she saved from parvo and Kya, a 6-year-old Australian Shepherd mix who is completely deaf and partially blind. In an amazing show of restraint, these are Colleen’s only two pets, and she says that "unless I am willing to trade my husband for more pets, they will be our only two for a while."

Marnie Norvell – Member at Large

Marnie joined FOTAS in 1998 after moving to Ashland from Arcadia, California. She is a former teacher and was an adoption counselor at the Pasadena Humane Society for many years. Marnie helps enforce the Shelter's spay/neuter program by counseling people who have adopted a pet but failed to comply with their spay/neuter contract.

Marnie and her husband Pete share their home with three rescued dogs, Duffy, Annie and Willie. Her interests are family, animals, tennis walking, reading, rafting, and theater.

Jan Vidmar – Member at Large

Jan, a retired Special Education teacher from Alaska, became a FOTAS volunteer because she missed being with cats and dogs.  After traveling and cruising aboard her sailboat for 15 years (without a pet), she put down roots in the Rogue Valley, and became involved with FOTAS  to improve the lives of pets in Jackson County.

Jan now shares life with tabby Darwin, a Shelter alumnus, and enjoys hiking, gardening, reading, biking, GlideCycling, riding her motorcycle, volunteering with the Oregon Shakespeare Theater, and especially observing and studying birds.

Barbara Bruckman – Member at Large

Barbara has enjoyed the companionship of animals since she was a child – primarily cats and dogs, but also chickens, ducks, fish and a rabbit, Harvey, who was toilet trained and enjoyed the run of the house. In October 2008 she began volunteering at the Jackson County Animal shelter because she was impressed with the staff and volunteers as well as wanting to help the adoptable pets at the Shelter.  During the her time with FOTAS, Barbara has walked dogs, coordinated the Ashland July 4th parade FOTAS entry, spoken about the work of the Shelter and FOTAS to scout groups, school classes, community organizations, conducted Shelter tours, and will become editor of The Scoop in 2011.

Barbara, her husband, John, and Monty, their older English Springer Spaniel, moved to the Rogue Valley in 2006 so John could take a job at SOU.  Monty keeps Barbara and John on a tight schedule and is determined to be an “only dog.”  Besides her work with FOTAS, Barbara is a photographer/printmaker and worked in non-profit management in another life.