Board of Directors
Guy Brouillette: Chair
Guy is a Colorado native having grown up in Arvada and always living around the Boulder area. After spending 18 years in pharmaceutical IT and 15 years in Healthcare IT, Guy followed his passion and he received his Executive Wine Sommelier certification in 2013. He opened PeakWine LLC in 2015, a wine consulting company and loves teaching and talking about wine. Guy spent time as a volunteer firefighter in Arvada until an accident retired him in 1990. Guy’s other passion has been helping animals in any way possible since the need is so great everywhere in the world. Growing up he had rescue dogs and even a white-faced Capuchin monkey that needed a good home. Guy is excited to be part of Project AnimalAid, an amazing global organization that is dedicated to both animal and ecological welfare at home and abroad and looks forward to being a part of this team.
Kyrie Ivanovich, DVM: Vice Chair
Kyrie grew up on a ranch in New Mexico. Following her love of science, nature and animals, she moved to Colorado in 2009 to pursue an undergraduate degree in biomedical sciences, followed by veterinary school at Colorado State University. Kyrie works as an emergency veterinarian at the Colorado Animal Specialty and Emergency Hospital in Boulder. She has a passion for the reservation dogs she grew up with and the street dog populations of southeast Asia and Mexico, splitting her professional time between ER and shelter medicine. In her spare time, Kyrie also volunteers with the Matthews House and Street Dog Coalition in Fort Collins. She enjoys outdoor adventuring, yoga, traveling, cooking for friends and spending time with her partner, Andy, and their fur kids, Summit and Mochi.
Karen Erickson: Treasurer
Karen joined the Board of Directors for Project AnimalAid in 2023 after retiring and moving to Central America. She and her husband, Scott, spent 25 years traveling the world, where they were exposed first-hand to the real needs of both wild and household animals wherever they went. Before their recent move, they lived in rural Colorado for many years. Their small log cabin was surrounded by 35 acres of land – and was home to many rescued dogs, horses, parrots, bee hives and whatever wildlife happened to be passing through at the moment.
Prior to her retirement, Karen had a long career in Healthcare Information Technology. She helped lead IT transformation efforts for McKesson Corporation’s division that supported chronic diseases and urgent care practices, and then led the build-up of technology implementations and customer retention practices for Sandata Technologies until leaving IT in 2019. Throughout the pandemic, Karen and Scott owned a small local business that provided support services for the most financially distressed and medically frail members of their small mountain community.
Karen moved to Belize full-time in 2023, fulfilling a life-long dream to eventually live abroad. They reside on a river outside of Hopkins, where they hope to fill their days with some well earned relaxation. They still have five dogs in their household – four who made the move from Colorado with them, and one who was their first Belizean rescue (in 2022, before they even arrived full-time!). Karen is looking forward to using her IT and financial skills to do whatever is required to help Project AnimalAid continue to flourish.
Kylie Lathers: Secretary
Kylie Lathers has a degree in Public Health from East Carolina University and a Master of Business Administration with a dual concentration in Marketing and Executive Healthcare Administration from the University of Denver.
Upon graduating with her MBA, she founded Apricus Grace Solutions LLC in 2020, a Marketing Consulting Firm in the Medical Device industry. She is currently a marketing strategist for several medical device companies including a global leader in patient-focused medical innovations for structural heart disease.
Kylie brings more than nine years of executing medical device marketing initiatives and strategies while managing a broad range of product marketing and operational functions in diverse, start-up, and global environments. A leader with business acumen and a deep understanding to drive brand management, align goals and analyze metrics, omni-channel optimization, improve processes, and facilitates cross-functional collaboration across an organization.
Magdalena Ryzska: Director
Magdalena was the founding partner of a branding and marketing firm that specialized in the engineering and design of consumer packaging and support material including catalogs and websites. The firm's clients included pet product manufacturers. Magdalena earned her degree in communication graphics and later an MBA both of which helped her run a successful business for 24 years.
Magdalena’s love of animals and concern for our planet’s health fit nicely with Project AnimalAid’s mission. Utilizing her career skills and experience she hopes to help grow the organization and support it in any way she can.
She has been living in Boulder since 1994 and is an avid hiker and outdoors explorer. You can see her almost every day in the local mountains with her four and two legged companions.
Michelle Clopton: Director
Michelle has loved animals since she was a small child and would sneak into the neighbors’ yards to play with their pet dogs. A Colorado native, she also has a passion for nature and the environment, and loves spending time outdoors snowshoeing, hiking, gardening and kayaking on the reservoir. After graduating with a degree in marketing and an MBA, Michelle has spent her career in high-tech marketing, working in product marketing, executive communications, account management and writing roles. When not working, she enjoys volunteering for organizations that focus on helping animals, people and the environment, which is why the Project AnimalAid mission is so compelling. Michelle also enjoys traveling, cooking, reading, writing, the arts, and is especially passionate about learning new things.
