Class of 2010

Stories by Dave Gieseke

These stories are just a small fraction of what the Class of 2010 is doing. Additional stories are available online at vetmed.iastate.edu/class-2010.

Check back periodically as we continue to add to these stories. If you are a member of the Class of 2010 and would like to be included or have contact information on a class member not included please contact Dave Gieseke at dgieseke@iastate.edu.

They came from Alabama, Massachusetts, California and New Jersey. Most were Midwesterners that made the journey from their Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota hometowns to Ames to study at Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

When the Class of 2010 first started classes in the fall of 2006, there were 120 in their class. Almost 80% were female. Their average age was 23 years. Most were coming directly from their undergraduate institutions.

Four years later the class had grown to 121 students and after graduation, like all graduating classes, they went their separate ways.

Well, not all of them. Some married classmates. Others now work together.

A decade later, the Class of 2010 is spread around the globe working in a wide variety of careers in the veterinary profession.

What follows is a snapshot at where the Class of 2010 has gone and the amazing things they are doing in their communities – whether a large metropolitan area like Los Angeles or tiny Eldora, Iowa.

Veterinarian Hero

Dr. Katherine Polak

She may not know every member of the Class of 2010, but it seems like all of Dr. Katherine Polak’s classmates know about her.

When a 2010 graduate was approached about this project, they would say something similar to… “you have to talk to Katherine Polak. She’s doing amazing work.”

It’s hard not to be impressed with what Polak has accomplished in the decade since graduating from Iowa State. She has wasted no time putting her DVM degree to meaningful use.

Polak works for the charity FOUR PAWS International, managing its companion animal work in Southeast Asia from her home base in Bangkok. She developed and launched a regional partnership program which aids local animal welfare groups, trains local veterinarians, and operates community engagement programs.

“When I started, FOUR PAWS had only operated stray animal programs in Eastern Europe, so work in Southeast Asia was completely new for the organization,” Polak said. “I had the unique opportunity to help craft a regional strategy and launch a program designed to help build local animal welfare charities who needed help.”

She combats poor veterinary training and the lack of government interest in animal welfare. There is rampant pet abandonment in Southeast Asia and a lack of spay neuter services.

Polak tailors the programs to the local situation. In Cambodia and Thailand, she goes up against a huge animal welfare issue by working with local governments and providing care to animals at Buddhist pagodas and underserved communities. Veterinary training is also incorporated into programs. In Vietnam, “Cats Matter Too” provides free spay/neuter and medical care for thousands of cats in addition to educational programs for children.

“These programs are so desperately needed given the significant suffering of companion animals in much of Southeast Asia,” Polak said.

But the program’s most notable focus is on the dog and cat meat trade in Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam. Under Polak’s direction, FOUR PAWS launched an international campaign to end the cat and dog meat trade in these countries. She manages the onthe-ground operations, investigations, as well as local activities and lobbying.

FOUR PAWS has established an international transport/adoption program for rescued dogs, transporting them from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Boston and Los Angeles for re-homing. The organization was successful in shutting down a dog slaughterhouse in Cambodia, which was responsible for killing over 2,000 dogs a year. Since then, she has helped close three more slaughterhouses, one of which killed more than one million dogs since opening.

“Our first closing took months and months of planning, determining a livelihood conversion opportunity for the slaughterhouse owner, and then finally rescuing dogs,” Polak said. “It was so incredible to save them from an imminent death, but also help the slaughterhouse owner and his family who really didn’t want to be killing dogs for a living.”

She also manages FOUR PAWS undercover investigations. That means visiting dog and cat markets, slaughterhouses and restaurants.

“The cruelty there is unimaginable,” Polak says. “Seeing the drowning, hanging, stabbing and blowtorching of companion animals is heartbreaking and it can be difficult and so emotionally exhausting. The progress made is also incredible. In July 2020, we were able to secure the firstever ban on the dog meat trade in Siem Reap, Cambodia.”

These experiences have cemented Polak’s long-time passion for helping underserved animals. After graduating from Iowa State, she completed an internship in shelter medicine and surgery at Colorado State followed by a residency at the University of Florida.

After her residency, Polak served as the medical director at Soi Dog Foundation in Thailand, where she trained local veterinarians and launched a program in Bangkok to neuter upwards of 80,000 dogs per year.

Her humanitarian work hasn’t been limited to Southeast Asia. She is the founding medical director of the Spayathon for Puerto Rico with the Humane Society of the United States. This groundbreaking initiative has a goal of neutering more than 85,000 dogs and cats over three years.

For her efforts, Polak has been honored, and honored a lot. In 2019, she was named the Association of Shelter Veterinarians’ Veterinarian of the Year. The American Humane Society named Polak its Hero Veterinarian of the Year in 2020.

“Improving animal welfare is central to my philosophy as both a person and veterinarian,” Polak said. “I’m really fortunate to have the opportunity to try to create sustainable change for animal welfare in an area of the world where there aren’t many resources for animals, particularly strays.”

Dr. Katherine Polak

Dr. Katherine Polak

Back Home Again

Dr. Tricia Tai

Starting vet school at Iowa State in her late 20s, Dr. Tricia Tai was anxious to “just start working” after she completed her DVM and rotating internship.

Yet, it was during her rotating internship that neurology became her main focus, one she wanted to specialize in.

“So I made the decision to apply for a neurology residency but I was only going to try one time and if I got in, then great, but if I did not, I would have likely gone into general practice,” Tai said.

She got in and completed a threeyear residency program at a private practice in Orlando, Florida.

“When I got the results from MATCH that I was accepted, I took it as a sign I was meant to do this,” Tai said. “It is becoming so hard to get a residency nowadays that most people have to do specialty internships after their rotating internships before even applying for a residency so I’m fortunate to have been able to get accepted straight away.

