Joy King: How to Accomplish Goals Through Others, Without Authority

Joy King: M foreign.

Narrator: Presented by Versi Sharing inspiring stories from local business leaders and learning how their experiences and the people involved have shaped them along the way.

Host: Today on Unscripted with Versi, I am super pumped because we have Joy King, the CEO of the Animal Humane Society.

Joy King: Hey.

Host: So thank you for joining us today.

Joy King: Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to it.

Host: Oh, my gosh.

Co-host: So a lot of fun talking.

Host: Yes.

Co-host: So animal lovers unite.

Host: And honestly, I wish, like, we had animals around us. That would have been really cool.

Joy King: I thought about it, but I don't know that our animal care team trusts me yet to bring our shelter animals

Host: along with driving down the road with animals in the car. Where is she going exactly? So we want to hear all about the Animal Humane Society, but we want to start out with you and learning kind of, you know, how you got to where you are today. So tell us where you're from. Born and raised.

Joy King: Absolutely. I'm just a small town girl. Seriously. I was born in Paulina, Iowa, and grew up in Abilene, Texas. And a lot of people who our Texas transplants will say I wasn't born here, but I got here as fast as I could. And Abilene is also a pretty small town.

Host: Paulina, I haven't heard of that.

Joy King: Northwest Iowa. It's about 60 miles straight south of Worthington, Minnesota. So the closest city would be Sioux City.

Host: Okay, tell us about Paulina. So were your parents from there?

Joy King: Yes, Both my mom and dad grew up in Paulina, Iowa. Their parents, you know, long history. My dad and stepmom moved back there after they retired. They actually lived here in the Twin Cities, which is kind of the roundabout way that my husband and I got here. And my mom lives here now, too. But yes, that's.

Host: They started in Paulina.

Joy King: They started in Paulina.

Host: So what about siblings?

Joy King: I have a blended family. I'm the oldest, and I love that. I'm the oldest.

Host: I. I love that I'm the oldest, too.

Joy King: It's a joy. And there's so many things right. About being the oldest daughter.

Host: Oh, gosh. Yeah.

Joy King: So many tracks. We're the boss of the world.

Host: Yep.

Co-host: Yeah. And as a number two, like, thanks for blazing the path. Appreciate that. Shout out to.

Joy King: You're welcome. The one thing I. I will say about being the oldest and being the oldest daughter is I love my siblings and I'm their biggest cheerleaders, and I hope they know that. So shout out to all of them. I have. Let me think here. One, two, three brothers, two Sisters, one of my brothers. We have the same mom and dad. And then I have a step brother and sister and then a half brother and sister.

Host: Big family.

Joy King: Yeah. That's fun.

Host: Tell us a little bit about, like, what your parents did for work and then school.

Joy King: My dad started working for Northern Natural Gas, which eventually was bought by Enron.

Co-host: Okay, interesting.

Joy King: Very interesting. We could have a whole podcast on that. I'm sure he retired from Enron at the age of 40. Oh, and you guys know what happened to Enron.

Co-host: And so that happened while he was there.

Joy King: It happens after. And so just everything changed for him after that. And he and my stepmom had already moved back to Paulina from here in the Twin Cities, and they started their own business, which they still have today. And they run a business where they salvage turn of the century homes and then resell everything that they salvage. So wood flooring, doors, uh, light fixtures. You name it, they resell it. And they have customers all over the country. It's really cool.

Host: That is very cool.

Joy King: Yes.

Co-host: The name of the company.

Joy King: North.

Co-host: Okay.

Host: And millwork.

Joy King: Yes. In Paulina, Iowa. And then my mom spent many years in law enforcement as a dispatcher and a 911 operator. And today she works for a local company in North St. Paul, managing their office.

Host: A, um, 911 dispatcher. That had to be. Wow. I bet she had some stories.

Joy King: She has a lot of amazing stories. And that. Honestly, I wanted to be in law enforcement. I got my degree in criminal justice. Clearly not doing a thing with it. But I do love a good true crime.

