After spending over 30 years in the animal welfare world, Humane Pennsylvania (HPA) President & CEO Karel Minor knows a thing or two about helping animals and their caretakers who love them. As the second longest-tenured leader in animal sheltering in Pennsylvania, he is looking back at the progress made and strides taken over his 20 years as CEO of Humane PA.

What do you love most about working for Humane Pennsylvania?

What I love most about working at Humane PA is our culture of asking, “What needs to be done and how can we do it?” HPA isn’t bogged down in dogma (no pun intended!) about how we’ve done things or how things “must” be done.  If it works, we continue doing it and try to improve. If it doesn’t work, we try new things until it does. That may seem like an obvious approach but it’s still all too rare in animal welfare.

How has the organization changed/evolved since you started working for HPA? And what keeps you motivated to do the great work you’ve been doing for the past 20 years?

Over twenty years ago, I left animal welfare because the industry as a whole seemed like it was fixated on explaining why things couldn’t be done, usually with no real data to back it up, just opinion and gut feeling.  Animal welfare felt hopeless and fatalistic and if you suggested we could save animals’ lives and help people try new things, our peers looked at us like we were stupid.  If you suggested adopting cats at Halloween, waiving adoption fees, or adopting at Christmas, people thought you were insane. Twenty years ago, when I started at HPA, which was known as Berks Humane Society at that time, I met a core of staff, board, volunteers, and donors who were willing to be open-minded. They saw that what we had been doing wasn’t working- at least not for the 4,000 animals being euthanized each year- and they took the risk with me to try new and even taboo approaches. It worked, we kept it up, and we helped spread that attitude around the country.

Are you a dog, cat, or critter person?

I don’t have to choose so I don’t!  My family is currently supervised by four cats (Susu, Monkey, Thud, and Winnie), a baby turtle rescued from death in a parking lot (Ulysses S. Grant Wood Turtle), and three Costa Rican dart frogs. We are dogless after losing Treetop, the world’s best Labrador, to old age a few years ago.

Who has influenced you most when it comes to how you approach your work?

My greatest influence in animal welfare is Dr. Michael Moyer, who hired me at my first shelter 32 years ago.  Back then, he was the extremely rare executive director who happened to be a veterinarian.  He approached animal welfare like a scientist, used data, and encouraged me to do the same.  However, my biggest professional influence is my wife, Dr. Kim Minor, who was one of the extremely rare educators who is a genuine genius, uses data and genuinely cares about doing what’s best for kids, even when it’s hard or personally risky.  There is a bizarre similarity to how the education system writes off a lot of kids just like many animal shelters do with animals.  Her example of doing what is right for each individual child and how that improves the well-being of children as a population has always motivated me to do the same for animals and the families they are attached to.

What’s one thing you’re learning now, and why is it important?

The thing I think I’ve had to grapple with in the last few years is that no amount of planning, willpower, or even unlimited resources can make some things work. When there are numerically too few vets for the number of open positions, a pandemic shuts down construction projects, or bad laws get passed all you can do is make the best of things.  HPA has accomplished so many things exactly the way we planned that it can be a rude awakening when sometimes all you can do is make things better, but better is still better.

What do you see as your biggest accomplishment since your start with Humane Pennsylvania?

I think “my” biggest accomplishment is creating a team responsible for “our” accomplishments.  We have talented, dedicated staff who have been with HPA ranging from just one year to nearly twenty years.  One person can’t succeed alone and we have built a group who take their work seriously and know they can make a concrete positive difference for the animals and people in our community.

What’s one of your favorite Humane Pennsylvania memories from the past year?

We recently dismantled a closed Rite Aid store to get $100,000 worth of gondola shelving for our new warehouse store-style pet food pantry and upcoming thrift shop. It was a stupid amount of work for three days but we saved $96,000 and it was a reminder that when we need to we can buckle down and get the work done ourselves!

What three words would your coworkers use to describe you?

I shudder to think!  It probably depends on who you ask, but I think one word few would argue with is, “intense.”

What’s one fun fact about you that we might not already know?

I love art. I love making it, seeing it, and learning about it. I agree with Nietzsche: “We have art so that we shall not die of reality.” That doesn’t sound fun, does it?  Like I said, intense describes me, I guess.

Thank you, Karel, for all you have done and continue to do for Humane Pennsylvania and the animals in our care!