Operation Kindness Blog

Operation Kindness staff to speak at Best Friends Animal Society’s National Conference

CEO Ed Jamison

Four of Operation Kindness’ staff members have been selected to present at this year’s Best Friends Animal Society’s National Conference in Houston.  

The conference, which will take place from Aug. 10-12, brings together leaders in the animal welfare community to present on topics including veterinary medicine, marketing, government relations and much more. 

Operation Kindness CEO Ed Jamison will present with Chief Community Initiatives Officer Meredith Jones their session entitled “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?: Implementing Collaborative and Lifesaving Teams Within Your Community,” described below.

“Do your local shelters need surgery suites, behavior and enrichment programs, or perhaps ways to treat heartworms? And if they did, would they be able to save more lives? In this session, we will explore how you can fill service gaps across multiple shelters to increase the number of lives saved in your region. Whether you are a potential provider or recipient, we will discuss tangible and accessible strategies to partner with your neighboring sheltering organizations to increase the number of lives saved in shelters.” 

Jamison will also present with Meaghan Swan-Wilson, Senior Manager of Data and Logistics at Operation Kindness. Their session is called, “Flow Matters: Is Your Data Making an Impact?,” and is described below. 

“Is your shelter data making an impact? Join Operation Kindness to discuss how to use reporting to make data-driven decisions on animal population management and increase efficiency with operational processes. Then learn about the change management needed to implement new processes. You’ll also take a look at reporting examples from different shelter databases and leave with actionable steps that you can take back to your organization.” 

Heather Dolson, Vice President of Lifesaving Programs at Operation Kindness, will also be presenting. Dolson is teaming up with Sarah Sheek, Assistant General Manager at Dallas Animal Services, to present their session, “A Tale of 2 Outbreaks: How to Manage Influenza in Private and Public Shelters,” which is described below.  

“Toward the end of 2022, both Operation Kindness (a private nonprofit shelter) and Dallas Animal Services (a municipal shelter) experienced an outbreak of canine influenza virus. This session will cover the different approaches taken to manage the outbreak, what was learned, proactive steps that can be taken to identify a potential outbreak before it spreads shelter-wide, and the importance of partnerships between private and municipal shelter organizations.” 

Jamison, Jones, Swan-Wilson and Dolson will join nearly 200 other speakers to bring expert information on essential issues in animal welfare, according to Best Friends Animal Society. The conference was designed to “give you the newest, most advanced lifesaving tips and techniques from leaders in animal welfare, as well as connect you with speakers from other areas of expertise.” 

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