Most people enter the veterinary profession because they’re passionate about pets, not because they want to be a cog in a corporate machine.
That was true for Lisa Maynard when she came out of retirement in 2017 to join Lake Forest Animal Hospital as the kennel manager.
As a former business owner and someone who has trained dogs since she was a teenager, running a kennel was the perfect opportunity for Lisa to merge her personal and professional passions. She took advantage of that opportunity and significantly built-up Lake Forest’s pet boarding and day care business, including during the challenging COVID-19 era.
When Lake Forest partnered with VetEvolve in 2019, it only elevated Lisa’s excitement about her job and her career aspirations. She saw greater opportunity to make an impact in the company across the family of practices and proactively developed a plan that she shared with the Operations team on how she could improve and grow boarding for VetEvolve.
The team loved her plan so much, in May 2022 she was promoted to a newly created position: boarding operations manager. Now, she works across VetEvolve kennel teams to support and grow the practices’ boarding operations. Her management experience and entrepreneurial spirit help the kennel teams improve processes, procedures, services and facilities.
“VetEvolve offered me the potential to do that very thing that was just in my heart and soul to do,” she said.
Lisa credits VetEvolve’s people-first philosophy with recognizing her unique experience, listening to her ideas, and finding a way to leverage it for the company’s growth — and her own professional development.
“VetEvolve has allowed me to grow,” she said, noting her current responsibilities meld her marketing degree, boarding operations experience, dog training expertise and the 27 years she spent as a business owner. “They’ve offered me a lot because of my diverse background and I’m very fortunate that VetEvolve sees those things, because a lot of companies wouldn’t. I probably could not be doing this same thing with my passion in too many other places.”
Lisa loves the spirit of teamwork throughout VetEvolve and the ability to work across multiple locations to train and educate team members so they have confidence handling dogs properly.
“It’s so important to me that the folks around me can excel. When they feel confidence, they will exude that to the client,” she said.
Ultimately, Lisa said her happiness and job satisfaction at VetEvolve come from feeling appreciated and working with like-minded people toward delivering an excellent customer experience for their clients.
“Knowing that I’m in a company that wants you as an individual to grow is so vital,” she said. “Being recognized for what you know, that’s pretty powerful.”
