Merry Burns has been in the recruiting industry for 13 years. She is a Sourcing Recruiter for KellyOCG. She recruits for Fortune 500 companies across the United States. Merry has worked with companies such as Nike, Cisco, EMC and United Airlines, just to name a few. She is responsible for sourcing top talent for her clients. <?xml:namespace prefix = o /> Merry has always loved all animals. While growing up in San Diego, she spent all of her summers at her Grandparent’s farm in South Dakota. Merry rode horses and played with the farm dogs, feral cats, wild turkeys and her Grandma’s pet peacock, Joe. Those are her favorite memories. Merry and her husband adopted their first Great Dane, Memphis, 8 years ago. After falling in love with the breed, she joined Rocky Mountain Great Dane Rescue as a volunteer. She failed Foster 101 when she adopted her first foster, Ty. When BDHP was created she joined forces and became the first volunteer in Nebraska. She has fostered, transported and chaired events. In her role as Human Relations Director, she is responsible for recruiting and training new volunteers for application processors and home checkers. In addition, she field applicant questions. Merry and her husband, Michael live in Omaha, NE with their Great Danes, Memphis and Ty. They also have 2 cats, Presley and Dax. Darlene Zizka began her accounting career over 20 years ago working in the finance department of various large construction companies in both Las Vegas and Denver. She has had a variety of experience from Accounts Payable to Accounts Receivable and even owned her own book keeping business. Recently, Darlene made a career move to Arrow Electronics to broaden her accounting experience. Darlene’s relationship with Big Dogs Huge Paws began in November 2010, when she decided it was time to adopt her first dog. She has always had a love for English Mastiffs, and while researching where to adopt one, destiny brought her to Big Dogs Huge Paws. She attended a meet & greet where she learned more about the rescue and was so impressed with the organization she decided she wanted to become a part of it. While attending an event, destiny again brought her accounting qualifications to the attention of the CFO, Kristie Mendralla. She worked with Kristie to improve and streamline the accounting processes and was soon offered the role of Accounting Director. In her short time with BDHPI, Darlene has volunteered at events, fostered, assisted with adoptions, and transported gentle giants from state to state. Since joining the accounting department, she has helped to train the accounting volunteers that assist BDHPI with the vast monthly accounting responsibilities. Although Darlene did not end up adopting her English Mastiff, she did adopt a Bull Mastiff named Magnum in April 2011. Magnum joins Darlene and her husband Robert along with his little brother Dante “the Destructor” a 2yr old Chow mix and their 3 cats Hailey, Potter & Sasha. Craig M. Brooks is the Vice President of Planning and Analysis at Pulte Mortgage, a subsidiary of Pulte Homes. He is responsible for process reengineering and is leading Pulte Mortgage on their Lean improvement journey. In addition to his reengineering activities, he is responsible for Quality Assurance, Training, Business Continuity and User Acceptance Testing for all operational system and process implementations. Craig has 13 years of customer service and process control experience. In 2006, Craig started his own company, CmB, inc. (Change Made Better, Inc.) and began consulting and website work for local businesses. He, his wife Amy and son Connor recently rescued two Saint Bernards from BDHPI. They, Molly Valentine and Hannah Banana, joined the family which already included their Golden Retriever sister named Princess Leia. Craig was extremely impressed with his experience working with BDHPI. Craig has always been an avid animal lover and is passionate about the rescue and placement of dogs in need. His passion for helping animals, coupled with his wonderful experience with BDHPI, led him to seek a leadership role with the organization. The Brooks Family currently lives in Parker, Colorado. Their goal is to purchase a home on acreage to further help with the fostering of dogs at BDHPI. In his spare time, Craig enjoys video gaming, writing, sculpting, photography and attending the Denver Broncos home games.
Merry Burns
Human Relations Director
Darlene Zizka
Accounting Director
Craig Brooks
Operations Director
James Lane
IT Director
James Lane recently relocated to Seattle, Washington but will continue on as IT Director. Though James works as a Vendor Manager for Amazon.com in downtown Seattle, he also owns a small web development company geared towards helping small businesses establish a web presence. James enjoys learning about technology and innovations in web design and is excited to continue to support BDHP with its efforts.
A long-time animal lover, James got involved with BDHPI in 2008 at the encouragement of his wife, Cristina, when they were considering adopting a new dog. James and Cristina fostered a variety of of big dogs when they lived in Colorado, and continue to support BDHP from a distance. After recently losing their great dane as well as a senior dane they were fostering, the Lane home only has one "furry child", Bella, a lovable, bossy and somewhat chunky boxer; they hope to add to their family at a later date.
In his role as Director of IT, James’ primary focus will be to align the goals of BDHPI with existing and future technologies. He will help coordinate volunteer efforts to manage and maintain the existing user community of BDHPI and IT related projects. His biggest goal is to help BDHPI streamline existing business processes to encourage the future growth of the organization. Please do not hesitate to contact him with any technical questions or concerns.
Sonya Aamodt
Retail Director
Sonya Aamodt is the Chief Financial Officer and part owner of Lodestar Research Corporation, which provides theoretical research for fusion energy to the U.S. Department of Energy. Earlier, she managed a large accounting department for Terra Corp. in Berkeley, California.
Prior to volunteering for the Rocky Mountain Great Dane Rescue, she served for several years as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) for Voices for Children, an organization which provides services to abused and neglected children in Boulder County. She also was a foster parent for Boulder County Department of Social Services. Sonya has also volunteered for the Longmont Humane Society by participating in fund raising events.
In August of 2005 Sonya adopted her Great Dane Bella from Rocky Mountain Great Dane Rescue and immediately started fostering. Since that time she has fostered more than 70 Danes with the help of her 4-legged pack. In January, 2008 she was elected by the membership to serve on the Board of Directors for RMGDRI. Six months later, she was introduced to Big Dogs Huge Paws rescue and immediately fell in love with the “new” and “different” way of doing rescue and was quickly appointed as Retail Director. Ms. Aamodt looks forward to helping to build vendor relations and growing BDHPI’s on-line store in order to help save lots of BIG dogs in need!
Sonya resides in Longmont, Colorado with Bella (nicknamed Wilma), a Harlequin Great Dane adopted from RMGDRI, Soccro, a Fawn Great Dane adopted from BDHPI, Jambo, an Alaskan Husky mix adopted from the Longmont Humane Society, and Panda, a SiberianHusky adopted at 10 years old also from the LHS in addition to her ever-revolving door of foster dogs. She is known at the Dog Park as the “Great Dane Lady”. Having always been a horse lover, she competed for over 20 years in Hunter Jumper competitions both in California and Colorado and continues to go on horseback riding expeditions around the world.