Host: Oh, who doesn't set me up?

Co-host: I know.

Host: Kids are gone, husband's gone. Give me my true crime deadline. 2020. All of it.

Joy King: I just need to know that something bad already happened. Like, I don't want the suspense of it all, you know, I need to know that something bad happened and someone's going to solve it.

Host: Yeah.

Joy King: Then I'll be happy.

Co-host: Were you one of the, uh, serial individuals that Lee changed the world? Yeah, it really did.

Host: So tell us about school.

Joy King: I went to a small school. It was small at the time. Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. It's part of the Texas A M system.

Host: Um, so when did you leave Paulina?

Joy King: I started second grade in Texas.

Host: Okay.

Joy King: So. Yeah.

Co-host: So high school and middle school in Texas.

Joy King: Yes.

Co-host: Okay.

Host: And the move to Texas from Paulina, that was. Your parents want M? Does anyone move?

Joy King: My mom remarried, so my parents divorced when I was very young. My mom remarried a man in the military and we ended up in Abilene. Texas. There's an Air force base there.

Host: Got it.

Joy King: Small stint in Frankfurt, Germany, and then right back to Abilene, Texas. And so that's where I grew up. My husband and I met in high school. Where? High school sweethearts and college in Stephenville. Tarleton State.

Host: Yeah.

Joy King: And I think there were probably less than 8,000 students when I went there. And I went there because it was the closest, cheapest school that I could afford to where my mom and siblings were living at the time.

Co-host: So in high school you were a part of the blended family in high school, as the oldest with all the

Joy King: siblings, yes, but at that point, the siblings we lived in our separate.

Co-host: Okay.

Joy King: Some lived with my dad and stepmom and then some of us lived with my mom.

Co-host: So through high school, were you in activities or sports or what was your high school year like?

Joy King: All of that. I ran track and played basketball.

Host: And then what position? Basketball.

Joy King: Point guard. That was the scrappy.

Host: There you go.

Co-host: Typical firstborn.

Host: Love it. Too bad we don't have a court.

Joy King: And also I clearly I don't have height, so what other position was there for me besides point guard? But I, uh, still love basketball. Go Wolves. Yeah, yeah, basketball and track. Ran the 400. And then my senior year, I went to school half of the day and worked half of the day, like through a program, through the high school. And at that point I had given up sports, family situation. I needed to work and help support.

Host: So that's what initiated. That was helping the family?

Joy King: Yes.

Host: Okay, and what was the work? What, what did you do for work?

Joy King: I worked at a place called Payless Cashways. And you would compare it to maybe Ace Hardware or something like that. This was pre Home Depot and Lowe's. Dating myself here. And I loved it. I started as a cashier and then ended up working in the paint department. And during the day that meant most of the customers were contractors. And so they knew exactly what they wanted when they came in. Usually had a list of things. And so I was, you know, lifting those five gallon buckets of paint and mixing them. And I learned so much about the dynamics of men and women in the workplace from that job.

Host: Yeah.

Co-host: Give me an example.

Host: Yeah, we've lean in like, oh, tell us more.

Joy King: For starters, I was one of the only females on the floor, so most of the females were cashiers up front. And I also didn't know a lot about that industry or anything like that. And, you know, just dealing with the dynamic that exists sometimes among men and women. We've probably experienced Uncomfortable situations or situations where you don't feel empowered or that you have a voice. And the dynamic was, I was in high school, and these contractors were grown men, and I had a manager there who was amazing to me and would often insert himself when there was an uncomfortable situation going on. And I really appreciated him for that, probably more today than at the time. Uh, but I reflect on that a lot because I think now, knowing that our role as women is to ensure that we are mentoring women who are younger in their career so that they do feel empowered to not have to be in that situation, or if they find themselves in that situation, they can find someone to help them.

Host: Yeah, I love that.

Co-host: Uh, amen.

Host: Love that. So you're doing half days working and then, um, at school. So then tell us about you. Decide. Did you always know you want to go to college?

