Humane USA Board of Directors

• Nanci Alexander, Boca Raton, Florida
  
  
• Carole Baskin, Tampa, Florida
  
  
• Gene Baur, Vice-Chair, Watkins Glen, New York
  
  
• Barbara Birdsey, West Barnstable, Massachusetts
  
  
• Priscilla Cohn, Ph. D, Villanova, Pennsylvania
  
  
• Harriett Crosby, Washington, DC
  
  
• Jane Gale, Las Vegas, NV
  
  
• Wm Christopher Kerr, Woodstock, New York

• Jana Kohl, Psy.D., Chicago, Illinois
  
  
• Mike Markarian, Chair, Silver Spring, MD
  
  
• Mary Max, New York, New York
  
  
• Wayne Pacelle, Washington, DC
  
  
• Maureen E. Peckman, Nevada
  
  
• Bonnie Robbins, Seattle, Washington
  
  
• Adam Roberts, Washington, DC
  
  
• Staff:  JJ Scheele, Washington, DC
  
  
  

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Nanci Alexander , Boca Raton, Florida

Nanci Alexander is the founder and president of, as well as a volunteer for, the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida, an organization founded on the principle that animals have the right to live their lives free of exploitation, abuse and harm inflicted upon them by society. Founded in 1989 the organization has grown to approximately 4,000 members.

In order to further advance a vegan lifestyle, Ms. Alexander founded Sublime, a Ft. Lauderdale vegan restaurant and style emporium in June of 2003. All profits from this business will be provided to organizations that further the vegan lifestyle.

Ms. Alexander has a B.S. in education, an MA in Speech Pathology, and a LLB. She is originally from New York.

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Carole Baskin  Tampa, FL  MakeADifference@BigCatRescue.org

Carole Baskin is the founder and CEO of Big Cat Rescue, the world's largest accredited sanctuary for exotic cats. She and her family volunteer for Big Cat Rescue as unpaid staff and have 100+ volunteers and 12 interns from around the world. She has run this Tampa based non profit since 1992 and you may have seen Big Cat Rescue on U.S. News & World Report, CNN, Anderson Cooper's 360, Animal Planet, Discovery, People Magazine, CEO Magazine, Glamour, The Today Show, Sports Illustrated, all of the local media outlets and many more national and international programs. She has been asked to provide lectures in Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Brazil, and Australia, as well as countless cities across the U.S. She has lectured on animal welfare, non violence, vegetarianism, cage construction, legislative affairs, and sanctuary standards in Universities including the International University, Law Colleges, and in numerous animal association conferences.

She is licensed by the state as a rehabber and has successfully rehabbed and released a number of bobcats and other native animals. Big Cat Rescue is accredited by, and Carole Baskin served as a past President of, The Association of Sanctuaries (a national accrediting body that is to sanctuaries what the American Zoological Association is to zoos.

She has been the legal liaison to the Captive Wild Animal Protection Coalition, and responsible for representing The Association of Sanctuaries at their meetings. She supplies CWAPC with all of the current data on exotic cat issues, including the numbers being displaced, the maulings, escapes and killings of both the public and the cats involved. She scans the media daily for news regarding exotic cats and report to some 300 people of three different groups with the daily headlines.

Big Cat Rescue is an nationally accredited charity by the Better Business Bureau's non profit arm called Give.org, a corporate member of the local Better Business Bureau, the Florida Association of the Restoration of Ethics, a member of the Tampa Chamber of Commerce, the Upper Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce, The Tampabay Visitors and Convention Bureau, the American Zoological Association, No More Homeless Pets, and many other animal welfare groups.

Big Cat Rescue assists other accredited sanctuaries by helping them build cages, train their volunteers and they lend their people and resources to help them recover from natural and man made disasters. Big Cat Rescue is licensed by and in good standing with FWC, USFWS, USDA and is registered with the state of Florida as a charity.

