AWARE
Board of Directors

Bert Loftman (President) grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and always had a deep
love of animals. The many pets he had as a child led him to pre-med classes
in preparation for a career in veterinary medicine. He eventually changed
his focus to the needs of humans and became a highly respected neuro surgeon
in Atlanta in 1974. He now specializes in spinal surgery. Bert is very
politically active which led him to run for US Senate in Georgia in 1998. We
are very glad that Bert has decided to pursue his love of wildlife and join
AWARE.

Melanie Haire started working as a licensed Veterinary Technician in 1987.
She worked in a private practice for six years. She has been working at Zoo
Atlanta for the past 6 years and has just been promoted to the position of
Senior Veterinary Technician. She has been a licensed wildlife rehabilitator in Georgia since 1989. Melanie also serves on the board of directors of
Rockdale County, Animal Care and Control. Melanie will be our Senior
Rehabilitation Consultant.

Kevin Fowler is a veterinarian working in private practice in Atlanta. He is
a graduate of the University of Georgia, College of Veterinary Medicine.
Kevin worked with the Tyson Research Center in their raptor rehabilitation
program. He was the Associate Veterinarian at Zoo Atlanta for eight
years and has been working with wild animals his entire life. As a young boy
he was rescuing injured and orphaned wild birds and spent his summers with
his Uncle Jim Fowler from the TV series Wild Kingdom. Kevin is oursponsoring veterinarian.

Mara Loftman is a retired Loft developer who presently is active doing
children's operas about the state with Capitol City Opera Company, sings 40'
s music with the Take Three Trio, and a variety of music with the
Peachpipes, and the Divas, an a cappella group of eight. Mara's love of
nature and its wild inhabitants has brought her to AWARE to help with
fundraising and volunteers.

Henry Finkbeiner is a true friend of the earth. He is a developer who
started recycling old buildings in Atlanta before it was fashionable or
profitable, turning them into loft living spaces. His philanthropic love is
conservation and preservation of habitat. For his own enjoyment and to
promote conservation, each fall he leads backcountry guide trips into the
wilderness areas of Yellowstone National Park. Henry will be helping us
network with funding sources and assist us with the construction of our
facility.

Kelly Jordan is a conservationist and preservationist in every sense. He
began his preservation efforts by restoring old buildings in Atlanta in
1973. He concentrated his efforts in the Little Five Points, Candler Park
area. He is often referred to as the "Mayor of Little Five Points". His
conservation efforts include but are certainly not limited to being the
driving force behind turning Davidson, Mt. Arabia Park into the largest park
and nature preserve in DeKalb County. Kelly's energy and vision are
invaluable to our mission.

Michael Ellis (founder/director) began his work with animals in 1987,
deigning and building passive solar habitats for gibbon apes. He also worked
with Zoo Atlanta on its gorilla project. His first encounter with
rehabilitation was in 1989when he moved to Olympia, Washington from Atlanta,
Georgia to volunteer at the Olympic Wildlife Rescue Project. Within a couple
of months, he was asked to take charge of OWRP. During the next 5 years,
under his direction, OWRP grew from 125 animals each year being cared for by
a handful of volunteers to 2,500 animals a year, three staff members, 100 on
site volunteers and another 150 rescue response volunteers. The center
became one of the most respected rehabilitation centers in the northwest.
Michael's next learning experience came when he was offered a position as
head of rehabilitation for one of the largest wildlife centers in the
country, just outside of Los Angeles. Michael was responsible for 6,000
injured, sick, or orphaned native animals per year, as well as several
hundred exotic birds and reptiles on permanent exhibit. He then accepted a
position with a Los Angeles based non-profit educational organization as
project director for the design and construction of a living museum of
native and exotic wildlife. A year later, funding for the project was
postponed and Michael decided to follow the animals back to his adopted
hometown of Atlanta. Upon his return to Atlanta, Michael found only one very
small rehabilitation center serving the entire metro area. This one center
could only care for several hundred animals each year and a city the size of
Atlanta typically finds ten to fifteen thousand injured, sick, and orphaned
animals yearly. Michael was determined to remedy the situation and give
these animals a second chance at life in the wild. He founded AWARE, a
non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and restoration of
wildlife and its habitat.