THUNDER BAY – The humane society is finally seeing some stability after recent chaotic months.
The Thunder Bay and District Humane Society officially named Cassandra Nordal as the new executive director, after she had been serving in the role on an interim basis. Her promotion comes just eight months after she was hired as a fundraising coordinator.
Nordal will now oversee all animal care, and will continue to lead fundraising.
“It’s been a crazy eight months,” Nordal said. “But I wouldn’t trade it for anything at this point in time.”
Now that she has been granted the head position, Nordal is hoping to bring a spay and neuter clinic as soon as possible.
"I've been privileged to go on rescues and travel," she said. I've gotten to see how important having a clinic like this is."
Nordal is also hoping to provide a reasonable alternative to other clinics, by making it affordable for the community.
“I think the public and the community would be very excited for it, because we want to make it low-cost, we want to make it affordable,” Nordal said. “I’m looking forward to sitting down with our board and discussing that.”
Over the last eight months, the Humane Society has faced a number of challenges, most notably the six-week closure of the facility due to a respiratory outbreak.
Despite the closure, which board chair Brenda Everts said would “cripple” the business at the time, the shelter opened up quicker than expected.
“We were really worried in the beginning that we were going to be closed for up to three months,” Everts told tbnewswatch in May. “That was a huge worry for us.”
Everts believes hiring a new director internally will keep the positive momentum going.
“She was part of the glue to hold this place together,” Everts said of Nordal. “She excelled, she put in a lot of hours, and we saw a lot of leadership potential in her.”
Nordal says she will continue her diligent effort to raise money for the already cash-strapped organization.
As far as Nordal’s first order of business, she will be accepting a $20,000 donation from Harley Davidson Saturday at noon.