Joy King: It wasn't a choice, and I don't know that I always wanted to go, and it just wasn't a choice.

Co-host: And so, yeah, parents said, you will do this.

Joy King: Mainly my dad. Neither of my parents were college educated, and my dad felt that education was just really important. And we've all heard this. Your education is something no one can ever take away from you. And so, you know, there were days where I would have rather gone to cosmetology school because it was about the paycheck.

Host: Yeah.

Joy King: And I needed it, and it had a role. And my dad encouraged me to go to college, and so that's what I did. And I'm, uh, so glad that I did that, that I listened to him.

Host: And tell us about your college year. So you said. You said law enforcement. You wanted to be in law enforcement?

Joy King: I did. I wanted to be a police officer. And Tarleton's criminal justice program was amazing. All of our professors were in the field, either currently or at some point in their career. So I had retired homicide detectives as professors. I had crime scene analysis as professors, and I loved it. My husband and I got married my sophomore year, and we had our daughter as well. And so that changed my perspective 100%. Working in law enforcement means you are around criminals all day long. And I, uh, didn't want to be in that environment. I did an internship at the county jail. I definitely knew I did not want to be in that environment. I did an internship with a school resource officer, which was new at the time. This was a new thing thing. Today, it is just common place. Right. And so I thought, well, maybe I could do that. I would be in the school system working around kids, but also through My internship learned you have to deal with some really hard things that are happening in the children's homes and address those. And I just didn't think I had the ability to do that. And so, coincidentally, the school resource officer was also a volunteer for the American Cancer Society. And a lot of my internship hours, I was fulfilling her volunteer obligations for the American Cancer Society, which I didn't like at the time. However, it landed me my first job out of college.

Co-host: No kidding. So you're just volunteering? Volunteering. Getting all this experience that you didn't know was going to pay off at the end because you thought you're going in a different path?

Joy King: I did.

Co-host: Wow.

Joy King: I did. So I got to know the staff person at, ah, the American Cancer Society because I was working with her often. She got promoted and then called and asked if I was interested in applying for a role. And even though I had spent a lot of time with her, I still had this picture in my mind that the American Cancer Society was just a bunch of doctors doing a bunch of research trying to cure cancer. I had no idea the breadth of what that organization did. And so I started there as a field rep, which meant I was doing grassroots fundraising.

Co-host: Wow.

Joy King: Which I still love to do.

Co-host: How about that? Yeah. From police work, from growing up watching your mom be a dispatcher, to now I'm doing fundraising for a large nonprofit.

Host: And is this while you were in school or had you graduated? And then this was.

Joy King: I had just graduated from school, still living in Texas. And so fundraising and then setting up programs that connected cancer patients, specifically newly diagnosed cancer patients, with free programs and services that were provided by the organization at the time, which was really fun because you could connect the dollars you were raising to the programs and services that were being provided to patients and their families. And. And you did all of that through volunteers. So it was an early lesson in leadership, how to accomplish goals through others, which is a good lesson to learn early in your career if you have any desire of being a leader.

Host: I love that you're at American Cancer Society. You have your daughter and your husband. So then tell us about how long were you there?

Joy King: I was there for 17 years.

Narrator: Wow.

Co-host: Talk to us about the ascension. So you're doing from um, field rep. Yeah. Trying to influence without a lot of authority, but get things done.

Host: But I love that. What, to repeat that again? You said how to accomplish goals through others. I love that. And I don't know if we've ever heard that, but I really like that.

Joy King: Without authority, by the way.

Host: Yeah.

Joy King: So A lot of influence.

Host: They're volunteers.

Joy King: They're volunteers. And they knew way more than I did. I was fresh out of college, and they. Many of them had been volunteering for years and had personal experience with cancer.

Co-host: They needed a point guard to bring them all together to be greater than the sum of their parts.

Joy King: I love that. Yes, that's true. That's true.

Host: So you're a field rep. And then tell us. Yeah. About the Ascension.

Joy King: It was a pretty magical time at the American Cancer Society. Their signature event at the time had just taken off, was growing like crazy. So the revenue was growing like crazy. Relay for life.

