Guilford County's New Animal Services Director Talks Plans For Shelter's Future

The Guilford County Animal Shelter has a new director. Drew Brinkley will begin his new role on August 1. He's currently operations manager for Orange County Animal Services in Chapel Hill.

Brinkley will take the reigns after a lot of turmoil over the past year at the Guilford County facility. There have been investigations into alleged animal cruelty, potential drug violations and financial misappropriation at the shelter.

WFDD's Keri Brown spoke with Brinkley about efforts to build back trust in the community and his plans for the shelter's future.

Interview Highlights

On why he chose to come to Guilford County:

I think it's an opportunity to make positive changes in a program. There has obviously been some issues in the past, but there is now new management and oversight in place and I think there's support in the community and with the leadership and the county to make changes and develop the program into a progressive model of delivering animal services and I think it affords a great opportunity to be part of that process.

On building trust with the community after shelter's rocky past:

It takes time to restore trust when it's been breached. A couple of things that I believe could be done is transparency, and I think Guilford is already dong a great job of putting statistical reports online, so the public can see what's going on in the shelter and in animal control. I also think it's important to maintain a commitment to providing excellent service, and you need to treat your customers, stakeholders and animals with respect, compassion and professionalism and I believe trust will come with continued delivery of positive experiences to those that we touch.  

On how the county and shelter leaders can keep a terrible situation from ever happening again.

One of the things that immediately jumped to my attention when I saw this was that it seems like there might not have been effective population management in the shelter. I understand that there were around 800 animals at the end of the term when the United Animal Coalition was responsible for maintaining shelter operations and the shelter itself, I believe, is only licensed for about 500 animals. I think you need to make sure that you're matching the shelter's population to the resources that are available including staff, volunteers, budget, the facility itself and the capacity for placing animals into the community.

On the biggest challenge he faces coming stepping into his new role:

I'm coming into the role with an open mind, so I don't have any specific challenges that are identified. I think generally speaking, whenever you are talking about the potential to change policies or programs there could be impacts to people, and groups have typically interacted with animal services and change can be difficult for people. Also there are some that expect change to come quickly, but it takes time to build programs into successful ones and it will not occur overnight, so I think I would just ask for patience and understanding from those two groups and let them know that we are doing all we can to achieve the goal of making Guilford County Animal Services a model for the state.

On his future plans for the animal shelter:

First, we need to build the management team for animal services. I think there is an operations manager position that still needs to be filled. The County just hired a vet. Additionally, I would like to talk with staff, volunteers and partners and find out what they think is working well and what needs improved. I would inventory those needs and prioritize them. I would also like to increase efficiency with technology. Some examples of that include implementing online lost and found reporting and online listings for animals that are available for adoption. I'm not sure what resources are currently in place or if Guilford has the software for this right now, but those are some ideas that I have.

*Follow WFDD's Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news