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Gene Baur , Vice-Chair, Watkins Glen, New York

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Barbara Birdsey , West Barnstable, Massachusetts

Barbara Birdsey is the founder of the Pegasus Foundation, which is committed to animal and environmental protection in three broad issue areas: wildlife, companion animals and land. Her foundation supports efforts to save Florida's manatees, Yellowstone's bison herd and stranded marine mammals on Cape Cod. The Pegasus Foundation promotes habitat preservation through land trust activities. Pegasus also funds stray animal spay/neuter programs on the Navajo Nation and in the Bahamas and the Caribbean. Barbara is personally active in local environmental and animal protection issues in the two communities where she has homes: Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Martin County, Florida.

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Priscilla Cohn, Ph. D, Villanova, Pennsylvania

Dr. Priscilla Cohn is a professor emeritus at Penn State University. She has been a visiting professor at the University of Madrid Complutense and University of Santiago de Compostela, graduate school. She has served on the following boards of directors: The Fund for Animals, Morris Animal Refuge in Philadelphia, Wildlife Information Center and Animal Rescue League ( Philadelphia ). Her education includes Bryn Mawr College: B.A. cum laude with Honors in Philosophy, 1960; M.A., 1962; Ph.D., 1969.

She is the founder, director, and president of PNC, Inc. (Pity not cruelty/ Piedad no crueldad in Spanish), a 501 (c) 3 animal rights organization devoted to the preservation, needs and care of animals.

Books: (A selection involving only those on animals):

Etica aplicada: Del aborto a la violencia ( Applied Ethics: from Abortion to Violence). 1981-96. (Contains a chapter on animal rights). 

Contraception in Wildlife, 1996.

Ethics and Wildlife, 1999.

Chapters in Chapters in books:

"Animals as Property and the Law" in R. Kevelson, ed., Law and Semiotics, New York, London, 1987.

"Kant y el problema de los derechos de los animales" (Kant and the Problem of Animal Rights) in Esperanza Guisan, ed., Esplendor y miseria de la etica kantiana , Barcelona , Anthropos, 1987.

"Animal Models" in Modelos de la Mente, Madrid, El Escorial, 1989.

"El punto de vista de Ferrater Mora respecto a como realizar juicios morales" (Ferrater Mora's Views on Making a Moral Judgment) in S. Giner, E. Guisan, Jose Ferrater Mora: El hombre y su obra, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 1994.

"La teoria evolutiva y del continuo de Ferrater Mora" (Evolutionary Theory and Ferrater Mora's Continuum) in Perspectivas actuales de logica y filosofia de la ciencia, Madrid, Spain, 1994.

"Hunting" in A. Linzey, World Encyclopedia for Animals .

"Immunocontracption" in A. Linzey, World Encyclopedia for Animals.

Papers:

She has given papers on animals on 5 continents: North America and South America including Puerto Rico and Mexico, Europe ( Spain, England ), Australia, and Africa, ( Kenya, South Africa ).

Media: Her articles have appeared in newspapers ( El Pais ) and several others in Spain (1978-1991) and in the US ; and she has been on radio and TV in both Spain and the US.

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Harriett Crosby , Washington, DC

ISAR: Resources for Environmental Activists was founded in 1983, as the Institute for Soviet and American Relations, to encourage citizen diplomacy and facilitate exchange between the US and the Soviet Union. ISAR's network includes ISAR offices in Moscow, Novosibirsk and Vladivostok, Russia and Minsk, Belarus as well as local NGO partners in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Western NIS. ISAR just celebrated it's 20th anniversary. Harriett manages a wild farm, Fox Haven which practices sustainable agriculture, organic gardening, tree planting and land restoration to improve the habitat for wildlife. Fox Haven Ecological Retreat and Learning Center provides workshops and facilities for environmental groups. She is also founder of a wildlife rescue center in Coca, Ecuador, a care and release program for wild animals, mostly monkeys, confiscated by police from the local marketplace.