Host: Oh, yeah.

Joy King: And I was able to be successful enough as a field rep. I got promoted to lead a group of field reps and again, just expand what we were doing, both from a fundraising and program standpoint. And then from there, the organization decided which was the right choice to become 1,501C3. They at one time had been like 51 different 501C3s, with their own boards, their own.

Host: Wow.

Joy King: Executive teams, so on and so forth. And as a nonprofit that any organization, quite frankly, that's redundancy of resources, and we're trying to cure cancer over here and spending a lot of money on duplicative things. And so from there, the organization was working towards this, you know, 1,501C3. So, as you can imagine, there's a lot of change and transformation. And there was an opportunity for a greater role in Omaha, Nebraska, to oversee the entire state of Nebraska and all of the operations. And I thought, okay, well, I have family.

Host: Let's go to Omaha.

Joy King: Let's go to Omaha. Be closer to my dad's side of the family and my mom's side of the family as well. And so we did. That took some convincing. My husband, born and raised in Texas, all of his family was there, but we did it. And for me, personally, for us as a couple, it was the best thing ever. Because now, all of a sudden, we were in a place where we didn't have. We couldn't rely on family. We had to rely on each other. And that was, again, a great lesson, life lesson. And we lived there for about nine years.

Co-host: What do you think you took away from that? Was it more belief in the agency that you had and you didn't have to use family as.

Joy King: Yes, no, you're exactly right. We had to re. Establish ourselves as a team. Uh, we always believed we were a team and worked as a team, but we had an expanded team, if you will, because we always had A reliance. Or we could rely on a family member that was close. Because at that time, you know, my mom was in Texas, a couple of my brothers, my husband's entire family, which is a huge family, extended, lived in Texas. And so we always had that. And now we found ourselves in a city we had never lived in.

Host: Yeah, you, uh, remove it all. There's no choice.

Joy King: Like, it's, it's us.

Host: Uh, it's us.

Joy King: And we.

Host: Oh, I love that.

Joy King: We learned a lot about each other. And again, like I said, we had to reestablish what the team really was. And I look back at that time and we also, we were still young. We grew up a lot too, during that time. So I couldn't call my mom. He couldn't call his mom to pick up Jade from school. Yeah, one of us had to pick Jade up from school.

Host: Oh, yeah. And that can lead to some interesting conversations.

Joy King: Right? Absolutely. Uh, so you know it.

Host: Oh yeah. It's a different dynamic within the relationship.

Joy King: Right.

Host: Because especially when you have. And I don't know what your husband's work was, but when you have two achievers or people going after careers and then you have two people that have created children, it's like, well, you know what I mean? They can't walk. So we've had the who's got the more important day? Who's got. This adds a different dynamic to relationships.

Joy King: It can be hard, it can be turbulent.

Co-host: Mhm.

Joy King: Which is when you have to pause

Host: and say, okay, and remember, you're a team.

Joy King: Remember your team. We are working together, not against each other. So we got to figure this out.

Co-host: Yeah. And breaking down a lot of cultural norms at that point too.

Host: Oh my gosh.

Joy King: Yes. For sure.

Co-host: That. Yeah.

Host: Uh, so you're in Omaha. So tell us about then. You're an American cancer society. Go ahead.

Co-host: No, I was just going to say now you're trying to bring these 50 entities all into one, but you're starting with Nebraska. So is this like, crazy? How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? How do you even take one step to bringing all of that together?