“It didn’t hurt that the program was my top choice,” she adds.

These days, Tai is back in her native Los Angeles at the VCA West Los Angeles Animal Hospital, the flagship VCA clinic and the largest VCA in the country. There she sees both medical and surgical neurology cases as the head of neurology and neurosurgery.

Ironically, she had no intentions of returning to her hometown. Instead she wanted to try living and working in either Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, anywhere but Los Angeles.

Then her intern director reached out to Tai when a neurology position opened up at the VCA hospital.

“I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work at this type of environment,” she said. “We have every major specialty here aside from dermatology. We have rotating interns, specialty interns and residents, so it is a great teaching environment.”

Tai sees dogs, cats and exotic pets at her practice, which allows her to dabble in medical neurology as well as neurosurgery.

“Neurology can be a very sad field,” Tai said. “It’s always hard regardless of the specialty and it’s never easy to counsel an owner to euthanize their beloved pet but I also feel that it is a privilege for me to be able to advocate for my patients and to relieve suffering when it is time to say goodbye.

“While there are many neurologic conditions that are not curable, the satisfaction of performing spinal surgery on a dog or cat that is unable to walk and see them back a few weeks later walking again never gets old.”

Dr. Tricia Tai

In His Dream Job

Dr. Eric Behlke

He knew he should have been studying.

But Dr. Eric Behlke, then a first-semester veterinary student, just couldn’t shake the feeling he had more important things to do than focusing on his upcoming anatomy final.

“I was studying for finals in the library and I asked myself ‘why I was in vet school?” Behlke recalled.

The answer came almost instantaneously.

“I wanted to be a vet,” Behlke said. “It was my dream job and right then and there I decided where I wanted to work.

“I stopped studying and typed a letter to Feedlot Health Management Services by Telus Agriculture (Feedlot Health), who I had previously identified as leaders in the field of feedlot medicine and production consulting, telling them I intended to work there after graduation.”

Graduation was still three-plus years away. Behlke’s eagerness to work at Feedlot Health must have struck a chord with the company. It wasn’t much later that he received a reply from the Canadian firm, encouraging him to stay in contact and at some point, to meet face to face.

Today that email is framed and hanging in Behlke’s Okotoks, Alberta, office.

After graduating from Iowa State with his DVM (he also holds a master’s in animal science from The Ohio State University and a PhD in animal science from the University of Nebraska), Behlke joined Feedlot Health, a professional services company that provides comprehensive herd health programs, veterinary services, and veterinary and production consulting services around the globe.

He has been there ever since. After three years he was offered and accepted an ownership stake in the company, and he currently leads the individual Animal Management Team. While he is headquartered in Calgary, his job frequently takes Behlke to the USA, Kazakhstan, and even Mexico on occasion.

The Nebraska native has become known for applying data toward practical management decisions in feedlot health management. He describes himself as a professional services veterinarian and production consultant.

“I had an early fascination with cattle,” Behlke said. “I have lived and breathed beef cattle my whole life. Cattle are unique animals in that they have the ability to convert cellulose to protein, and I truly love working with not just the animals, but also the people who are raising and caring for them.”

It doesn’t matter if Behlke is in Canada, his home state of Nebraska or halfway around the world in Kazakhstan, he says the people in the industry are one and the same.

“There is a common thread among these individuals,” he said, “and that’s the general love for the animals we care for.”

In his role with Feedlot Health, Behlke spends a vast majority of his time onsite, communicating with clients. He is constantly reviewing data from his clients and advising them on decisions relating to herd health going forward.

Feedlot Health oversees more than four million head of cattle annually with their clients ranging from small operations of 500 head to over 150,000 in one location. Regardless of the size or location of the feedlot, Behlke says the challenges and opportunities on feedlot operations are surprisingly similar, just on different scales.

“Since we are an international firm, it is important for me to know and understand any differences and make the appropriate adjustments in what we recommend,” he said. “That’s what keeps the job exciting.”

Dr. Eric Behlke

Dr. Eric Behlke

Dr. Melissa Hensch

She may have grown up in suburban Chicago, but Dr. Melissa Hensch sure loves her pigs.

“My friends and family ask me a lot of questions,” Hensch says. “I love helping explain what I actually do.

“Sometimes even my closest relatives I have to explain the whole process. It’s been an eye-opening experience to me. I’m surprised at how little people know about modern pig production.”

Hensch has a lot of experience in swine production. After graduating from Iowa State, she spent almost three years at Innovative Agriculture Solutions, a small private consulting practice in suburban Des Moines.

The practice was swine-exclusive and provided her with a broad range of hands-on experiences. Since leaving Innovative Agriculture Solutions, Hensch has spent the vast majority of her professional career with The Maschhoffs, the largest family-owned pork production network in North America, in a variety of positions.

Now the director of health and animal care at The Maschhoffs, Hensch leads a team of seven herd veterinarians in addition to the company’s animal care and veterinary technicians. She has ultimate responsibility for 175,000 sows at over 60 farms across seven states.

“I was able to find something I was truly passionate about,” Hensch says. “I love teaching and working with people and that’s what I’m doing every day.

“I get my rewards by seeing others be successful and developing people. That’s the core of what I do.”

One of the ways Hensch teaches and works with people is getting out of the office and working directly with pigs. She doesn’t want to be known as strictly an office veterinarian.

“It’s important to me to get out into the field and into the barn at least one or two days a week,” she said. “I love those days. It’s fun. It’s easy. It’s what I’m trained to do.”

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy the other aspects of her job. The Maschhoffs is a broad operation, with everything from feed mills to truck washes and other support areas included on the farms.

It’s that broader operational scale Hensch enjoys about her job and the opportunity to make a difference in the world.

