Board of Directors, Officers

President
Michael Fouraker, President

Vice President
Charlie Gray, Vice President

Treasurer
Tom Albert, Treasurer

Secretary
Dr. Kristi Burtis, Secretary
Board of Directors, Members

Brian Aucone

Lou Barreda
Lou Barreda is the Executive Director and founder of Myakka Elephant Ranch (MER), a nonprofit elephant conservation and education center founded in 2019. Lou has a Bachelor’s degree in business marketing and with his aptitude for engineering and design, he has built MER’s elephant habitats reflecting the elephants’ natural environments. Lou’s extensive history with elephants dates back to his childhood, and 20 years of hands-on experience with elephants makes him exceptionally qualified to specifically design programs and experiences to help educate the public on elephant conservation with emphasis on daily husbandry care routines. MER incorporates hands-on participation of visitors and offers the distinctive opportunity to educate the public about the various species of elephants via side-by-side comparisons between Africans and Asians. Myakka Elephant Ranch has one of the largest elephant habitats in the United States and prides itself in donating proceeds toward select elephant conservation projects worldwide.

Rob Bernardy

Frank Carlos Camacho
He and his team care for one of the largest breeding herds of African elephants in the world outside of Africa. Frank has served as President of the Latin American Zoo and Aquarium Association and currently holds the position of Vice President.
Additionally, he has completed consecutive terms as President of the Mexican Zoo and Aquarium Association, the International Eagle Foundation, and the Mexican Association of Primatologists. He remains an active member of the boards of several international conservation organizations and foundations.

Ted Fox
Under Ted’s leadership, the zoo has expanded its use of green infrastructure, including the completion of a 50,000-gallon elephant watering hole within the Zoo’s Asian Elephant Preserve. This water feature has a bio-filtration system that produces zero impact on the local municipal storm and sewer systems. The Zoo’s Asian Elephant Preserve is a seven-acre habitat which includes a 12,000 sq-ft elephant husbandry facility, complete with a green-roof. Among many other projects, Fox oversaw the design and construction of the Zoo’s new 21,000 sq-ft Animal Health Center, which opened in 2022.
Ted has continued to develop the zoo’s long standing Asian elephant program, which has participated in countless research projects – always with the goal of improving the health and welfare of elephants in human care and their wild counterparts. Support for global elephant conservation efforts also remains a primary focus for Ted and the Rosamond Gifford Zoo.

Daryl Hoffman
In 2025, Daryl became the Vice President of Animal Care at the San Antonio Zoo overseeing all aspects of animal care at the zoo. Daryl is currently the Executive Director of the Elephant Managers Association (EMA) and has served the EMA Board of Directors since 2000. Under Daryl’s leadership, this organization continues to grow with increased membership and the establishment of a webpage. He has been an instructor at the AZA Principles of Elephant Management School since 2002 and a member of the AZA Elephant TAG/SSP Management Group since 2007.

Dr. Jeremy Goodman
Under Dr. Goodman’s leadership the zoo has received accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and has developed both a new master plan and strategic plan. In addition, the zoo continues to grow its African Elephant program at its 1,000 acre International Conservation Center locate in Fairhope, PA.
Prior to his arrival in Pittsburgh, Dr. Goodman was instrumental in reinvigorating the Roger Williams Park Zoo (Providence, RI), Turtle Back Zoo (West Orange, NJ), and the Potawatomi Zoo (South Bend, IN) where he held leadership roles.

Gary Johnson

Liz Larsen

Dr. Arne Lawrenz
Dr. Lawrenz is actively involved in research and endangered species conservation, with a particular focus on non-infectious diseases in the endangered Black-footed cat and tuberculosis in elephants. Since 2017, he has served as the European African Elephant EEP Coordinator. He is also a Member of the Species360 Board of Trustees and its Research Committee, Chair of the Veterinary Advisor Group of the Veterinary Committee of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA), Past President of the European Association of Zoo and Wildlife Veterinarians (EAZWV), and Veterinary Advisor for the Black-footed Cat EEP, Asian Golden Cat EEP, and Pudu EEP.

Amos Morris

Jan Ramer

Randy Reiches

Tim Thier
Staff

Executive Director
Deborah Olson, Executive Director

Director of Conservation
Sarah Conley, Assistant Director, Conservation
Sarah Conley has worked with and for elephants for over 20 years, currently as the Conservation Coordinator for the International Elephant Foundation. Conley began working with Asian elephants as a teenager in California balancing conservation work and advocacy while attending the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) graduating Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Economics and minors in English Literature and Music History. She also earned UCLA’s prestigious Distinguished Bruin Award.
Conley is a nationally published writer and regular contributor to animal welfare and animal industry publications. She has traveled internationally representing IEF at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), presenting at multiple conferences, and overseeing projects.
Sarah Conley, Assistant Director, Conservation
Sarah Conley has worked with and for elephants for over 25 years, currently as the Director of Conservation for the International Elephant Foundation. Conley began working with Asian elephants as a teenager in California balancing conservation work and advocacy while attending the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) graduating Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Economics and minors in English Literature and Music History. She also earned UCLA’s prestigious Distinguished Bruin Award.
Conley is a nationally published writer and regular contributor to animal welfare and animal industry publications. She has traveled internationally representing IEF at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), presenting at multiple conferences, and overseeing projects.