Joy King: There were days it did feel like that. And as a leader, you have to remember the why. It was always about the mission. Everything we're doing today, is it aligning to the mission all the way down to every team member on the team? Is what you're doing today, is what you're doing right now, this very second, going to impact the mission? If not, then we have to stop doing it. And that even included, like, Programs and services, because as we were coming together as one organization, the programs and services that were available to patients and their families could vary state by state, because, remember, they all were their own entity. They all could do their own thing. And in Omaha, there is a huge comprehensive cancer center there which pulled patients in from. From miles and miles around. We're talking rural communities coming to Omaha for treatment and therefore receiving programs and services. And if you were from m. Iowa, you would qualify for a different program or service because you were from Iowa versus if you were from Nebraska. And that wasn't only a problem for patients and their families. It was a problem for the cancer centers that we were partnering with because they didn't like having to tell you that because your address is this, you get this. And because your address is something different, you get something different because it became less than. And so that was one of the first things the organization had to wrestle, was how do we determine which programs and services are going to make the greatest impact on cancer patients and their families and prioritize those things?

Host: And I'm sure I can't even imagine, you know, there's some tough decisions that need to be made during that time. Right. Because everyone's kind of been operating, utilizing their services. But in order to get where you want to get to, you got to make some tough decisions that are going to affect people and their lives.

Joy King: And you got to leave your ego at the door, because some of those programs and services that might have been on the list to stop might have been something you started or your state or your division created. And now someone's telling you, you got to recognize that this is not where we're headed or this program isn't making the impact that this program is.

Co-host: Yeah. So that's really good to have that foundational, you said vision, saying, if it doesn't align with this, we're going to say no to that. And holding that consistently can be hard but very, very important.

Joy King: Yeah, we call it mission creep.

Co-host: Mission creep.

Host: Mission creep. I like that.

Co-host: Don't allow mission creep.

Host: That's mission creep. How long then, were you in Omaha?

Joy King: We lived there just short of 10 years. And then there was an opportunity for promotion to move here, and that was also a difficult sell. Our daughter was between her freshman and sophomore year, so she had skin in the game, and we wanted her to be part of that decision. She, you know, had her established friend group. She was playing sports, all of the things, and we convinced her my husband really wanted to move here, and we were familiar with the Twin Cities. Because we were visiting my dad all those years over holidays and breaks. Our choices were the Twin Cities or Milwaukee. And we.

Host: Oh, well, Avi, um, you said it. Why did your husband want to move here? He was pushing for the Twin Cities.

Joy King: He was. He and a partner owned a franchise restaurant and I think he was just ready to get out of that. Yeah, um, he loved it. They were successful. And he worked from 6am until 10pm almost every day. That's. And he missed out a lot of on Jade's activities.

Host: So he was ready for a fresh start too.

Joy King: Yeah, yeah, he was. And we loved this place, you know, so that's what we did. We moved here. I was with ACS until 2016 and then I got recruited away to go to NMDP. Formally be the Match.

Host: Yes.

Joy King: I didn't even know what it was. I didn't. And what attracted me to it was the CEO at the time, Dr. Jeff Chell. In fact, I had taken myself out of the candidate pool because one of my face to face interviews still with the consultant or recruitment firm, they were 30 minutes late to a meeting, to a breakfast meeting. And I thought to myself, if this is how this is going to be, I don't want any part of it. And they talked me into staying. And my next meeting, I don't know if this would have been the path, but it turned out to be meeting with the CEO and he changed my perspective. I mean, I was comfortable where I was at, which is not always a good thing, but I was comfortable where I was at. And then I met Dr. Chell. He told me what the organization did and it blew my mind and the rest is history.

Co-host: So the why really spoke to you?

Joy King: A hundred percent. It was still in the cancer space, so I felt like I had something to bring to the table.

Host: And what year was this? Because this was.

Joy King: This was 2016.

Host: Okay.

Joy King: So our daughter was graduating, I started a new job and we bought a new house within a few months of each other. Just doing it big.

Host: It seems like you've always been with a very mission driven organization. So then you're at Be the Match. Now it's nmdp.

Joy King: Mhm.

Host: What role were you in when you first started there?

Joy King: My first role was executive director of the foundation. So the foundation is a subsidiary of the operating organization, so it has its own board, its own team, et cetera. And they wanted to grow the foundation to have a greater impact on patients and research, so providing more assistance to patients and their families to remove barriers and expand access to treatment. And then Funding research to make transplant safer and to improve not just the quality of life, but survival rates.

