Board of Directors
Shannon Johnson Personeni - PRESIDENT
Shannon is the founding member of T.R.O.T.R. and has been here from its inception. She is always smiling and encouraging and is the backbone to our organization. Shannon is a Woodland native and has been involved with horses since the age of five.
She rode on the UCD Eventing team during her senior year in high school and then on the University of Oregon Hunter/Jumper team throughout college. She continues to ride English and pursue personal goals in 3-day eventing. Shannon can be seen around the ranch teaching lessons, driving the tractor and is always available if the need arises.
Professionally, Shannon has her MBA and is the full-time director of the WISE Foundation, a non-profit, international educational program.
Contact : shannon@trotr.org
Debbie Shoup - VICE PRESIDENT AND VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR
Debbie has a lifetime love of horses, starting with jumping lessons in elementary school, summer ranch camp, and one glorious summer with a pony at her grandparents’ house. Once she and her husband Bob had their son Joseph, she didn’t have as much free time, but still managed to get in a couple of visits a year to her parents’ house in western PA where they have a couple of horses and the whole family would go on long dreamy trail rides throughout the neighboring countryside.
Debbie is a lifelong volunteer, having tutored at-risk youth in Chicago, served on the Davis Junior Blue Devils and then Davis High School football boards during most of Joseph’s long youth sports career, facilitated youth job internships, sewn several hundred COVID-19 masks, and dressed up in her grandmother's Easter Bunny costume to entertain kids each year (which she still does!). Debbie also really enjoys working since 1997 at CaseTrakker, helping to create medical care management software.
Once Joseph went off to college, Debbie started getting more and more involved with her horse heart place: T.R.O.T.R! There she relishes working with the animals and the people and says they both “fill her bucket to the brim.” She is pictured here with a couple of her good buddies: Joe and Horace.
Contact: debbie@trotr.org
Jane Austen - BOARD MEMBER
I have loved horses since my childhood when I read all the horse books in the library, and my brother and I tried to convince our parents that we could care for a horse perfectly well in our suburban Chicago garage. Apart from a few months of group riding lessons around age 10, I had no direct experience with them until my daughter gifted me with riding lessons at T.R.O.T.R. some 65 years later!
Raising two beautiful children consecutively in two marriages and then helping with grandchildren until they were grown fully occupied my heart for many years. Arriving at college late and continuing my education with 2 master's degrees kept my mind busy as well. Now both heart and mind are available to refresh childhood dreams with real opportunities to learn and to serve T.R.O.T.R. horses and people!
Contact: jane@trotr.org
Erik Cardenas - BOARD MEMBER
Erik was raised in Southern California and joined the U.S. Air Force in 2006 when he was 18 years old. He has been stationed all over the U.S., served in two foreign wars, and humanitarian missions across the globe looking for our Nation’s missing in action from past conflicts. Currently, he is station in Sacramento, Calif. as a digital marketing manager.
His love for the outdoors and helping people prompted him to serve his community. He has been a volunteer at T.R.O.T.R. for six months primarily as a lead/side walker assisting with youth riding lessons.
Contact: erik@trotr.org
Jude Stevenson - BOARD MEMBER and FUNDRAISING CHAIR
Jude Stevenson is a late-comer to the world of horses. After retiring from academic life as a Professor of Anthropology and Peace and Social Justice Studies at California State University, Long Beach in 2017, Jude discovered horses and fell in love. A few years later she was introduced to TROTR, whose mission spoke to her lifelong dedication to kindness and peace.
For Jude, the melding of rescued animals (whether it be horses, pigs, donkeys, alpacas, goats, chickens, tortoises, and yes guinea pigs), with the lives of children with special needs was the right place for her to put her retirement energy. She looks forward to watching TROTR grow with all of the life and love it inspires.
Anne Feltus - BOARD MEMBER
A family friend gave Anne a retired ranch horse when she was a teenager living in Texas, launching her lifelong love of anything equine. More than three decades later, she acquired her second horse, Star. After retiring from her career as a freelance business writer, specializing in oil and gas, Anne moved to California in 2017 (along with three dogs, two cats, and, of course, Star) to be closer to her daughter. Star died in early 2021 at the age of 34.
Several months later, a rescue named Frankie joined the family. Most TROTR people know Frankie; she’s the gray Hanoverian-Holsteiner cross with one blue eye and one brown eye who lives in the big barn (and wears a google eyed fly mask in the summer).