Donor Relations Manager
Julie Bates, Donor Relations Manager
Julie holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from Western Illinois University. She has served in many roles during her career, including teaching at the elementary level, leading nonprofit programs, and managing award-winning large-scale volunteer programs. However, it’s her role in fundraising for wildlife conservation that she really celebrates.
Her goal is to make conservation relevant for all ages, capabilities, and cultures. She believes every person, every role, and every contribution is valued and important to effectively secure elephants and the wildlife that live with them.
Advisors

Dr. Gary Hayward
To say that Dr. Gary Hayward is an important figure in the elephant conservation and research community is an understatement. After a career studying human herpesvirus diseases, Dr. Hayward proceeded to become the leading “virus detective” carrying out research into understanding Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpesvirus (EEHV) and its impact on both captive and wild Asian and African elephant populations worldwide. EEHV was first identified in 1999 by Dr. Laura Richman under the tutelage of Dr. Hayward, and he has been researching this novel “Proboscivirus” branch of the herpesvirus family extensively ever since. Dr. Hayward and his team identified all seven known species of EEHV and the numerous highly diverged subtypes and strains of each through “genetic fingerprinting” as well as carrying out genomic DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. Their work allows researchers to compare EEHV with similar diseases and understand more about how it affects elephants, facilitating the development of diagnostic PCR and serology tests and research into treatments and vaccines. It is safe to say that nearly all work being done to fight EEHV can be traced back to Dr. Hayward and his findings.
Dr. Hayward has an expansive list of over 200 peer-reviewed publications including 25 describing his EEHV studies and can be regularly seen presenting internationally at conferences, sharing his expertise and experience.

Dr. Wendy Kiso
Dr. Kiso’s work reaches from conservation research and reproductive technology in the United States and in Sri Lanka. She obtained her B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine and graduated from the Exotic Animal Training and Management Program (EATM) at Moorpark College, after which she received a Master of Natural and Applied Science degree from Missouri State University. Dr. Kiso received her Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Public Policy at George Mason University in partnership with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C. For the last 20 years, Dr. Kiso’s focus has been Asian and African elephant conservation, and optimizing assisted reproductive techniques in elephants.

Dr. Chase LaDue
Most recently, he is researching musth in Asian elephants in Sri Lanka and at facilities throughout North America to better understand its contextual variation for applications in conservation and management. In addition to serving as an Advisor to IEF, Chase is the Publications Editor for the Elephant Managers Association and serves on the board of the Conservation Committee of the Animal Behavior Society. He is also passionate about connecting elephants with the general public, and besides teaching biology to undergraduate students at George Mason University, he has helped create outreach materials for IEF, TED-Ed, Skype-a-Scientist, and other groups.

Dr. Paul D Ling
Paul D Ling received a PhD in Microbiology and spent his graduate and postdoctoral careers investigating human herpesviruses Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV) and Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) respectively. He continued his work on EBV and other animal gammaherpesviruses after moving to Houston and Baylor College of Medicine to start his own research program. In 2010, following the death of Mac at the Houston zoo from EEHV, a collaboration was established between the Houston Zoo and Dr. Ling’s lab to address the devastating disease caused by this virus, especially in Asian elephant calves. Since that time, his laboratory has leveraged its experience and knowledge of human herpesviruses to combat the threat of EEHV in elephants.
His lab developed qPCR tests to detect all EEHV species known to be endemic within both African and Asian elephants. These tests are used for surveillance of elephants in the United States, Africa and several countries in South East Asia. With a grant from IEF, his lab used these new tests to show that elephants in Southern India shed the same species of EEHV found in captive elephants in the United States. His lab, along with collaborators at the Houston zoo, also used the qPCR tests to describe EEHV viremia, shedding, and associated changes in CBCs during the course of EEHV-associated hemorrhagic disease. Along with his collaborators at Johns Hopkins (Dr. Gary Hayward) and the Baylor College of Medicine Human genome sequencing center, his lab determined the genomic sequence of EEHV1A, the most deadly form of EEHV in Asian elephants, and also EEHV4. More recently, his lab developed an Asian elephant-specific IFN-g Elispot assay for the purpose of interrogating anti-EEHV T-cell responses and a novel serology assay that can distinguish antibody responses between different the EEHV types in Asian elephants. These tools have formed a foundation for developing and evaluating an EEHV vaccine, which his laboratory is currently focused on producing. Dr. Ling previously served as Secretary of the Epstein-Barr virus association and chaired the Microbial Pathogenesis and Cancer study section for the American Cancer Society.
He is currently an Associate Professor (with tenure) in the Department of Microbiology and Virology at Baylor College of Medicine, a member of the EEHV advisory group Steering committee and is also an Associate Editor of Plos Pathogens.
As IEF Advisor and Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpesvirus expert, Dr. Paul Ling postulated during a recent interview.

Heidi Riddle
Ms. Riddle developed and instructs at the annual international School for Elephant Management attended by elephant handlers from institutions worldwide. Ms. Riddle also co-founded the annual Elephant Ultrasound Workshop for wildlife veterinarians. In 2001, Ms. Riddle was invited to join the Asian Elephant Specialist Group of the International Union of the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The group’s mission is to work toward’s conservation of Asian elephants worldwide.

Dennis Schmitt, DVM, Ph.D.
Schmitt continues to perform inseminations with over fifteen additional conceptions to date. Schmitt also conducts workshops internationally to train veterinarians and wildlife specialists in the technology of ultrasonography and semen collection.

Sandra Binns
Sandra is no stranger to conservation as she and her husband, John, founded IRCF (Int’l Reptile Conservation Foundation) working with critically endangered reptiles (including the Grand Cayman Blue Iguana, Guatemalan Beaded Lizard, and many others).
Additionally Sandra’s background is heavily influenced in areas of procurement and business management in both large corporations and entrepreneurial silicon valley startups.





