Host: Yeah.

Joy King: As well.

Host: It's super impactful.

Joy King: Yeah. I still get goosebumps thinking about the fact that a stranger joins a registry, takes a call, says yes and donates their bone marrow blood stem cells to someone they don't know and may never meet.

Host: Oh, and then you go to the gala and they meet each other and you want to talk about waterfalls.

Co-host: Yeah.

Joy King: Agree.

Host: Uh, I mean, very much. You're at Be the Match and mdp. And what was your role after that?

Joy King: Because really it was just a title change to Chief Advancement Officer. And depending on what was going on in the organization, I had opportunities to take on different roles periodically until, you know, someone else was hired to do that work. And we built an amazing foundation. When I got there, the foundation was raising like $5 million a year. And what I didn't know, I started in January of 2016. At the December 2015 board meeting, the board was kind of like, this is it. Like, if this doesn't work out, no more foundation.

Host: Let's go get Joy King.

Joy King: Well, I didn't know that. And, uh, I'm glad I didn't know that during the interview process because that's a lot of pressure. And then when I left, we were raising close to $20 million a year.

Host: That's amazing.

Joy King: It was so fun. So fun.

Co-host: Talk to me about some of the things that you put in place that quadrupled fundraising.

Joy King: The most important thing we put in place was building a major gift program. So the organization wasn't asking for large gifts. A thousand dollars was a large gift. And don't get me wrong, a thousand dollars is a meaningful gift. And for some of us, that is a. And the organization deserves so much more than that. And they already had a huge constituency of people who had the capacity and affinity to the organization to give transformational gifts they weren't being asked to give. And so within the first year, we solicited and received our first seven figure gift.

Host: Wow, Love that.

Co-host: Don't ask, don't get. That's what you kind of.

Host: But someone does need to own that or put it into place or to see it through or to make sure it's being done versus we all just say, oh yeah, we should do this and then.

Co-host: And craft it and give the overall messaging. Because if you just ask differently without putting forth the why behind it, it's not going to be as effective as it obviously was.

Joy King: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And for that organization, like so many organization, it's not about the money, it's about the impact the money makes. And that first gift created a brand new program for the organization that connected patients who were going to transplant with clinical trials. And for a transplant patient, clinical trials is a bridge to transplant. So maybe it gets them in remission so they can go to transplant or it treats something that they need treated before they're eligible for transplant. And so that gift was transformational for the organization and for the patients who utilize that program.

Host: So your Chief Advancement Officer, you've built this great program throughout the foundation, working with, I know so many people over there. Great team.

Joy King: Amazing team.

Host: I, uh, mean, just shout out to them because. Great team of leaders over there.

Co-host: Great building, too.

Host: Oh, yeah, it is awesome. Yeah. So then tell us how you end up at the Animal Humane Society.

Joy King: I had started thinking about what was next for me. We were about to complete a hundred million dollar campaign. I was just feeling, what's the Next thing? The CEO, Amy Ronnenberg, the time is a great coach and mentor. She was aware that I wanted to shout out to Amy, yeah, think about these other opportunities. And, uh, so I just started preparing myself. I got a coach and, you know, a mentor told me that if the seat you want at the organization you're at isn't open, you gotta go somewhere else. The seat wasn't open.

Host: Yeah.

Joy King: And I didn't think it was going to be open for a long time because Amy has grown that organization and the board is thrilled with that. And so the seat I wanted wasn't going to be open.

Host: And I love, by the way, that you and Amy have that relationship to have that conversation. Because so often people are like, oh, you want to leave? But it's like, no, I'm the point guard. I'm a point guard too. You know, I. I'm always like, you wanted the next seat and that was it.

Joy King: And like you, I'm going to do whatever I can while I'm still here to continue to grow this organization. I don't have one foot out the door.

Host: No.

Joy King: And the call that I got about Animal Humane Society, I honestly thought they had the wrong Joy King.

Host: There is another Joy King there.