Michelle currently works for VMware, a cloud computing company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. She lives in Boulder – a perfect location for residing close to nature. Michelle enjoys spending time with family, friends and her furry rescue companion, Petey the Bichon Frise.
LaDonna Gordon: Director
LaDonna is a Chicago, Illinois native who’s lived in a few different US States including Colorado. She enjoys working with animals and has done so since she was a teenager. Starting as a veterinary volunteer and zoo intern, LaDonna realized that she liked working with animals on the care-taking side. Upon graduating from Tuskegee University and Mississippi State University, she was a zookeeper for several years. While at the Detroit Zoo LaDonna facilitated the delivery of the zoo’s baby aardvark. This was the first successful aardvark birth for the zoo in several years.
Wanting to educate zoo visitors more, LaDonna worked as a zoo educator while pursuing her Master’s degree in Education with University of South California. Her animal caretaking journey has included being a kennel technician, animal trainer and Assistant project manager for Pandrillus Foundation in Calabar, Nigeria. While in Africa, LaDonna was able to use her animal caretaking skills to work with chimpanzees and drill monkeys.
Currently, LaDonna works for The Farmer’s Dog as a retention associate where she gets the perks of making sure dogs are fed fresh, healthy food. She enjoys meditation, nature walks, gardening, snowshoeing and loom knitting. LaDonna has a 17 year old kitty named Maxwell who has been her pal for 16 years.
Candy Brad, DVM:
Founder
After practicing traditional and alternative small animal medicine for 25 years, ten of which she co-owned Alpine Hospital for Animals in Boulder, Colorado, the idea for Project V.E.T.S. (now Project AnimalAid) came after many years of traveling as a wildlife photographer and lover. Seeing the needs of local veterinarians firsthand inspired Candy to think about the excess inventory in her practice and planted the seed for Project V.E.T.S. The Indonesian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the senseless killing of mountain gorillas in the Congo, were the catalyst to make Project V.E.T.S. a reality. Candy started Project V.E.T.S. in 2009 with the goal to do what she could for animals in need and our precious planet. Now retired from veterinary medicine, but with Project V.E.T.S./Project AnimalAid still going strong, Candy has impacted the lives of millions of animals with her simple idea and her unwavering love for our natural world.
Candy now lives in Victor, Idaho with her husband, Louis, and cockapoo, Zabu.
Staff
Meghan Curtis:
Executive Director
Meghan comes to Project AnimalAid with a lifelong passion for wildlife conservation and animal welfare. Prior to joining Project AnimalAid, Meghan worked with the Capuchin Province of Mid-America as the Director of Foundation Development and Special Events. She also worked for many years in the banking and telecommunications industries focusing on project management, contract management and sales operations. Meghan volunteered with Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center for 10 years and served on their Board of Directors and Fundraising Committees for a number of years.
Meghan has enjoyed trips to Central America and Africa to participate in wildlife research and conservation projects. She lives in Arvada, Colorado with her husband, three children and their dog, Charley.
Meghan can be reached at meghan@projectanimalaid.org.
Marcy Thrash:
Program Director
Marcy works as Project AnimalAid’s Program Director. She manages all of the inventory that comes in and goes out of the warehouse, communicates with all of our partner organizations, oversees warehouse staff and volunteers and helps with a wide range of other jobs. Project AnimalAid is a huge part of Marcy’s life. Their mission reflects her own beliefs; being kind to our environment and saving animals.
When she is not at Project AnimalAid, Marcy owns and operates a therapeutic pet massage practice and works part-time for a small animal practice in Niwot, Colorado. She loves reading, hiking, camping and live music. She lives in Longmont, Colorado with her husband, two children and their two dogs, Gus and Bruce.
Marcy can be reached at marcy@projectanimalaid.org.
Maya Key:
Development Manager
Maya has worked in the animal welfare field for over 20 years in a variety of different positions. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Maryland and a Master’s degree in Non-Profit Management from Regis University. Maya is also a certified veterinary technician and currently enjoys applying these skills to large scale spay/neuter campaigns in Mexico and on the Navajo Reservation. In 2003, she founded Wild at Heart, a non-profit organization that provides spay/neuter/vaccination services to feral cats in and around Boulder County.
Maya lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and daughter, along with their silly looking pug mix, Binky and their formerly feral cat, Philip. When she’s not sitting in alleys trapping cats, Maya enjoys snowboarding, traveling, reading, and spending time with friends.
Maya can be reached at development@projectanimalaid.org.