Natalie Huls
Executive Director, Treasurer
Natalie Huls is a Patent Examiner who has been passionate about animals her whole life. She grew up in Minnesota with dogs, cats, birds, rats, lizards, and anything that followed her home from school. She has been caring for and managing community cats since 2004, when she was a graduate student at the University of South Florida. Natalie and her husband Dean adopted their first dog, Paisley, together in 2017. Paisley, an undersocialized rescue dog, inspired her to turn her attention to dogs in need. She joined the Prince William County Animal Shelter as a volunteer in early 2019 where she is currently a dog walker and occasional kitten foster. Paisley now has a sister, Flannel (shown), who is a PWCAS foster fail. They all share their home with four cats: Giuseppe and Violet, siblings who were born to a feral mom in their garage, Sam, a one-eyed rescue adopted from SADSAC, and Miles, one of their colony cats who came inside from the cold and has yet to leave.
Patricia Hiltibidal
Chair, Secretary
Pat Hiltibidal is a former U.S. Marine now also retired from her longtime role as a professional legal administrator. Negotiating with dear animals is so much easier than lawyers. Animals have been her passion for many years resulting from her mom’s own convictions over her lifetime. Never a shortage of animals and an infinite variety of type. Pat’s original goal in retirement was to learn how to train dogs professionally with a purpose. Somehow that never took off and her grown children steered her to the Shelter and the volunteer work there. From there – meeting wonderful collaborative people – sprung the PWAA. The rest will be futures in the making for all the animals to be helped.
Karen Gray Edwards
Member
Karen Gray Edwards is a long-time Prince William County resident and animal rescue supporter. She works as the Director of Publications for the American Sociological Association, which makes it possible to manage the health and well-being of three senior dogs (all former residents of the PWC animal shelter), three former stray cats, and six rescue ducks. After many years of having AKC bulldogs, Storm (pictured with her here)–an old pitbull mix healing from a broken leg at an adoption event in 2000–led her to true passion for helping hard-to-adopt shelter animals, particularly seniors and those with special needs. In addition to serving on the PWAA advisory board, she manages the shelter initiative for Dave’s Dogs.
Michael Donnelly
Member
Michael Donnelly is a lifelong resident of Prince William County, minus a five year stint where he resided in Orange County. He has been in the retail grocery business for over 25 years here in Northern Virginia. Michael and his wife Michele pay close attention to those passing through the shelter. He is known to help with rescues of seniors and ones that have special needs or may be tagged difficult to adopt. His rescued pet family consists of 3 cats and 2 dogs ages ranging 16 – 8 – 5 – 3 – 16 weeks (2 of which were adopted from Prince William County Animal Shelter). Michael’s love for animals and passion to see these animals get furever homes has now landed him working with the PWAA.
Karen Proctor
Member
Karen Proctor is a long time resident of Montclair, a hairstylist at Vincent & Vincent in Dumfries and a passionate animal advocate. Karen also headed up our very successful first ever charity golf tournament this year.
Karen shares this: “If you would have told me five years ago that I would have a “bully breed,” much less two, one of which is blind, I would have said you were crazy!”
Throughout her life, Karen has had both rescued cats and dogs. most were small and what others would consider “cutesy” pets.
In 2017, Karen’s daughter moved into her own home. Her first order of business was to adopt a dog. After visiting the shelter, she brought home an 80 pound, Staffordshire Terrier. As her mother, Karen was worried because of preconceived ideas about bully breeds. However, as soon as she met Silas, she fell in love with the gentle giant and his sweet nature. Her daughter’s passion became Karen’s mission: to educate and shed positivity on the misunderstood bully breeds.
In 2019, Karen adopted her very own first American Pit Bull Terrier, Diego. From that moment on, she became passionate about the bully breeds and earnestly started volunteering at PWCAS. At the same time, she began advocating for all the animals there. Sadly in rescue there are a great number of bully type dogs.
Two years later she was going to “just” foster a newly blind Staffordshire/APBT mix and within a few days, she and her husband decided to adopt and make Stevie Wonder a permanent member of their pack.
Karen loves the time spent with the animals at the shelter, giving as much love as possible when there. It’s so easy to love these dogs/animals.
