N.O.A.H. Center changes leadership

Stacie Ventura (NOAH Center photo)

Stacie Ventura has succeeded Lisa Steenson as executive director of the N.O.A.H. Center in Stanwood, Washington. “I will be moving to Portland due to my husband’s job,” Steenson told ANIMALS 24-7.

Ventura “has over 23 years of dog training experience,” the NOAH Center posted. “She has trained dogs for competitive events including obedience, agility, confirmation and tracking and has over 12 years of experience training, handling and evaluating search and rescue dogs. She has worked at N.O.A.H. for the past seven years with the shelter dog training program and canine behavior modification.”

Raising an annual operating budget of about $1.8 million, the no-kill NOAH Center is close to having performed 70,000 cumulative dog and cat sterilizations since opening in 2003. NOAH has also cumulatively rehomed more than 22,000 dogs and cats. The NOAH paid staff of 16 are assisted by 360 weekly volunteers. The human population of Stanwood, the nearest town, is only 4,000, but the NOAH Center attracts visitors and support from as far north and south as Bellingham and Seattle, each an hour away.