MEET OUR PEOPLE
Shannon Johnson Personeni
FOUNDER | BOARD PRESIDENT
Shannon is a Woodland, CA native and has been involved with horses since the age of 5. She rode on the UCD Eventing team during her senior year in high school and then on the University of Oregon Hunter/Jumper team through college graduation. She continues to ride English and pursue personal goals in 3-day eventing.
Following a childhood dream, Shannon became the founding member of T.R.O.T.R. Professionally, Shannon has her B.S., MBA and is the full-time director of TROTR. She has been working in the field of therapeutic riding for the past 18 years and is a Certified Therapeutic Riding Instructor, as well as an Equine Specialist in Mental Health and Learning through PATH International.
Contact : shannon@trotr.org
Debbie Shoup
VICE PRESIDENT | VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR | INSTRUCTOR
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.”
Contact: debbie@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 T.R.O.T.R., 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 T.R.O.T.R. grow with all of the life and love it inspires.
Jenessa Lee
OFFICE STAFF | BOOKKEEPER
Donna Massey
OFFICE STAFF
Russell Rose-Dove
OFFICE STAFF
Rachel DeBose
RANCH STAFF