“We’re providing food for the world here,” she said, “safe and affordable food.”

Dr. Melissa Hensch

From Classmates to Business Partners

Drs. Troy Worth and Nicole Hanson Hendricks

As fellow students in the Class of 2010, Drs. Troy Worth and Nicole Hanson Hendricks were acquaintances but no one would call them close friends.

Certainly not Worth or Hendricks.

“We didn’t spend a lot of time together in vet school,” Worth recalled.

They can’t say that now.

Worth and Hendricks are co-owners of Veterinary Services in Imperial, Nebraska, located in the southwest portion of the state. The clinic offers both large animal and small animal services.

Worth joined Veterinary Services right after graduating in 2010 and became a co-owner in 2014.

“This has been my first and only job,” he said. “I always wanted to own a clinic not only for the opportunities that arise from ownership but the many challenges as well.”

Hendricks path to Imperial and Veterinary Services wasn’t quite as straight and narrow. After graduating from Iowa State, she got married and spent three years at a small animal clinic in Kearney, Nebraska.

When a business opportunity came open for her husband, she moved to back to her native southwest Nebraska where she had a “tough time” for a year or so doing relief and part-time veterinary work. Then she learned about an open position at Veterinary Services.

After Worth learned Hendricks had applied for the job, he did a double take.

“When she contacted us about the job, I went right to my class composite to confirm that it was the same Nicole,” Worth said. “It was strange because we hadn’t had any contact since we graduated.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams I would be interviewing a classmate for a job.”

Hendricks’ move to Veterinary Services wasn’t without its challenges. Her new job initially required she practice both small and large animal medicine. It was a steep relearning curve for her since she “hadn’t touched a cow since vet school.”

“Small animals, I knew what I was doing,” she said. “With large animals, I had to look up the dosages off to the side so the client wouldn’t see what I was doing.”

“We hired Nicole for the small animal side of the business and it’s really taken off.” Worth said.

“From the very first day, she has been busy all the time.”

When one of the original practice owners retired in 2019, Hendricks leaped at the chance to purchase the other half of the business.

“Working for someone else, you are always wanting to do things differently,” she said. “You have to be an owner to be able to do that.

“There’s good and bad things about being an owner but in the end, you get to decide.”

With a population of just 2,000, Veterinary Services has to draw clients and patients from a 60-mile radius from Imperial. The practice has grown significantly over the years, adding not only new equipment but buildings as well.

Every month, Worth and Hendricks estimate another 15-20 new clients seek veterinary care at Veterinary Services. In addition to the co-owners, the practice has two other veterinarians – Iowa State graduates Dr. Jake Johnson (’16) and Dr. Meghan O’Callaghan (’20).

The two say the opportunity to work together before becoming co-owners was a great trial run to see if they could be compatible as owners.

“I never thought we would be owning a practice together,” Worth said. “It’s been great – Nicole and I have many of the same ambitions and it just kind of fell into place.”

Drs. Nicole Hanson Hendricks and Troy Worth

Photo: Dave Gieseke

Out in the Field

Dr. Pamela Dinslage

One moment Dr. Pam Dinslage is indicating her job as a veterinary field officer for the State of Nebraska operates at a much slower pace than she experienced while in private practice.

Then she begins to go into a little more detail about her vast job responsibilities.

“I have responsibility for 18 counties in northeast Nebraska,” Dinslage said. “That includes everything from monitoring cattle imports from Mexico, Canada and the states, to the feedlots, swine, poultry, gamebird, cervid operations, sale barns, and rendering plants in these counties.”

Eighteen counties is a fair amount of responsibility. Dinslage says she is consistently on the road, traveling as far away as 2 ½ hours to visit feedlots, swine and poultry facilities. Nebraska trails only Texas in the number of cattle on feed and Dinslage’s home county of Cuming has the largest number of beef cattle on feed in the state.

“One of the best parts of this job is being able to talk to the producers and getting to know them and their operation before a problem shows up where they need guidance,” she said.

The feeling isn’t always mutual. Dinslage is the person contacted when there is a problem at an operation. One of her primary responsibilities is determining if a foreign animal disease has shown up in a herd. When Pathogenic Avian Influenza hit the industry hard a few years back, Dinslage was on the front lines taking samples and testing for the disease.

“It seems like I only get calls when something is going wrong,” she said, “but it is humbling to be the voice of reason and to be the mediator between the Nebraska Department of Agriculture and the producer during stressful animal disease situations.”

After graduating, Dinslage worked part-time at mixed animal clinics in Schuyler and Laurel, Nebraska, before working full-time at another mixed animal practice in Oakland, Nebraska.

Her husband Tyson (’09) practices at Nebraska Vet Services and it seemed like every night and weekend one or both were on call. Looking for a different lifestyle, Dinslage joined the Nebraska Department of Agriculture and hasn’t looked back.

“I do miss surgery,” she said, “but Tyson will let me help out with spay/ neuter clinics his practice offers. We also have our own cattle, so it seems we end up having to do a C-section every now and then, so I still get to cut stuff. It is just like riding a bike.”

Dr. Pamela Dinslage

Mixing Up Her Practice

Dr. Christina Wagner

After years of focusing solely on equine patients, today Dr. Christina Wagner is taking a mixed animal approach to her professional life.

“I do the bulk of the equine work at my practice and still enjoy lameness, dentistry and reproduction,” Wagner said. “However, I enjoy the variety a mixed animal practice provides. I prefer working for good, kind owners. It doesn’t matter to me what species it is.”

Wagner is a part owner of the Riverside Animal Clinic in Springfield, Minnesota. She joined the practice in 2014 before purchasing a share of the clinic two years later.

