Colorado Animal Welfare Conference Session

Duane Adams is president and CEO of the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Regin. He has been in that role since 2020. 

Adams brings more than 40 years of animal welfare and operations experience to his role. Prior to joining HSPPR as the president and CEO, he was the vice president of operations for the Dumb Friends League where he oversaw animal cruelty investigations at the Dumb Friends League and the Colorado Humane Society & SPCA, equine operations at the Dumb Friends League Harmony Equine Center™, a rehabilitation and adoption facility for neglected and abused horses that have been removed from owners by law enforcement authorities, and the operations of the two companion shelters.

Prior to joining the Dumb Friends League in 2010, Adams held positions as executive director of the Yavapai Humane Society in Prescott, Ariz., executive director of the Santa Fe Animal Shelter and Humane Society in Santa Fe, N.M., and vice president of operations and animal services at the Arizona Humane Society in Phoenix.  

Judy Calhoun is CEO of NOCO Humane, a 55-year-old, private nonprofit animal welfare organization serving the people and animals of northern Colorado. With over 40 years’ experience in nonprofit administration, her background includes serving as the vice president for development and community relations at Dumb Friends League in Denver, the director of Development for the Peninsula Humane Society in California, associate executive director for the Colorado Veterinary Medical Foundation, and experience with several colleges and universities. Her career began as a fieldworker for the Bryn Mawr College Centennial Campaign. Her educational background includes both a BA and MA in Sociology and she is a Certified Animal Welfare Administrator (CAWA) and Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE).

Calhoun is currently on the Convener Group for the Northern Colorado Nonprofit Sector Partnership, a member of the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado’s Loveland Community Fund Committee, chair of the Advocacy Committee for the Animal Welfare Association of Colorado and a board member of Coloradoans Protecting Animal Welfare and Colorado Veterinary Care Coalition. She is a past board chair of The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement and a past president of the Colorado Federation of Animal Welfare Agencies. She was active in forming the Northern Colorado Regional Animal Welfare Coalition to bring together animal related groups in the Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming area. She was part of a small group of animal welfare CEO’s in Colorado who developed the Socially Conscious Animal Sheltering concept.

She was named a Women of Vision in 2015 by the Colorado Women of Influence, Women of Distinction in 2019 by BizWest and Larimer Humane Society won the BBB Torch Award for Ethics in 2018. She and her spouse, Cheryl, are avid triathletes and share their home with two cats, Smokey and Tiger, and a guinea pig, Kona.

Connie Howard started working in animal welfare in 1981 after graduating with an animal science degree from the University of New Hampshire.  She worked in animal shelters in New England for 15 years.  While in New England, she was a regional representative for the Red Acre Hearing Dog Center.  Before moving to Colorado to work for American Humane Association.
Howard spent ten years at Humane Society of Boulder Valley as vice president of operations.  After leaving Boulder, she spent five years working for Pethealth and then joined Foothills Animal Shelter almost six years ago as executive director.  While at American Humane Association, Howard worked with Dr. Emily Weiss to help develop SAFER as the first validated tool for use in animal shelters.   She also worked for PetSmart Charities along with a PhD animal behaviorist she created a transfer assessment tool for dogs that was validated for both inter and intra reliability between testers. 
” I am passionate that animal behavior is a science, and shelters should treat behavior just as the do medicine; investing in certified and qualified individuals to run behavior departments,” Howard said.