Wayne Pacelle
President & CEO, The Humane Society of the United States

Wayne Pacelle is the president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Mr. Pacelle took office June 1, 2004 after serving for nearly 10 years as the organization's chief lobbyist and spokesperson.

Under his leadership, HSUS has focused an increasing amount of energy and resources on farmed animals. In 2004, Pacelle helped engineer a merger of The HSUS and The Fund for Animals, with the combined organization now constituting one of the largest animal protection charities in the world.

Since 1990, Mr. Pacelle has directed more than 15 successful statewide ballot measure campaigns. Those successes include initiatives to ban the use of bait and dogs in hunting bears, cougars, and bobcats in Colorado (Amendment 10 in 1992), Massachusetts (Question One in 1996), Oregon (Measure 18 in 1994), and Washington (Initiative 655 in 1996); to ban the use of cruel traps in California (Proposition 4 in 1998), Colorado (Amendment 14 in 1996), Massachusetts (Question One in 1996), and Washington (Initiative 713 in 2000); to outlaw cockfighting in Arizona (Proposition 201 in 1998), Missouri (Proposition A in 1998), and Oklahoma (State Question 698 in 2002); and to outlaw the use of gestation crates for housing pregnant pigs (Amendment 10 in 2002).

He also led successful campaigns to defeat ballot measures hostile to animal protection in California (Proposition 197 in 1996), Oregon (Measure 34 in 1994), Arizona (Proposition 201 in 2000), and Oklahoma (State Question 698 in 2002). He has overseen the collection of more than 5 million signatures and has helped to raise more than $10 million for the campaigns mentioned above. Pacelle has served on the national advisory board for the Initiative and Referendum Institute, and is a frequent speaker on the initiative and referendum process. He has worked for the passage of countless state laws to protect animals and more than a dozen federal statutes to protect animals, and has also been the architect of a large number of amendments to halt funding for programs to harm animals.

Mr. Pacelle is chairman and founder of Humane USA, the non-partisan political arm of the animal protection movement. Humane USA works to elect humane-minded candidates to political office and has worked on candidate campaigns around the nation. Humane USA was instrumental in 2004 in defeating Rep. Chris John's effort to win a U.S. Senate seat in Louisiana.

Prior to joining The HSUS, Mr. Pacelle served as the executive director of The Fund for Animals. Pacelle also served as associate editor and, later, president of the board for The Animals' Agenda magazine, and as an instructor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge Training Academy. He also served or currently served on the board of the Foundation for the Advancement of Veterinary Research, The HSUS Wildlife Land Trust, Humane Society International, and a number of other boards.