After moving from Iowa to Texas to Florida, Wagner is happy to be settled in Minnesota. “I enjoy the variety of services I’m able to provide at our clinic,” she said. “There is always something every day that requires me to learn or look something up.”

Riverside Animal Clinic has three different offices that Wagner and the clinic’s other doctors rotate through. She says the mixed animal practice sees a variety of dogs, cats, small rodents, cattle, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, exotics, and even a few deer.

Her career today is much different than it was when she finished her DVM. After graduation, Wagner completed an internship at Oakridge Equine Hospital in Oklahoma before joining Equine Sports Medicine and Surgery in Weatherford, Texas. There she was in the Racetrack division which saw her working on racing Quarter horses throughout the country.

After a brief stop at another equine facility, this time in Minnesota, she made the leap to the mixed animal practice at Riverside Animal Clinic. Although her professional focus isn’t 100 percent on horses, Wagner still devotes a lot of her free time to the species. She assists a draft horse hitch team throughout the year.

“Driving horses is very different than riding horses and I’ve really enjoyed the challenge of not only learning how to drive but also the differences in issues commonly dealt with in driving horses,” she said.

Her interest in draft horse hitch teams began during her internship. Wagner started attending shows and assisting Percheron hitch teams across the country.

“It usually takes a decent size crew to care for and show that number of horses,” Wagner said. “I’ve been fortunate to travel all over the country, Canada and even South America through my involvement in the draft horse industry. I hope to some day own several Percheron mares to breed and market the foals.”

Dr. Christina Wagner

Doing What She Loves to Do

Dr. Kimberly McCreedy

Most of the year, Dr. Kimberly McCreedy is a relief veterinarian in the Portland, Oregon, area.

She somewhat jokingly says she is in this line of work so she can do what she’s really passionate about.

“The rest of my year is to make money so I can volunteer for sled dog races,” McCreedy says.

McCreedy’s interest in sled dogs began during her third year of veterinary school at Iowa State. A presentation by an Oklahoma State University veterinarian opened her eyes to the sport.

The rest, as they say, is history. She was able to arrange her fourth-year clinical studies to include a sevenweek stay in Alaska for the Iditarod and Yukon Quest sled dog races. If she wasn’t hooked before, this experience definitely did the trick.

Since then, McCreedy has volunteered for 20 sled dog races including 10 Iditarods, three Yukon Quests, five Eagle Cap Extremes, a sprint dog race in Fairbanks, Alaska, and one dryland race.

The Iditarod requires a minimum of five years of veterinary experience before individuals can volunteer as a veterinarian and treat the dogs.

So, even though she had a veterinary degree, McCreedy had to apprentice as what she called a “glorified vet tech” for a couple of years at the Iditarod. She has served primarily as a veterinarian but has performed other duties as well.

“They want you to have that experience because your care for the dogs is solely based on your exam and the dog’s medical history,” she said. “There are no diagnostics, no bloodwork, no x-rays available to you out in the field.

“You have to be very confident in your skills in conducting an exam.”

McCreedy says, like any athlete, sled dogs develop sore muscles and joints during the race. Some will develop pneumonia, primarily if they run too soon after eating or in warm conditions, or rhabdomyolosis, a serious muscle condition.

Each of the three sled dog races McCreedy volunteers at are different. The most famous race, the Iditarod, is a grueling 1,000-mile trek from Willow, Alaska to Nome over at least eight days. The Yukon Quest runs from Fairbanks to the Whitehorse, Yukon Territories in Canada, another 1,000-mile run that takes anywhere from nine days to two weeks to complete. The Eagle Cap Extreme is shorter, just 200 miles and is run annually in her home state of Oregon.

Each race comes with its own special quirks, including extremely cold temperatures.

“For the Iditarod, we get to fly in small planes into villages you’ve never heard of,” McCreedy says. “The Yukon Quest is such a tightknit group where we get to drive and see the country. And the Eagle Cap Extreme has a real family feel to it.

“The coldest race I have been a part of was 52 degrees below zero on the Yukon Quest, but I wasn’t bothered by the cold. Instead I embraced it.”

During these races, McCreedy will provide a variety of veterinary care including making sure the dogs are fit to continue. Injuries are rare, but she has sown a cut on a dog’s shoulder in the field. If the dog is determined to be unfit to continue in the race, they are withdrawn and not allowed to substitute back in later in the competition.

But just as much as providing the veterinary care, McCreedy is a fan of the dogs and the races.

“I love watching what these dogs can do,” she said. “These athletes are so passionate about running. Watching a team leave the starting point gives me full body chills.”

Dr. Kimberly McCreedy

Dr. Kimberly McCreedy

Passionate Veterinarian

Dr. Seth Vredenburg

Like so many other veterinarians, Dr. Seth Vredenburg’s desire to work with animals started at an early age.

But after working long hours in a high-volume practice, he started to notice a change in his behavior. His attitude toward the profession he had longed dreamed of was changing.

“I didn’t know it just yet, but I was suffering from burnout, compassion fatigue, adrenal fatigue, moral stress – all sorts of things,” Vredenburg said.

Vredenburg needed a change in his life. Working for Banfield Pet Hospital, he did an about face and secured a position with his company on the Talent and Learning team.

“When I stepped away from clinical practice, I knew I wasn’t ‘well.’ I didn’t fully understand what it meant, but I knew I had to do something different with my degree. Getting away from working in a clinic was my best option,” he said.

He’s proud of the work he did on the Banfield team and the veterinarian profession as a whole. He helped change the company’s DVM onboarding, developed organizational wide competencies, and worked with the medicine team to develop new training specific to anesthesia.

But more than anything else, Vredenburg is proud of the work he did on compassion fatigue.

