CO-CHAIR
Stephanie Albanese, CVPM (Mt. Pleasant, SC)
Stephanie M. Albanese grew up in Kentucky, where her family bred and showed St. Bernards and Great Pyrenees. She spent more time in a dog kennel than a child's crib. After receiving her degree in Marine Science from Coastal Carolina University, she moved to Sarasota, FL, to work at Mote Marine Laboratory. While at Mote Marine, she learned that she missed being around the furry animals she grew up with and obtained a job as a kennel assistant at a veterinary hospital. While at this hospital, she gained several years of valuable experience as a technician and a manager.

In 2005, she moved back to the Carolina's and started working for Veterinary Medical Care, LLC. Fifteen years later, Stephanie is now the Hospital Administrator. Veterinary Specialty Care was acquired by BluePearl in December of 2020, where Stephanie remains as Hospital Administrator.
Stephanie says," I am so incredibly proud to be part of an organization that has such a dynamic group of Doctors and support staff. I can honestly say that every member of our team has nothing but the patients' and their parents' best interests at heart. Each and every team member strives every day to provide the best quality of medicine and surgical care there is to offer. That is something pretty amazing to be a part of."

Stephanie has been a member of the VHMA since 2014 and earned her Certified Veterinary Practice Manager (CVPM) certification in 2016.

SECRETARY
Melissa Tompkins, BS, CVPM (Long Beach, CA)
Melissa started working in the veterinary field over 18 years ago, starting as a technician assistant/receptionist. After working her way up, she became a practice manager in 2005 and never looked back. She joined the VHMA in 2009, earned her Bachelor's degree in animal science, and became a Certified Veterinary Practice Manager (CVPM) in 2011. She has worked in general practice (Feline only), specialty, and emergency. In 2018, she opened her own consulting business, South Coast Veterinary Management Solutions, to help more hospitals.

In 2018 she became the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association's Paraprofessional of the year.

She is a published author of multiple articles in DVM360.com, Veterinary Team Brief, Firstline Magazine, and Veterinary Economics. She has also been a speaker at several annual conferences and symposiums, including VHMA'S management exchange, CVS's Veterinary Forum, Oklahoma's Annual Conference, ASEC's Conference, and Fur Paws Consulting's Spring/Fall Symposiums. She also helped train veterinarians to create a feline-friendly practice through AVSG's annual wet lab.

Melissa is very active within the local veterinary community co-founding the North Orange County Veterinary Hospital manager group. She loves helping other managers and team members grow within the veterinary profession.

DIRECTOR
KimberlyAnn Mackey, CVPM (Media, PA)
Kim has over 15 years of experience in the veterinary profession. Like many others, she has worked her way up from a receptionist to practice manager. She earned the Certified Veterinary Practice Manager (CVPM) certification in 2015. She believes that her background in criminal justice has helped her to succeed and to bring an interesting perspective to the veterinary field.  She has over 25 years of experience in the Criminal Justice field and 17 years as a State Parole Supervisor for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. While she continues to work in the criminal justice field, she gains valuable information to translate into the veterinary world.   

Kim is also a passionate advocate for education; she believes that educating students about the Criminal Justice System will help produce better leaders in our field.  She is an Adjunct Professor with over ten years of experience at three local Universities and she has been invited to speak at veterinary and criminal justice conferences on various topics, most recently at IVECCS in 2020. 

DIRECTOR
Debbie Newhouse, LVT, MBA, CVPM (Papillion, NE)
Debbie has been in veterinary medicine for the past 20 years, starting as an assistant and working her way up to become part-owner of two emergency practices in Nebraska. When she started as a practice manager, she had no managerial training and started reading management books to learn how to become a better manager. She joined the VHMA in 2004 and found a place to learn and become part of a community of colleagues that shared experiences and knowledge. She earned her Certified Veterinary Practice Manager (CVPM) certification 2009. She says it is one of my most cherished accomplishments. She believes in the vision and mission of the CVPM program and the VHMA, and would like to have a chance to give back to the community that has helped her have a fulfilling and exciting career.

DIRECTOR
Danielle Quinton, RVT, CVPM (Fair Oaks, CA)
Danielle Quinton started her career in the veterinary field while attending the University of California, Davis. Initially pre-vet, Danielle fell into the drama department at UC Davis and graduated in 1990 with a B.A. in Dramatic Art. During her college career, she worked for a small corporation that owned five hospitals in the Sacramento area, where Sunset Animal Medical Center was the main hospital. Her love of animals prevailed as she progressed to management at their Mather hospital and obtained her RVT license in 1993. She left veterinary medicine from 1994-2010 to manage and operate her family's RadioShack franchise. Coming full circle in 2010, she regained employment with Dr. Jay Griffiths at Sunset AMC, where she started her career years earlier. She then joined A.B. Science USA as the Northwest Regional Sales Representative in July 2012 to promote Kinavet, a mast cell tumor targeted therapy, to veterinarians throughout the Northwest. In January 2016, Danielle rejoined the Sunset AMC team, where she took a leadership role. She was offered the hospital manager position when Sunset AMC was acquired by VCA in October 2016 and obtained her Certified Veterinary Practice Manager (CVPM) credential in January 2018. Danielle left VCA in March 2019 to manage the non-profit Animal Spay and Neuter in Auburn, CA. She realized her skills would be better suited for a full-service hospital, which led to her joining the Summer Hills Veterinary Hospital Team in September 2020 as their hospital administrator. Danielle has been a member of the VHMA since 2016.