Harriett worked in the White House Council on Environmental Quality and with the Presidents Council on Sustainable Development. She trained in Zurich, Switzerland as a Jungian psychoanalyst and practiced in Washington, DC. She taught at Putney School in Vermont and Colorado Rocky Mountain School and Outward Bound School in Colorado as a mountaineering instructor. She attended Pitzer College in Claremont, California and got her Master's in psychology at Temple
University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
She has been an active member of the following board of directors:
Friends of the Earth, Maryland League of Conservation Voters, Institute for
Conservation Leadership, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Institute of Noetic
Sciences, 20/20 Vision, Institute for Deep Ecology, Insight Meditation Community of
Washington and Humane USA.

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Jane Gale , Las Vegas, NV

Bio not available

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Wm Christopher Kerr , Woodstock, New York

Chris Kerr is a business developer and private investor specializing in early-stage and start-up ventures. His expertise has lead to the creation and development of Inc. 500 companies as well as philanthropic initiatives in the not-for-profit community.

Chris is the CEO of Consular, LLC, a holding company with a broad array of investments including internet technology, healthcare services, millwork, construction and real estate.

In addition to Consular, Chris is the co-founder and President of SteriLogic Corporation, a New York-based healthcare service company. He was the initial investor in, and is a current director of the Anark Corporation, a Colorado-based technology firm. Chris is also a director of the Pitcairn Financial Group, a firm specializing in financial management for high-net-worth families; a principal of the Hendricks Door Company, a manufacturer of high-end architectural doors; and a managing member of Cooper/Kerr; a Boulder-based investment group.

Prior to SteriLogic, from 1988 through 1995 Chris was the co-founder and CEO of Gurney Kerr, an Inc. 500, Philadelphia-base construction management firm.

Chris was elected as a director of Humane USA in January, 2004. Also in early 2004, Chris was added to the board of the Farm Sanctuary Fund with the specific charge of solidifying the investment policies of the organization.

Mr. Kerr received his BS in Management from Babson College (Wellesley, Massachusetts) majoring in entrepreneurial studies with emphasis in economics and finance.

Chris and his wife, Kirsti Gholson, currently reside in Woodstock, New York.

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Jana Kohl , Psy.D., Chicago, Illinois

Jana Kohl is a writer and psychologist dedicated to educating the public about cruelty in all its forms and committed to creating a more compassionate world. Having worked for the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies for many years, she has long been concerned with how cruelty becomes sanctioned by society. After seeing how animals are brutally abused by many industries she felt compelled to become involved in raising awareness and to help enact legislation that would create humane conditions for all animals.

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Mike Markarian , Chair, Silver Spring, MD

Michael Markarian is President of The Fund for Animals, one of the nation's largest and most active animal protection organizations. Mr. Markarian has appeared on television and radio shows nationwide, including CNN Headline News, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Today, Hard Copy, Extra!, The Dick Cavett Show, and Pat Buchanan and Company, to discuss sport hunting, commercial trapping, the exotic animal trade, and other issues that affect wildlife.

Mr. Markarian has a Master of Arts in English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland, and he is also a graduate of the University of Missouri's National Animal Cruelty Investigations School. He has lectured on animal protection issues across the United States and Brazil, and has written feature articles on animal issues for magazines such as Animal Fair, The Animals' Agenda, and Bird Talk, as well as journals such as the University of Baltimore Journal of Environmental Law. His op-ed columns have been published in top daily newspapers such as USA Today, The Houston Chronicle, The Baltimore Sun, The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, The Philadelphia Daily News, The St. Paul Pioneer-Press, and The Seattle Times.

Founded in 1967 by author and humanitarian Cleveland Amory, The Fund for Animals uses litigation, legislation, and humane education to further the cause of animal protection. Besides its advocacy work, The Fund provides hands-on care to thousands of animals every year, at its rabbit sanctuary in South Carolina, its wildlife rehabilitation center in California, and its world-famous Black Beauty Ranch in Texas, where more than a thousand abused and abandoned animals such as elephants, chimpanzees, bison, horses, and burros find a helping hand and a permanent home. More information is available at www.fund.org.