Joy King: I. There's a handful of them. And the reason I thought that is because I didn't know the first thing about animal welfare. I love animals. Love. Always have. We have rescues. And I thought, you have got to be crazy. I. What are you talking about? I didn't even know really everything about the organization. So I had a lot of Learning

Host: to do sometimes that can be a good thing.

Joy King: I think in this case it was. I didn't have any preconceived notions. I didn't have experience with the organization. And I was able to come in with just a real fresh set of eyes.

Host: Yeah.

Co-host: When they were talking to you about the role, just because you do connect with the why so much, what was something that you heard in the initial interviews that you said? I can get behind what you guys are trying to do from an organization perspective.

Joy King: First and foremost, the mission. Of course, the fact that it's a local organization and I was just traveling like every week, and that was attractive to me that wouldn't be the case and that there was something to fix.

Co-host: Oh, got it. Very good.

Host: I love that.

Co-host: How long have you been in the role CEO?

Joy King: 15 months.

Co-host: 15.

Host: 15 months.

Co-host: Okay. And, uh, looking back 15 months ago, what are you proud of that you've done so far within the 15 months within the role?

Joy King: I haven't done anything by myself. The thing that I am most proud of is putting together a three year strategic plan for the organization.

Host: Love that.

Joy King: Um, to get us back to our core. We talked a little bit about mission creep before and that was starting to happen and we needed a plan to just get us back to the core. Why do we exist? We exist because there are animals in need. What is our role in ensuring that we are impacting animals in need? And it is very clear what our role is. So we put together a three year plan. Five felt too long, one or two felt too short. To get us back to our course, we put in place a three year plan. June 30th will be the end of the first year and we are either on track to meet or achieve the goals within year one and doing better than we were last year.

Host: Awesome. Congratulations.

Joy King: Thank you.

Host: Feels good. Yeah. How can people listening help? Animal Humane Society? What do you need?

Joy King: There's a few ways, actually. One is, of course, we aren't solely reliant on contributions, but it is a huge part of our revenue portfolio and allows us to provide direct care to animals in the shelter. It allows us to provide programs and services to the community to keep people and pets together so those animals do not end up in the shelter.

Host: Yeah.

Joy King: And it allows us to provide really great customer experience so people keep coming back. So make a contribution. Volunteer. We have hundreds of volunteers who amaze me every single day. From where I sit, I can see many of our volunteers come and go. We have volunteers that come every single day. They walk dogs they work with animals that have behavior issues so that those can be corrected before they hit the adoption floor. They help us bathe puppies when we get a transport in, uh, you name it, our volunteers are doing it. And they are incredible.

Host: What's the age requirement for a volunteer

Joy King: to be a dog walker? I believe you have to be 18. However, you could, could go to our website and it would tell you we have volunteer opportunities like that. We also have volunteer opportunities for companies who just like, want a, uh, one day opportunity for their employees or something like that.

Host: How many dogs get adopted on those days? I'd be like, let me take this one.

Joy King: There's a lot of dogs or kittens that get placed on hold for sure.

Host: Yeah.

Joy King: And so giving, volunteering and advocating for us. So we do a lot of work at the state level to ensure that there's policies and laws in place to protect animal welfare.

Host: Love that.

Co-host: Give us the scope of the organization. How many locations, how many volunteers?

Joy King: We have four locations. We have a location in Golden Valley. It's our largest location. It's a shelter and a pet clinic. So we have community members that bring their pets there for vet services. And that is typically reduced costs because access for affordable vet care is important. We have a, uh, clinic in Frogtown, in St. Paul. It's only a clinic, no shelter. And then we have two shelters, one in Coon Rapids and one in Woodbury. A lot of people just see the end product, right? The adoptable animals. At all of our shelter locations, we run an animal hospital for the animals in our shelter. Hundreds of animals are in our care every single day. They're receiving medical care and behavior care to ensure that they have a quality of life and that they are ready to be adopted. So that we are sending adoptable animals home with people who want and love them. The other thing I'll just mention from a scope that a lot of people don't realize, we have two humane investigators at the organization who work statewide anytime there is a animal welfare case. And so we work with local law enforcement.

