Pennsylvania SPCA accepts CEO’s resignation

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2009:
PHILADELPHIA–The Pennsylvania SPCA board of directors on
February 19, 2009 unanimously accepted the February 11 resignation
of chief executive officer Howard Nelson, 45, effective immediately.
“One-year board member Beth Ann White, 43, a former banker,
was named interim chief executive,” reported Philadelphia Inquirer
staff writer Gail Shister. White will serve while the PSPCA conducts
a national CEO search.
Hired in May 2007, Nelson “engineered PSPCA’s successful
bid late last year for the city’s $2.9 million animal-control
contract,” recalled Shister. “He increased staff and oversaw major
improvements in the deteriorating Feltonville shelter.”
But Pocono Record senior managing editor Susan Koomar took a
more critical view of Nelson’s performance. “Nelson is responsible
for closing the Monroe County shelter at the end of January,” Koomer
wrote. “Local rescue groups took charge of the shelter’s animals.
Unwanted pets have been abandoned at a pet shop and veterinarian’s
office since the closing.”

The Monroe County shelter in Stroudsburg reportedly lost
about $125,000 in 2008. It had four directors in less than two
years after the June 2007 resignation of Barbara Balsama, the
director for nearly 20 years, according to Pocono Record staff
writer Beth Brelje. Balsama clashed with Nelson, said Brelje, who
repeatedly exposed trouble under Balsama’s successors.
Nelson closed the Stroudsburg shelter a year after closing
the PSPCA shelter in Clarion County.