“Compassion fatigue is the result of working very hard and caring very much and not recognizing and taking care of our own needs,” he said. “It doesn’t make us lesser doctors or lesser professionals. It just makes you human.” That realization hit home – it was what he had been suffering while working on the clinic floor.

One of the first projects Vredenburg created on Banfield’s Talent and Learning team was a round table on compassion fatigue to help individuals who were not veterinarians.

“It is important for others to have a better understanding of what compassion fatigue is and how to support those affected,” Vredenburg said. “While I never got to the point of considering suicide, my anxiety and depression were very difficult to manage and move through.

“Being out of the clinic helped, but what really helped was being able to share my personal journey, in hopes of helping others. Being able to tell my story helped me the most in being able to move forward and let down some of the baggage that comes along with the profession and practice.”

Vredenburg speaks candidly about his struggles at conferences and at various veterinary colleges across the country. He believes it is important for veterinary students to understand the different types of stressors they will face.

“Understanding yourself and how you manage emotions, deal with anxiety and let go of moral stress is so important for your future success as a practicing veterinarian,” he said. “I believe it’s probably even more important than remembering every single thing from microbiology or the name of every muscle in the body.”

Right before COVID-19 hit, Vredenburg switched jobs within Banfield and he is now a telehealth vet with the company. He works from his Lincoln, Nebraska, home allowing him to spend more time with his family.

But regardless of his position, Vredenburg wants to focus not only on his health and wellbeing, but those throughout the veterinary profession.

“At the end of the day, it is about drawing boundaries and allowing situations to slide away, just as the day has, knowing there will be new challenges tomorrow,” he said.

Dr. Seth Vredenburg

Dr. Seth Vredenburg

Dr. Seth Vredenburg

Bare Bones Spays and Neuters

Dr. Katie Spaulding

Having worked in an animal shelter for seven years after graduating, Dr. Katie Spaulding was used to not having the most up-to-date equipment on hand to treat her patients.

Then she accepted a position in Hawaii with Animal Balance, a global, non-governmental organization that provides spays and neuters throughout the world.

The working conditions she found on the Island of Kauai was a little more extreme than she was used to as the Dakin Humane Society’s Adoption Center veterinarian in Springfield, Massachusetts.

“I’ve always worked in a shelter so I’ve never had access to a lot of fancy equipment,” Spaulding said, “but this was bare bones. It was a little nerve wracking at first because I was used to having walls in the surgical suite.”

In Kauai, Spaulding was doing field surgeries in all sorts of locales including an old car dealership and parking lots. A half shipping container (just 16 feet long) was outfitted as a semipermanent spay/neuter clinic serving all cats on Kauai. Pop-up tents were used for induction and recovery, prompting Spaulding to say she was “ basically working outside.”

Spaulding said there is a huge need for spays and neuters in Kauai because of the feral cat population, estimated at 20,000 just on that island.

“The feral cat population is a big problem in Hawaii, particularly in Kauai,” she said. “The cats prey on the bird population here and these clinics have a goal of reducing the number of cats with a high volume of spays and neuters.”

And talk about high volume. Spaulding says she and her partner were able to do 40 spays and neuters a day and thousands over the life of the program.

Animal Balance moves into an area to help with spays and neuters for a short period of time. While that organization is now gone, Spaulding has remained on Kauai and has started her own non-profit, AnimalohA to provide accessible veterinary care to underserved Hawaiian island communities.

“I’ve always liked making a difference,” Spaulding said. “That’s why shelter medicine made so much sense for me to focus on.” AnimalohA was just getting underway when COVID-19 hit and Spaulding’s non-profit took a back seat to the pandemic. That opened up other opportunities for her.

For the past year she has been volunteering, once a month, at the Ke Kai Ola Hospital for Hawaiian Monk Seal Conservation on the Big Island.

Spaulding has recently accepted a position with the County of Kauai’s Department of Health, working on infectious diseases. In addition to her DVM, Spaulding earned a Masters of Public Health from the University of Iowa.

“I was looking for something new and I’ve always been interested in population health and population medicine,” she said. “Now I get to help the human population with disease prevention.”

Dr. Katie Spaulding

Determined to be a Veterinary Dentist

Dr. Mary Krakowski Volker

There was this vet school class Dr. Mary Krakowski Volker distinctly remembers.

And she should, because that class and its speaker decided her career path.

“It was called ‘Vet and Society’ and the course explored the different career options you could have as a veterinarian,” Volker recalled. “I thought it was fabulous to be exposed to all these different routes you could take.”

But one career path stood out.

“A board-certified veterinary dentist lectured during one class period,” Volker said. “Right then and there, I knew that’s what I was going to do.”

The only problem was at the time, Iowa State didn’t have a dentist on faculty. No two-week dentistry rotation, no opportunity to be mentored. That didn’t stop Volker. In her fourth year, she did two dentistry externships, preparing to apply for a rotating small animal internship after graduation. Her requirement – it had to be an exceptional internship that had a veterinary dentist on staff.

The next problem – there were very few internships available across the country that employed veterinary dentists at their hospital. Again Volker wasn’t detered.

“I was going to get an internship and then a residency,” she said. “I went out to meet people in the field. I went to conferences. I worked hard. I made sure people knew this was what I was interested in.”

And she was selected. She completed her rotating small animal internship at Denver’s VCA Alameda East Veterinary Hospital. She then interviewed and accepted a veterinary dentistry and oral surgery residency at Maryland’s Animal Dental Center.

Today she is a board-certified veterinary dentist and oral surgeon and a partner at Animal Dental Center, which has four offices in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Volker, who now also serves as the co-director of the Animal Dental Center’s residency training program, works primarily at the Annapolis, Maryland, office location.

“Most everything we do in veterinary dentistry can fix an animal’s issues,” Volker said. “It’s incredibly satisfying.” Volker’s professional interests are varied and include endodontics and restorative dentistry. Almost all of her patients are dogs and cats, although the practice does see some pocket pets.