Co-host: You back to the law enforcement.

Joy King: How cool is that? Kind of full circle. We work with local law enforcement to investigate any animal cruelty cases. We work with them, we bring animals into our shelter when those animals need to be taken from their owner. We do all the forensics, we testify in court, we do all of that work. And our investigators are incredible. That is really hard, difficult work. You can imagine the things they see and they experience. And oftentimes some of the people that they, you know, interact with.

Host: Yeah, wow. So, you know, looking back, like when you think about being Paulina, you know, growing up, when you envision, like when you think about today, what do you think? You know, you said your dad said, no, you're going to college. And now you appreciate that. Maybe at the time, but did you always see that maybe this would be your path?

Joy King: I did not. In fact, this all kind of came full circle. On Christmas eve, Eve of 2025. Gabe and I were sitting in a parking lot in Abilene, Texas. We had gone home, gone to Abilene for the holiday to visit my father in law. And we were sitting in a parking lot about to go into Rose's Cafe for lunch. And I had been going through this interview process for this role. And I got a phone call from the board chair at the time offering me the role as CEO at hs. And it was a full circle moment because growing up in Abilene, Gabe nor I knew anyone that had ever left. No one left m. No one left there. You stayed there, you raised your family there. And here we were back in the place we grew up, the place we met not too far from where we had our first date. And I was being offered the greatest role of my career so far.

Host: Oh, I love that.

Joy King: Goosebumps there on Christmas Eve Eve, of all things.

Host: I love that.

Joy King: It's incredible.

Host: Yeah, that's great. Thank you to you too for the work you do and all the volunteers and everyone on staff, like just phenomenal work because not everyone, like I always say, people like work with kids and elderly, hospitals, long term care animals, like, it is not an easy job. So thank you.

Joy King: Thank you for that and thank you also to you all. We can't do this alone. And we have partnered with for Seek on many occasions. And you all provide, um, amazing talent to the organization, some of which we've hired and maybe are in process of hiring again. And so we just appreciate the partnership as well.

Host: Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Lightning round.

Co-host: Yeah, uh, lightning round, let's go. Would you like to start?

Host: Okay.

Co-host: Okay.

Host: On a Saturday morning. Where will we find you? What are you doing on a Saturday morning?

Joy King: I'm either out for a run or drinking coffee in quiet.

Host: I was like. Or drinking. Wow. Okay. Drinking coffee and quiet.

Co-host: I love that you were a 400 runner. You now are out for runs on the weekend. Do you do any road races? Are you still. How do you scratch that competitive itch? Point guard, track star.

Joy King: Just started doing some races. Did my first race in Las Vegas in February. Our, uh, daughter, son, in law. And I ran the rock and roll marathon. And no, I didn't run a marathon, but ran the rock and roll, which, if you haven't done that, it's really fun.

Host: That sounds.

Narrator: Stay here.

Co-host: You get to finish, like in the lights or something like that.

Joy King: Yeah. It's at night. There's entertainment at every mile marker. You're running on the strip. Also. They shut down the strip for this race. It's so fun. It's so fun.

Host: Along those lines of sports. So if you could be a professional athlete and play any sport, any position, any of them, what would it be?

Joy King: Point guard on the links.

Host: Point guard on the links.

Co-host: You and Olivia, our new draft pick.

Joy King: I am so excited.

Co-host: We're a backcourt. That's great. Okay, last question. Is there a current animal at the Animal Humane Society that is dangerously close to getting adopted by you? You?

Joy King: I never thought about having a ball every single day. Every single day. And that was an agreement I had to make with Gabe. Only two animals in the King household at a time, and we have two. But that doesn't stop me from sending him pictures at least once a week.

Host: Oh, I'm sure. Well, thank you again for everything that you do, and I'm so excited for you in this. I. When I saw that, I was like, yes. So congratulations and thanks for coming in today. Of course.

Joy King: Thank you guys so much.

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