Board of Directors

Diana Vance

President

Diana has been rescuing dogs since she was in high school and has been doing volunteer work to save lives ever since. She is the hub of Surfers for Strays in Southern California, managing airport pick-ups, fostering dogs, taking care of their medical needs, making sure donated supplies get to the Rescue Center in Mexico, and so much more. She's also a Middle School PE teacher. Diana loves spending time with her family of three dogs, three adult children with growing families of their own, including two grand babies and six grand dogs.

Minette Ozaki

Secretary and Treasurer

Minette lives in Del Mar, CA with her husband Andy and dogs Ellie and Ceviché. Dogs have been part of her family since early childhood. Andy and Minette started fostering dogs in 2015. After the loss of their dog to cancer, they weren’t ready for another full-time dog, but fostering helped fill the void and mend broken hearts. Since then, they have fostered more than 30 dogs. After graduating from UCSD, Minette worked as a research scientist at the Scripps Research Institute of Immunology. Minette gained her non-profit experience serving on the Board of the San Diego Mountain Biking Association. She currently works as the office manager in a chiropractic office. Her background in biology, massage therapy and holistic health care helps her manage the medical care for all the rescue dogs she works with. Minette also oversees and manages Surfers for Strays' remote volunteers, programs and many of the day-to-day decisions required for a small all-volunteer nonprofit to function. She loves traveling to explore new destinations to mountain bike and surf. Surfers for Strays has become the perfect outlet for her energy and interests.

Executive Director

Natalie Ritenour

Executive Director, Founder

Natalie is a surfing yogini that moved to Troncones in 2007 to teach yoga. She started surfing in 2009 and adopted her first cat Coco the same year. Those events radically changed the course of her life. After living in a kitty rescue center for four years she developed a network of people to help local street animals. In 2017, Surfers for Strays was formed. Natalie feels that improving the lives of suffering stray animals can help keep a symbiotic relationship with the beautiful nature of this region. It is something she can do to give back for all the waves that she has been blessed with. She teaches yoga at Yoga Del Pacifico (@YogaDelPacifico) in Manzanillo Bay and leads a yearly yoga and massage tour to Chiang Mai in Thailand (@ThailandWellnessAdventures).

Pack Leaders

Jenny Reyes

Zihuatanejo Rescue Center Manager

Jenny gained her vet tech experience through apprenticeships with our main veterinarians in Zihuatanejo, Ixtapa, and Troncones. She has worked tirelessly to save the lives of callajeros (strays) on the streets of Mexico for many years and has been working with Surfers for Strays since 2018. As the manager of the Surfers for Strays Zihuatanejo Rescue Center located in Barrio Limon, she provides a safe place to live, medical care, and food for 15-20 animals at a time. With her help, animals like Amarillo (in the photo) are now living their best lives!

Sandrine Provensal

Manager of the Surfers for Strays Headquarters

Sandrine is our dog whisperer from southern France. Her passion is working with local communities that don’t have enough resources. She helps provide services and education about the importance and benefits of spaying and neutering and proper health maintenance. From 2019 until 2022 she was the Troncones Rescue Center Manager. She is completely dedicated to making a difference for the strays in and around Troncones.

Eva Schwaizer

Communications Coordinator

Eva moved from Austria to the Rescue Center in November 2021 where she began as a short-term volunteer. She immediately fell in love with the organization, the people behind the scenes, and obviously the sweet mexi-mutt-furbears, so she decided to stay as a full-time volunteer after prolonging her stay multiple times. Previously working as a restaurant manager, patissiere and teacher, she finally found her passion and is now living the life of her dreams improving the wellbeing of animals. She brings all her energy, passion, and dedication to the project and loves everything that comes with it. After leading the groundwork and community outreach for a year she decided to continue her travels while staying loyal to SFS as a remote volunteer being responsible for communication, coordination and the social media accounts. This means juggling tons of messages from people seeking help. She has already spread her love to thousands of dogs and has a special place in her heart for dogs with behavioral issues. After adopting Saiya, one of her first rescues, she would like to continue adopting all the dogs that are considered "unadoptable" cases, but she can only do so much - maybe someone reading this is willing to help her in her dilemma and take on a special case dog?

Remote Volunteer Leadership

Else Macilroy

Google Workspace Administrator, Communications Advisor

Else first became involved with Surfers for Strays as the first Remote Summer Intern (and later Communications Coordinator) in 2020 when she was 15 years old. She quickly became immersed in several teams in the organization. Else led the 2021 website redesign and spearheaded an initiative to unify multiple data and communication systems. She loves having the opportunity to support the vision of a powerful group of women and meet, collaborate, and learn from people all over the world that are also passionate about helping animals and rural communities in Mexico. She first traveled to Troncones, Mexico with her family when she was seven; ten years later she returned on her first solo trip to finally visit the inspiring people she had worked with remotely throughout the pandemic. She lives in Seattle, Washington with her adorable dog, Paco, a Surfers for Strays alum, and Rose, a sweet calico cat from Seattle Humane who sparked her initial interest in animal shelters and adoption programs.