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Mary Max , New York, New York

Mary Max was asked to be a board member of Humane USA while working with Linda Nealon on Farm Sanctuary's 2001 Gala ("Say No To Veal"). Mary had become a fervently motivated member of Farm Sanctuary's New York City veal campaign in the winter of 2000 after having an awakening much like that of Eddie Lama, as depicted in "The Witness": After meeting and caring for a kitty in the fall of 1999, Mary evolved from having no regard for animals to becoming a full time champion of animal protection measures for all non-human sentient beings.

A full-time activist in New York city and elsewhere, Mary has enlightened many to the horrors of animal cruelty through her work for Humane USA, as well as independent projects such as video presentations and fundraising activities.

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Wayne Pacelle , Washington, DC

Wayne Pacelle is chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the nation's largest animal protection organization. Pacelle has worked for the organization since 1994 and formerly oversaw the organization's communications and legislative agenda before being elected to head the organization. Before joining The HSUS, he served as executive director of The Fund for Animals.

In 1997 The Los Angeles Times labeled Pacelle as "one of America's most important animal rights activists." In 1996, Campaigns and Elections named him "a rising star in politics," largely for his achievements in crafting, qualifying, and passing statewide ballot initiatives. Since 1990, he has conceived of or helped to direct more than a dozen successful ballot initiatives, including measures to halt cockfighting, hound hunting, bear baiting, and the use of steel-jawed leghold traps.

He has had Op-Ed pieces published in newspapers ranging from the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times to the Washington Post. Pacelle received his B.A. in history and environmental studies from Yale University in 1987.

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Maureen E. Peckman , Nevada

Maureen Peckman is originally from Chicago, Illinois and attended the George Washington University in Washington DC on a soccer scholarship where she received her Bachelor of Science degree. Soon after graduation, she spent 5 years with the Four Seasons Hotels company, where she opened and operated the company's flagship Spa and Fitness Center located in Georgetown. She then founded the Schafer Company, which focused primarily on real estate development consulting, where she worked on numerous projects in the US and Canada that included entertainment, sport, retail and office space developments. Most recently, Ms. Peckman has spent the last 5 years in Nevada as a senior political aide to a former State Senator and political director on 2 previous Nevada Federal election races. She sits on the Board of Directors for the Animal Foundation of Nevada, currently Chairing a $15 million shelter expansion campaign and is a newly appointed board member of the Nevada Community Foundation. Maureen was appointed to the newly formed Nevada Commission on Homeland Security by Governor Kenny Guinn in September 2003 and whose appointment will run through June of 2006. Maureen's parents currently reside in Las Vegas and she is married to Phillip C. Peckman.

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Bonnie Robbins , Seattle, Washington

Animal activist and environmentalist Bonnie Robbins started an eagle sighting hotline in Seattle in the early 80's that led to greater understanding of eagle origins and habitat in the area. She also served on the Board of the International Snow Leopard Trust that worked in central Asia to protect these magnificent creatures. An activist working to protect all animals and prevent cruelty, Ms. Robbins is also a key political supporter of humane candidates.

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Adam Roberts , Washington, DC

Adam M. Roberts is the Vice President of Born Free USA, a wildlife
conservation and animal protection organization based in Washington,
DC. Born Free USA is the American companion organization to the United
Kingdom-based Born Free Foundation, founded by the stars of the film
Born Free. Prior to launching Born Free USA, Adam spent nearly 14 years
With the Animal Welfare Institute and Society for Animal Protective
Legislation. Adam also founded and runs The $10 Club, a philanthropic organization established to fund poverty alleviation projects across the globe. Before joining the Board of Directors of Humane USA PAC as Treasurer, he helped found Elect! for Animals, the first national political action committee for animal protection. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Stephanie, daughter Mia, stepdaughter Bella, 4 dogs, 5 cats, and one very important Hamster.

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JJ Scheele, Washington, DC

For more information about Humane USA contact staff member JJ Scheele

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