The Park County Animal Shelter has a new head of operations and is on the lookout for a new director as the seven-month tenure of Ryan Johnson came to a close Monday. 

Johnson, who was hired in January, left at the end of the day Monday after working the last few weeks to prepare existing staff member Kaitlyn Quick to take over the shelter. 

“She has the day-to-day operations well in hand, and Ryan has worked closely with her prior to his departure to ensure a smooth transition,” said PCAS board chair Joelyn Kelly. 

She said the board is still committed to the co-leadership model they installed at the beginning of the year as, “Given recent experience we still believe the right model is to have two co-leadership roles at PCAS to allow the necessary focus and growth for whoever fills these roles.”

Quick has been on staff as a technician since October of last year, Kelly said, and has acted as lead technician for the past few months, which makes her the right person to carry forward the operations. 

“As an internal promotion we are giving her the opportunity to prove herself with the title of ‘manager’ at this time, but we expect that she will continue to report directly to the board of directors even with a future leadership hire,” Kelly said.

Johnson took over the newly created role of shelter operations director in January and three months later was caught up in controversy when then executive director Jona Harris resigned in protest due to her frustration over what she said were efforts to cover up the practice of spaying possibly pregnant female cats by the staff and her dislike of moving to a two-director setup. 

That also brought to light Johnson’s background, which included work at a number of animal shelters and animal control departments, and an incident in Cheyenne where he helped hold down a dog to be pepper sprayed the day after the dog had bitten a worker. 

Johnson said he had made a bad decision to be involved and had used the fallout from the incident to improve. 

“... my decision was to learn about this industry and become an expert in it, so that sort of thing never happens at a shelter ever again,” he said in a prior interview. “That’s my motivation for continuing to do the work that I’m compassionate about.”

The shelter board defended him against Harris’ attacks at the time and, regarding his departure, Kelly had nothing but praise of his time in Cody. 

“Although we were sad to see him leave, we understand the personal decision he has made,” she said in an email. “It was refreshing to work with a true professional, someone who did everything in his power to prevent his departure from having a negative impact on the shelter. The animals, the staff, and the board members are all better for the time and effort Ryan committed to his role here.”

In his time, Johnson started a number of new programs, many focused on what he said were the underlying reasons people were forced to give up animals in the first place, especially lack of access to low cost food and vaccines. 

He also focused on reducing the total animal count staying in the shelter, as he said the longer an animal stays in, the less likely it will be adopted. He also focused on the importance of first and foremost taking care of the animals that were taken to the shelter. That came to fruition in June, when the shelter took in a record number of animals but was able to save 97% of them. 

“We’re trying to build some programs around supporting people out in the community so that they don’t get to that point where they think the only thing left to do is to give their pet to us,” Johnson told the Tribune in a previous interview. “So that’s really a big focus.”

The shelter is searching locally and nationally for an experienced director-level leader who, Kelly wrote, “will sustain the level of expertise in animal welfare that we have come to appreciate with Ryan Johnson. We understand that finding the right candidate may take time, but we have complete confidence in the current staff led by Kaitlyn (with the on-going support of the Board of Directors) to continue operations with the same high standards that have been established under Ryan’s leadership. We are unwavering in our commitment to the mission of PCAS.”