“Veterinary dentistry and oral surgery is really fulfilling work,” she said. “I perform procedures every day on patients that come in with horrible oral and maxillofacial disease and after we’re done, they leave immediately better, their quality of life markedly improved. The clients are pleased and the patients are happy.”

Dr. Mary Krakowski Volker

No Place Like Home

Dr. Adam Hansen

As long as Dr. Adam Hansen could remember, he would job shadow his father, Dr. Donald C. Hansen (’73).

He remembers walking from his junior high school to the Shelby Vet Clinic after classes were done for the day. If there was a call in the night, Adam would tag along with his dad. Summer, school breaks, holidays – it was all the same, Adam spent time with his dad and at the clinic.

“As far back as I can remember, I would go with Dad on calls anytime I had a chance,” Adam said. “My goal was always to come back and work with him – that was my dream since a young age.”

Even when he was a veterinary student at Iowa State, Adam would make the twohour journey back home from Ames. Weekends, summers, it didn’t matter, he was back at the Shelby Vet Clinic.

“Almost any chance I got, I was back here,” Adam said. “Looking back, I probably should have spent more time getting to see how other practices operate, but it has worked out pretty well.”

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Adam joined the practice after graduation and has remained in his hometown. Even then he couldn’t stay away too long. “I graduated on a Saturday, took Monday off, and then started work right away,” he said.

“I told him to get back home and get to work,” Don chuckles. “He knew the people already and that made it an easy transition. Adam was always a good, hard worker, and he brought back a lot of new ideas.”

Shelby is and has been home to Adam, an owner of the clinic after Don retired in 2019. The Shelby Vet Clinic is a four-veterinarian practice. All the vets are ISU graduates and, like Adam, have a connection to Shelby.

“Our goal is to find local people so hopefully they’ll stay as we continue to build a successful practice,” Adam said.

A mixed animal practice, the Shelby Vet Clinic sees primarily beef cattle with herds ranging from 30 head to 1,000. The clinic also sees companion animals and a few horses and small ruminants.

Shelby is a small town just off of I-80 in the western part of Iowa. With a population of just 727, the Hansens and their staff work well past the city limits to see patients. Clients come as far away as Council Bluffs to seek services from the Shelby Vet Clinic. “It’s pretty unique to have four vets in a small community like Shelby,” Adam said. “We stay pretty busy, but we do have to travel a lot of miles.”

Don joined the Shelby Vet Clinic a year after graduating from Iowa State. In 1980 he bought the practice and has developed a client base that has passed along to Adam and his partners. Over the years, the clinic has expanded, which the son gives a lot of credit to his father.

“Dad was a pretty progressive vet,” Adam said. “Over the years he has allowed us to purchase lots of equipment and update the practice, which has allowed us to practice a better quality of medicine.”

It’s a better quality of medicine in the community both Hansens love. “I know these people,” Adam said.

“They were lifelong clients of my Dad’s and now they are lifelong clients of ours. I love working in my hometown. It gives me a chance to help all the families that Dad helped.”

Dr. Adam Hansen

Photo: Dave Gieseke

The Health of a Dairy Farm

Dr. Joe Bender

Growing up on a 200-head Pennsylvania dairy farm, Dr. Joe Bender just knew what his career path would be.

“I was going to be a dairy practitioner,” he said. “I specifically tailored my program in vet school to suit those needs.”

He made true on his goal and after graduating in 2010, went back to his home state to work as a veterinarian in a traditional 10-doctor dairy practice.

“I did that for three years,” Bender said. “I didn’t think I was going to stay in practice forever, but I thought it would have been longer than three years.”

A career change was in the offing when Bender realized the dairy producers he was providing care for were seeking answers he couldn’t provide in traditional veterinary practice.

He’s found those answers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) where he serves as a veterinarian and assistant professor of clinical dairy production medicine with the Center for Animal Health and Productivity. In that role, Bender helps farmers on a different level, helping them understand the health of the farm and their herd. He works specifically with dairy farmers who are struggling financially.

“We refer to this as caring for the ‘health’ of the farm,” Bender said. “Healthy animals alone do not guarantee a profitable farm. The interface of production and economics really interested me.”

Bender is housed at the New Bolton Center, about an hour outside of Philadelphia in Chester County. He lives in Lancaster County, which has the highest animal density in the United States.

And a vast majority of those animals are dairy cows.

“I have carved out a niche here,” Bender said. “I spend most of my time providing consultative support to the region’s dairy producers, dealing with real-world, on-farm issues.”

His advice to the dairy producers isn’t always met with open arms.

“Unfortunately, many of the dairy farms I work with have not taken the time to look at finances until they have to,” Bender said, “and now they have to do it to stay in business. I get very frank with producers and have found most of my clients really want somebody to tell them what to do.

“Once I show them the data, then usually they are on board and begin to make more informed financial decisions. Unfortunately, like any other veterinary area, there are always certain clients that do not heed advice.”

While Bender spends a vast majority of his time consulting out in the field with dairy producers, he is also an excellent classroom instructor at Penn Vet and has been honored with the school’s Zoetis Distinguished Teaching Award.

“Being able to teach and interact with students was one of the reasons why I came to Penn Vet,” Bender said. “I try to allow students to be healthy skeptics.

“Usually students figure things out on their own. I just try and help them get through that process.” gd

Dr. Joe Bender (left) on the farm.

In Memoriam

Dr. Kimberly Bebar (1983-2014)

Dr. Kimberly Bebar loved being a veterinarian. Family and friends remember Kim being driven in her desire to joining the profession.

