OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Susan, Cathy, Chie, Charlie, Caite & Maestro

The folks who keep it all together!

  Susan Wise, President                    

Susan is the founder of Catnip and Carrots. Originally from southern Ohio, she is a former restaurant manager and bookkeeper turned writer (she has many stories published online) and is currently working on two children’s books: one about shelter adoptions and the other on the life of a stray cat. She has a degree in Business Accounting and is the former Treasurer for the Golden West Neighborhood Association in Huntington Beach and former CFO for the Palms-Tilden Manor Homeowners Association in Los Angeles. She was the manager for the adoption center at PetSmart HB when volunteering with Save Our Strays of Huntington Beach. She continued to run our highly praised and very successful adoption center upon SOS's departure and into the transition to C&C. She also publishes our quarterly newsletter, FurrY TaleS, and designs our website. She has two rescue cats, Lilijean (from a cardboard box in front of Petco in West LA) and Kobe (adopted from the National Cat Protection Society in Newport Beach). After spending most of her life surrounded by Yorkshire Terriers, she finally added a tiny boy named Stitch to her pet family - much to her mother's delight. The cats would prefer he live at Grandma's house!

  Charlean (Charlie) Allen, Vice President

Charlie is a lifelong animal welfare proponent. She is a retired LA County Deputy Sheriff who has been working as a substitute teacher for the OCDE Access Program (at-risk students) for the past 17 years. She has a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology and a Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice Administration. Semi-retired, she is a world traveler and gives generously of her time and money to the animals. Charlie is very outgoing and is always "educating" others on the importance of Spay/Neuter and the need to help the stray pets in our community. Always smiling and full of life, she keeps very busy with her four cats and three dogs (two Chihuahuas rescues and a Standard Poodle). She is fairly confident that someday one of them will push her down the stairs in their haste to beat her to wherever she is going!

  Chie Yoshimura, Treasurer

Chie is co-founder of Catnip and Carrots. She was born in Japan and raised in Los Angeles and became a US citizen at age 9. She is a former Financial Analyst for the University of California, Irvine and University of California, Los Angeles. In her 20 year career with the University she has worked with the prestigious National Fuel Cell Research Center and the Center for Health Policy Research. An Economics graduate from UCLA, she is a former Sunday school teacher for the Los Angeles Hongwanji Buddhist church, is a Certified Master koto player and was a torch runner for the 1988 Summer Olympics. She spends her days as the Staff Accountant for U.S. Foodservice in Cincinnati, Ohio. She enjoys hiking, rock climbing, spelunking and camping but spends most of her spare time devoted to animal welfare. Along with her Treasurer duties, she is also our Volunteer and Intake Coordinator. Never one to pass by an animal without stopping, she shares her home with a busy dog and two lazy (but sometimes pesty) cats.

  Cathy (Caite) Shinkle, Secretary

Cathy is originally from southern Ohio and attended Xavier University. She grudgingly heads off to work every day to earn a paycheck from Fladeboe Volkswagen/Honda in Irvine, California. She is an avid animal lover, especially where cats are involved. She started out as a volunteer with Save Our Strays of Huntington Beach and was instrumental in forming Catnip and Carrots.  She is heavily involved in various activities and fundraisers with C&C and also volunteers with the Orange County Women's Focus Group. Cathy is the proud mom of brother and sister felines, Maddie and Dexter. After reluctantly fostering a young OC shelter rescue rabbit named Smokey, she couldn't resist falling in love with his outgoing personality. Eventually she decided to adopt him and now this lucky bunny is called "Bun-Bun". He loves to play with his feline siblings and even uses their litter box and steals their toys. Her house is truly filled with "Catnip and Carrots"!

  Cathy Livings, Director

Cathy is a senior paralegal with the law offices of Charles B. Carey in Mission Viejo and received her degree from Coastline Community College in Costa Mesa, CA. She is an accomplished artist and has won several ribbons at the Orange County Fair, including 2006 Best in Show. Juggling a demanding job and now caring for her elderly mother, she always finds time to attend each event and fundraiser and does a wonderful job of spreading the word about C&C. She has a much loved female cat at home named Willow. This now somewhat large and ornery feline announced her presence by crying outside her bedroom window late one night at just a few weeks old. After four years, she hopes one day her mother will come to terms with the fact the cat is not leaving!

As you can see, we are a very diverse group of individuals and we feel those differences will help us see “outside the box” to create innovative changes for the animals in our community. Each one of us is a volunteer who gives generously of our time and believes very strongly in our calling to help those less fortunate pets who do not yet have a "family" of their own.