Seattle Humane Board Member Marie Huwe packed up her belongings and moved from California to Seattle in 1997 to take a position at Microsoft. She found herself looking for a new companion for her cat, Conan, after her other feline family member passed.
Marie came to Seattle Humane’s old campus on Eastgate Way, which she admits left a lot to be desired, and it made her feel sad. Back then, there were outside dog kennels, surgeries being performed in modified storage closets and a lower live-save rate. She initially left emptyhanded, but a good friend encouraged her to come back – she left the second time with two kittens, whom she named Angel and Spike.
“Conan got two new kitties,” Marie says, “which he actually wasn’t happy about.”
Following a successful capital campaign, Seattle Humane built a larger, modern facility a hop and skip from where the old one once sat, opening to the public in 2017. Surgeries now take place in our world-class Schuler Family Medical Center. Our dog kennels are all inside and have designated spaces for sleeping and biowaste, there is an isolation ward for saving pets recovering from infectious diseases and multiple community programs designed to keep pets with their people.
Marie was testing out retirement when Seattle Humane Board Member John “JB” Williams reached out to her – they had worked together at both Microsoft and DocuSign. He told her how retirement hadn’t quite agreed with him and how much he loved being on the board at Seattle Humane.
JB invited Marie to attend Tuxes & Tails last year, which is Seattle Humane’s largest annual fundraising event. He then encouraged her to meet with Board President Clare Pedersen, who gave her a tour of Seattle Humane’s new facility, which was nothing like what she’d experienced back in the late ‘90s.
“I have a lot of emotional resilience when it comes to people,” Marie says, “but not so much when it comes to animals. I loved everything that had been done, but I also was concerned I might leave with another animal.”
Marie has successfully pushed back the temptation to add another cat to her home. Instead, she says she’s focused on helping Seattle Humane make digital advancements in how we operate and connect with clients and donors as a member of the Technology Committee. She previously worked with Committee Chair Nipun Dureja at DocuSign.
Marie also joins JB on the Donor Strategy Committee, which is where she feels her business insight will be most useful. She says she’s excited about working on strategies to engage the next generation of Seattle Humane supporters and find ways to encourage recurring donations to make the organization less reliant on larger gifts from a few major donors.
Seattle Humane offers many low-cost community programs and services that help pets stay with their people, and Marie says she wants to shine more light on those offerings, as many people think of the organization as simply an adoption center.
“I’m super impressed with what Seattle Humane is doing for the community,” she says. “It’s clear when animals come through the door they are loved, they are carefully put out for adoption, and that Seattle Humane does everything they can for those families to make them as successful as possible.”