“Thinking back, we believe Kim wanted to be a vet since she was in the second grade,” her parents, Rick and Rita Bebar said. “She knew what she wanted to be and stuck with it.” Classmate Dr. Claire Dorniden Hotvet also remembers that drive.

“Kim was such a passionate individual both in becoming a veterinarian and in friendship,” Hotvet said. “As a student, we would have endless study sessions in her trailer. As a friend, she always let me borrow her puppy, Razi, to protect me on my night time runs.”

As an undergraduate student at Iowa State, Kim began working as a vet tech at an emergency clinic in Des Moines. Hotvet recalls she continued her association with the clinic, traveling to Des Moines as often as she could.

During her vet studies, she was the founder and president of the Emergency Club where she coordinated wet labs and brought in guest speakers.

After graduating with her DVM, Kim was an intern at Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston in the emergency department. She was completing a residency in critical care at Cape Cod Veterinary Specialists in Massachusetts when she passed away on March 11, 2014, as a result of an automobile accident.

Massachusetts colleagues describe Kim as “an incredible teacher who left everyone with more knowledge and confidence in their abilities to help out in a crisis.”

In a memoriam written after her passing, the doctors at Cape Cod Veterinary Specialists wrote this… “Though the time she was able to dedicate to this specialty was senselessly fleeting, the impact she made at our facility and in our referring community will be long remembered.”

In particular Kim was interested in CPR and the RECOVER initiative. She was instrumental in leading a CPR teaching course not only for her co-workers but for countless veterinarians and technicians from nearby hospitals.

“Kim like to be challenged and never backed down from any challenge,” her parents said. “She had a great gut instinct and was a quick thinker.”

The Bebars cherish the many testimonials they received after Kim’s passing from clients.

“They talked about how good and caring Kim was treating their pet but also how good she was at explaining things to them,” the Bebars said. “Kim never took no for an answer, she pushed ahead when others paused.

“She kept driving for her goal.”

Back Home

Dr. Tyler Dohlman, Dr. Laura Tonkin Van Vertloo, Dr. Jen Scaccianoce, Dr. Brian Collins

No class may be as highly represented among the faculty in the College of Veterinary Medicine as the Class of 2010.

Yet none of the four graduated with the intent of coming back to teach. In fact, it didn’t cross their minds.

Dr. Brian Collins worked in a mixed animal practice in his hometown of Elkader, Iowa. He is also a member of the U.S. Army Reserves and worked in a high volume, low cost surgery and dental center in Richmond, Virginia.

After working at a mixed animal practice in Minnesota, Dr. Tyler Dohlman later joined Blood Dairy in State Center, Iowa.

Then there was Dr. Jen Scaccianoce. She stayed in Ames, working as a relief veterinarian, a few clinics and the Animal Rescue League.

Dr. Laura Tonkin Van Vertloo did an internship and residency at Purdue University.

In the end though, all four found their way back home.

“There wasn’t a day that the thought of me returning here to teach crossed my mind,” Dohlman said. “I was going to do cow-calf work out west. But I guess, never say never, because you never know what you will wind up doing.”

“I became pretty convinced I wanted to specialize in internal medicine and then I began toying with the idea of working in an academic setting,” Van Vertloo said. “Now that I work at Iowa State, I really like the scientific process we go through as faculty members.

“I had no intention of coming back to teach but in all honesty that’s why I’m here now.”

Van Vertloo serves as an assistant professor of veterinary clinical sciences in the internal medicine specialty care unit. One of her colleagues in the Hixon-Lied Small Animal Hospital is Scaccianoce, clinical assistant professor of veterinary clinical sciences.

Scaccianoce is one of hospital’s primary care clinicians. The switch from private practice to the College of Veterinary Medicine was the right choice for her. Most of her excitement stems from her interactions with students.

“I love when I see something click in a student’s eyes,” she said. “When I see that, it excites me every time. I really enjoy feeding off of their positive energy and it gives me confidence that I know what I’m doing.”

The student interaction is what appealed to Collins when he also made the switch from private practice. Collins is a clinical assistant professor with overall responsibilities for the college’s two Clinical Skills Laboratories. He also is one of the instructors of the Junior Surgery class.

“The students want to be here,” he said. “It’s fun to work with them, they’re always excited to learn.”

Like his fellow classmates, Dohlman also interacts with students in his role as an assistant professor of veterinary diagnostics and production animal medicine. Dohlman is a co-leader of the Theriogenology team and leader of the Embryo Transfer Service group.

“The students in our therio classes are there because they want to be,” he said. “They have a passion for the subject just like we as instructors do.”

Drs. Tyler Dohlman, Laura Tonkin Van Vertloo, Jen Scaccianoce, and Brian Collins.

Photo: Dave Gieseke

A Family of Veterinarians

Drs. Pat and Kate (Baker) Hoffman

Several members of the Class of 2010 grew up with a parent who was a veterinarian, paving the way for their own chosen career path.

And there are multiple veterinarian couples in the class, who not only graduated in 2010, but who were soon married.

But there are few families like the Hoffmanns, who not only have dual veterinary degrees, but whose fathers were also veterinarians.

“Annette (the couple’s daughter) probably isn’t going to have much of a choice on her career since both of us and both her grandfathers are vets,” said Dr. Pat Hoffmann.

Pat, along with his wife, Dr. Kate (Baker) Hoffmann own and operate the Atlantic (Iowa) Animal Health Center. In reality, Kate is the sole proprietor of the clinic since Pat is a veterinarian and swine technical consultant at Elanco.

“I mow the yard and change the light bulbs, but I don’t see any patients here,” Pat said. “If Kate has a difficult surgery, I will sometimes assist her.”

Kate just shakes her head, asking her husband, “when was the last time you assisted me in surgery?”

