By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
“It’s time for me to move on and let others take the reins,” said BRAWA General Manager Connie Greer. She is retiring from her position at the Barren County shelter after nearly nine years. “It’s bittersweet leaving. I try not to get chocked up.”
“This is the next chapter,” she added. Her final day is Nov. 30.
Greer started as a BRAWA volunteer in April 2017 — though she had been volunteering at other animal shelters since she was 17 years old — and was given the “big project right from the beginning to take on the summer camp.” Greer became the manager in May 2017 when the previous manager resigned.
“To be totally honest, I really didn’t want the job,” Greer said. “I had been in management for over 25 years, I just didn’t want the hassle that comes with management and so, I didn’t really say much about it. At the time we had an executive director and she…was like ‘why are you not taking the manager’s position?’… We had an employee meeting a couple weeks later and she announced me as manager. I just glared at her and said ‘okay I’ll try it.’”
“She just announced it; I never agreed [but] we had that kind of funny relationship,” she added.
Within a year’s time, Greer took on additional responsibilities as the executive director position was done away with by the shelter’s board.
“That following February they changed my position to general manager and I took on all the tasks of the executive director and the manager,” Greer said. “I wore many, many hats.”
Sitting in the shelter’s breakroom with gerbils chirping in the background, Greer smiled as she recalled some of the highlights of the last nine years. Unsurprisingly, her first highlight was “saving animals lives” and the growth she has seen in her staff members — both as a team and as people. Some of the other highlights she recounted were the various fundraisers she’s overseen, like Jordan’s Way, which raised several thousand dollars for BRAWA, getting through all three floods — the frequency of which will hopefully be reduced by the presence of the new berm — getting the BRAWA bus and getting to know the community.
Greer said she has “absolutely enjoyed everything [she’s] ever done” at the shelter.
Nov. 30 may be her retirement from BRAWA, but that does not mean Greer is going to be idle. She plans to take a 6-week course in Phlebotomy and work in a hospital.
“It’s something I’ve always been interested in,” she said through laughter.
In her absence, Tena Edmunds, who worked her way up through the shelter, beginning as a cleaner, will be the shelter manager and Angie Herald will be the assistant manager, Greer said. Her other responsibilities will be divvied out to members of the shelter’s board, she said.
“They’ll continue doing great things for the animals here, I know they will, Greer said. “I’m really hopeful for animal welfare in general.”
A commemorative plaque has been hung near soon-to-be Edmunds’ office and a going away open house for Greer is scheduled for Nov. 23.
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