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Shelley Thayer, Circulation Manager

Shelley's mission as the circulation manager is to introduce Best Friends magazine to a wider audience, both geographically and demographically. She wants everyone to know about Best Friends through our "good news" magazine.

She has been an animal lover from a very young age. Because she could not have a pony in the backyard, she cared for every animal who would follow her home. Growing up in her household meant loving and caring for birds, chickens, rabbits, dogs, cats, squirrels, salamanders, guinea pigs, turtles, fish and, in college, mice. Years later came the horse. As a young adult, she bottle-fed kittens for the local humane society and has continued to do so ever since. Shelley is a veteran of Best Friends' rapid response efforts. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she spent five months reuniting animals with their families in Best Friends' rescue centers in Tylertown, Mississippi, and Celebration Station, Louisiana.

During the Great Bunny Rescue in Reno, Nevada, in 2006, she worked in administration on-site for five weeks. She was one of four flood team members to rescue and relocate 500 rabbits into a new facility built by Best Friends in the Great Lakes region, and she led on-site rabbit care and build-out of a new facility for bunnies rescued in Washington state. At Pets Alive, a sanctuary in New York that had fallen on hard times, Shelley worked for three weeks with other Best Friends staff to restore the sanctuary.

In 2007, Shelley developed and co-authored Best Friends' Volunteer Rapid Response Manual and, with the help of staff, planned and coordinated efforts from conception to completion for Best Friends' first rapid-response volunteer training. Finally, Shelley was one of the on-site team members for seven months at the Great Kitty Rescue, an institutional hoarding situation in Pahrump, Nevada.

Before coming to Best Friends, Shelley was co-founder and CEO of Super Marketing, a marketing company that specialized in packaged goods, new brand introduction and special events for major corporations and Fortune 500 companies, including Best Foods, General Mills, Pepsi, Nike, and McCormick and Company, Inc. She was co-owner and operations manager of Tooned-In School Menu, a school menus business that published four million free school menus every month, delivered to 200 school districts in 40 states.

Shelley loves the culture, the direction and the spirit of Best Friends. She feels privileged to work at one of the finest nonprofit organizations in the world, and loves the challenges and fulfillment of helping animals while working with a phenomenal group of people.

She is married to David, who has always allowed her to follow her path in life. Their family has grown in recent years to include six of the best cats in the world (Mogley, Peanut, Shayla, T.T., Jasmine and Whitney) and one of the best dogs in the world, a poodle named Beignet.