Even though they are in the same profession, the couple has pretty much gone their separate way after graduation. Pat is a swine veterinarian. Kate started out as a mixed animal practitioner, focusing on cows, but now just sees small animals at her clinic.

That was the case right after graduation when both were employed at Southern Hills Veterinary Services, a multi-office clinic in several southwest Iowa communities. “We both practiced there for two years,” Kate said, “but they didn’t have us in the same office on the same day. I think that was even more challenging than if we would have been able to work together.

“We always seemed to be going in different directions all the time. One week I would be on call, then the next Pat would be. It’s nicer now that we’re in different areas.”

When the opportunity came in 2014 to purchase the Atlantic Animal Health Center, the couple jumped at it.

Then another challenge.

“We learned I was pregnant right before we bought the clinic,” Kate said, “and Pat had to work all that time I was on maternity leave.”

Kate says the timing of her pregnancy was great. Her new clients saw her not only as a veterinarian but a soon-to-be mother.

“It was a blessing to start the practice where people could see I was going to be a mother,” she said. “I think my clients have really appreciated the fact I not only care for their pets but I also care for our daughter as well.”

As essentially a sole practitioner, Kate finds the wide array of medical procedures she performs on a weekly basis challenging. She says she has particularly begun to appreciate surgery, and internal medicine is a favorite specialty to practice.

Since leaving his first practice, Pat has focused his career path on swine medicine, working first for Genesus, Inc., then as director of health assurance for DNA Swine Genetics, and now with Elanco. His territory covers what he calls the “Western Corn Belt” of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa.

Swine medicine was probably always in Pat’s future. His father, Dr. James Hoffmann (’82), partnered with legendary swine veterinarian Dr. Roy Schultz (’60) and growing up Pat would tag along.

“I had a great backseat view of a lot of cool things that were happening in the ‘90s in swine medicine,” Pat said. “What I learned from Dad and Roy helped develop my passion to help feed the growing global population without destroying the planet.

“When the opportunity to work exclusively in swine medicine came about, I couldn’t pass it up. You just never know what path your career will take.”

Drs. Pat and Kate (Baker) Hoffman

Small Town Vet

Dr. Elizabeth Harriman Hill

She didn’t know a combine from a cultivator. Her parents thought she was crazy.

Yet Dr. Elizabeth Harriman Hill took the plunge and opened up her own veterinary clinic in small town Iowa right after graduating. Oh, did we mention Hill is a Maine native, lived in Boston and had never set foot in Iowa before coming to Ames for vet school.

“I met my husband in the middle of my third year and by the time graduation was nearing we knew we were going to be together and stay in Iowa,” Hill said.

Hill’s husband was a farmer from the Ellsworth area. When she began to seek veterinary employment, nothing was available. “At the time, the job market was pretty saturated for veterinarians,” she said.

During her job search, it was suggested that maybe Eldora, Iowa, might be a possibility. The community of 2,500 didn’t have a local veterinarian. Hill did her due diligence, speaking with the economic development office, the town’s mayor and others before deciding to open a clinic.

Another veterinarian had operated a clinic previously but it had been closed for years. The building was empty, lacking any equipment although there were dog runs and cages for boarding animals. “I started out slow,” Hill recalls. “I think we only had eight appointments that first day. Now that would be a bad, slow day.”

Word of mouth brought a steady growth of clients and patients to her clinic door, where she primarily sees dogs and cats.

While the Maine native misses her home state, she’s more happy with her choic to live and work in small town Iowa. “I just love Eldora,” she said. “I walk through town and know pretty much everybody. I love how my small-town life has worked out.”

Dr. Elizabeth Harriman Hill

Photo: Dave Gieseke

Rarely Apart

Drs. Ryan and Jacci (Hermansen) Fedeler

For the first years of their marriage, Drs. Ryan and Jacci (Hermansen) Fedeler were rarely in the same town together. Now they are rarely apart.

“We worked separately for three years,” Ryan said. “No place we looked at had two job openings. We never had an opportunity to work together.”

That changed on Memorial Day 2013, when the two opened the Heartland Veterinary Clinic in Brookings, South Dakota. Both see small animals, while Jacci has equine patients and Ryan sees livestock patients.

The two quickly slipped back into their days as DVM students where they constantly studied and worked together. And because they were building their cliental, they spent a lot of time together on-call.

“We had our first child the following September after we opened the clinic,” Jacci said, “and five days later he went on a farm call to see a lame horse with Ryan.”

“The first few years we were at the clinic all the time,” Ryan said. “We were on call seemingly 24-7.”

To illustrate just how much the Fedelers work together, Jacci relates the story of an after-hours emergency C-section on a dog.

“The client actually held our son while we were doing the C-section,” she said. “Anyone who called us, we would head back to the clinic.”

The on-call hours have changed, especially in the last year due to COVID. Heartland Veterinary Clinic has also grown to include a third veterinarian, Dr. Sarah Muirhead (’20), and a staff of 10, and the couple is looking to expand their clinical space as well.

That’s impressive considering the Fedelers started their clinic from scratch and only had one customer their opening day. Since then they have had to learn on the fly – everything from managing personnel to meeting a payroll, buying veterinary equipment and dealing with tax filings.

Working together has brought them even closer. Issues are few and far between. Ryan does say Jacci tends to bring work home with her and always wants to discuss that day’s patients.

“On road trips, we generally talk about the office, about this case or that case,” Jacci said.

The couple’s skills also complement each other.

“What I’m not good at, Jacci’s good at and vice versa,” Ryan said.

“Having someone that I work with that I can truly trust in every way is invaluable,” Jacci said. “I know he is always doing his best and he’s not going to judge me on what I say or do.”

Drs. Ryan and Jacci (Hermansen) Fedeler

Photo: Dave Gieseke