Meet Our Board of Directors

Jen Klika

President

Term: 10/1/2019 - Present

Jen Klika has been involved with UMGDR since 2016 when she helped a close friend adopt their first Great Dane.  Since then, she has been an active volunteer helping with both transportation, home visits, and expanding fundraising events in Wisconsin.  In 2018 Jen took on the role of one of UMGDR’s Transport Coordinators and has been helping ever since to arrange the transport of Great Danes in the rescue across the territory.  That summer she took the leap into fostering with Lurch.  She was hooked and soon after worked with the memorable Jada who was blind with a huge personality and recently the sweet and sassy Finley.  Jen enjoys the challenge of helping them gain confidence and setting them up for success in their forever homes.  Even though it is hard to let go....  In 2019, Jen wanted to find new ways to help behind the scenes and began helping the Director of Foster Homes.  Her personal motto is to be relentlessly optimistic in all she does – including rescue and looks forward to continuing to be a part of the UMGDR Family! 

Jen currently lives in Madison, WI (which is strangely enough found in Dane County) with Maymay the German Shedder, and Hurricane Hilde aka The Potato (also a Great Dane).

Michelle Gorman

Secretary

Term: 04/01/2023 - 03/31/2025

Michelle has been a member of UMGDR since 2015 when she first adopted Mabel from the rescue. Like her husband has said she never settles, go big or go home. She first started volunteering with

transportation and home visits. She has helped with the Indiana dogs and South Dakota pups to road trip to transport them back to rescue with another volunteer. When she saw the plea for the need for a reference checker and placement coordinator, she thought she can help with that also. She volunteered for both and continues to do both. She has help cover other areas as reference checker until they can get coverage and will take on extra dogs as placement coordinator in her queue to help the rescue. She

helped organize the first online auction for fundraising with the help of others that raised over $11K. Now Callie runs successfully for the rescue, but she still assists the fundraising team. Her husband Rich is the one that has always wanted a Great Dane, but little did he know they would have two or more at most times. Bailey was their first Great Dane; she was a severe epileptic but the best Dane ever. They rescued Gracie from MN WI Rescue, and she lost her battle. They than rescued Mabel with UMGDR and was adopted out but passed from osteosarcoma.

Currently she resides in Champlin, Minnesota with her husband of 36 years. They have two adult sons who live in the twin cities with their families. They have 2 granddaughters, a grandson and one on the way this summer. Currently they have Sammy 4 ½ Blue and Marley the brindle (one of Harriet Sue) potato litter pups 2 1/2yrs.

lori ann johnson-nagy

Director of Home Visits and adoptions

Term: 04/01/2023 - 03/31/2025

Lori Anne Johnson-Nagy has been involved with UMGDR since early 2019 when she took in her first foster and first-ever Dane Ridley. Since then, she has been an active volunteer helping with transportation, home visits, and fostered 6 Danes before failing on George, the sweet deaf puppy. Fostering taught her how important proper breeding is, as two of the 6 fosters were double merles. Loving animals and having worked with other rescues prior to working with UMGDR, she saw how easy dogs, especially Danes, can be misunderstood and how important time, training and LOVE is to the breed.

Lori Anne currently lives in Richfield, MN with her husband Sandor, George the Great Dane, Ursa, the Great Pyrnees, Sulu the Vizsla and Velcro wanna be, Rhaegar the Platinum Mau kitty and Bilbo the other cat. She enjoys running competitively and traveling around the world. She works as an expert stylist at Lili in the Galleria.

Melodie Smith

Director of Intake

Term: 05/1/2022 - Present

Melodie has been involved in the animal rescue world since 2015 when she took in her first foster. She joined the UMGDR team in 2020 when her family fostered, fell in love with, and ultimately adopted their first Great Dane, Ranger. Since then, she has been an active volunteer, attending adoption or other outreach events in the community, assisting with transports, and has fostered two special needs Great Danes.

Melodie loves working relentlessly to find soft-landing spots for dogs in need. She also enjoys being a self-appointed dog/human match maker for her family, co-workers, and friends whenever possible. In addition to volunteering, Melodie is an Operations Manager for a large insurance company. She loves her job and is extremely passionate about helping people, so she considers her rescue work and educating the public about the importance of adopting from a rescue whenever possible an extension of that.

Melodie lives on a farm in central Iowa with her husband, two children, and various animal friends.

Pauline Schmidt

Treasurer

Term: 09/11/23 - 8/31/25

Pauline has been a volunteer with UMGDR since 2019. She first started volunteering with transportation, fostering and has helped with public events to represent UMGDR.

She has always loved the breed and has had Great Danes for many years and is known as “those Great Dane people” in the town of Charles City, Iowa along with her husband Bryan. Where they have raised 2 boys (Craig and Alex) who are now raising their own families. