Kane County Hires New Animal Control Director
Kane County has hired a former animal shelter manager from the city of Chicago to spearhead what they hope will be a new era of success and profitability for its Animal Control Division.
After a process that involved three months and numerous interviews, the county on Tuesday voted unanimously to endorse a subcommittee’s recommendation of Brett Youngsteadt to fill the position. He will start Sept. 2 at a salary of $75,000 a year.
“Led by Health Department Director Barb Jeffers, our entire team carefully followed the prescribed selection process and are pleased that the County Board has approved Brett Youngsteadt,” County Board Chairman Chris Lauzen said in a prepared statement. “Brett’s professional education is perfectly aligned to fully appreciate the importance and complexity of caring for animals. Even more importantly, he brings a wealth of operational and administrative experience which is essential for maintaining Animal Control’s financial sustainability.”
The position was formerly held by interim Director Rob Sauceda, who resigned after being placed on administrative leave in May due to review of a personnel matter. Since then, Health Department Director Barb Jeffers has stepped in to lead the division.
County Board member Drew Frasz, who chaired Tuesday’s meeting in the absence of Lauzen, was asked after the meeting what he thinks the top item should be on Youngsteadt’s to-do list.
“As far as I’m concerned it’s to relieve Barb and the staff that have been doing this in addition to their own jobs,” he said. “But I think the County Board wants stability, and we want to maintain the financial stability we’ve worked on the past few years, successfully. (Jeffers also) had some good ideas about the community outreach part of it: going to public events, bringing in dogs and cats for adoption, and being proactive, getting out in the community and not just maintaining the kennel.”
Animal Control for many years was a money-losing operation, but that has turned around in 2014.
“We are in the black,” Jeffers said. “(And our goal is) not just to maintain but to increase the revenue based on outreach to the community, and really take a good look at what we need to do with this community. We are very excited for (Youngsteadt) to come in and provide leadership and really engage our community so we can demonstrate the wealth of information we have to share.”
Youngsteadt is well-qualified to do that. In addition to his apples-to-apples experience with the city of Chicago, he has worked toward a doctorate in veterinary medicine.
“He was really dead on what we were really looking for — which is shelter management, managing the wardens and things like that,” said Frasz, who also was a member of the hiring subcommittee. “The DVM is really the icing on the cake. He’ll be able to talk the talk with the vets. He is not a board-certified vet, but it certainly can’t hurt.”
Jeffers and Frasz said they understood the hiring process took time, but they felt it was important to get the right person for the job.
“This process was a good thing,” Jeffers said. “The board members got a good opportunity to visit with all the candidates submitted before them and find the skill sets we were looking for. I think because of that we’ve ended up with a candidate we think is really going to do well in Animal Control.”
