Jess Townsend, the new director of operations at the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland in Westbrook, jumped at the chance at working for an animal shelter that is growing and has strong support and volunteers in the surrounding community.

Townsend, 35, came to Maine in mid-November from the Washington Humane Society in Washington, D.C., but her college days, at Providence College in Rhode Island, were spent earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology and art. She says while struggling to find jobs, she began work in animal welfare, and while it was tough emotionally, she found her calling.

With family in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Townsend said she had been keeping an eye out for an opportunity “that would bring me back up north, and when I saw the job posting for the ARLGP, I jumped at it.”

In a recent blog post for the shelter, Executive Director Patsy Murphy said Townsend will be “a strong asset to our organization as we increase community awareness of our services and programs, and continue our fundraising for a new adoption and community center.”

The American Journal spoke with Townsend this week about her road to the animal welfare field, the new, expanded building in Westbrook, and her own adopted pets.

Q: What does it mean to be the director of operations at the Animal Refuge League? What does a typical day entail?

A: This position oversees the operational programs and functions – adoptions, foster care, guest services, animal care and the facility, and the issues that come up in those areas. My day is never typical. That’s part of the fun of sheltering. You don’t have a predictable day, every day is different. I enjoy meeting the challenge of an ever-changing environment. My job is mainly focused on finding ways to do what we do even better.

Q: While in college, you studied psychology and art. When did you begin working in animal welfare? How did you decide that this was the career you wanted?

A: I started in animal welfare in 2006, volunteering with a cat rescue doing adoptions and I really loved it. I wasn’t finding personal fulfillment in the kind of industries I had been working in (a BA in psychology and art, while fascinating, doesn’t give you much leverage in the job market), and I really wanted getting up and going to work every day to have a greater purpose. I started in Baltimore in 2007. Sheltering isn’t for everyone. It can be really difficult emotionally with the things we see and deal with on a daily basis. While the first six months were rocky for me, I found myself able to see the larger picture of the animal-welfare movement and find my personal reasons to go on in the small triumphs – a sick cat who gets well, a dog hit by a car that we are able to save, an owner who is able to keep her pet because we were able to help. Those are the things that make me still love what I get to do almost eight years later.

Q: While you’ve only been on the job a few weeks, what is different or new about the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland compared with your past experience? What are you most excited about?

A: The ARLGP has such a bright future. We have a new building breaking ground in 2015 that is going to allow us to really expand our scope both in terms of the programs we can have and the number of pets and people we will be able to help. We have really outgrown the capacity of the almost 60-year-old building that we are in. It wasn’t built with the kind of sheltering and community-based programs we want to do in mind, so being able to have a state-of-the-art facility to house us is going to be a game-changer.

Q: You have a few adopted pets of your own, correct? Tell me about them.

A: I have a 14-year-old cat that I got in my early 20s. He was my first pet on my own and he’s been through so many phases of my life with me. He’s an Abyssinian mix named Banshee (he came to me answering to that) and I got him when a vet tech at my parents’ vet office moved and couldn’t take him. Laila, my 8-year-old cat, who is a double polydactyl and tons of trouble, came from the Siamese Cat Rescue Center in Texas, of all random places. Helga is my dog. I adopted her from the MDSPCA my first month there. She’s a brown lab mix of some sort and already hitting doggy middle age when I got her in 2007. We aren’t sure of her real age, but she’s somewhere between 12 and 14. Legolas is my only “failed” foster. I’ve had over a hundred foster pets and he’s the only one who hasn’t moved on to a new home. He came as an emaciated stray that needed intensive monitoring and care in a foster home, so I brought him to my house. After getting him through recover – sleeping on the floor with him, feeding him tiny meals every hour and taking him outside to potty at all hours for weeks, he just became the dog I couldn’t let go to another home.

Jess Townsend, the new director of operations at the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland in Westbrook, makes a furry friend at the Stroudwater Street shelter. Courtesy photo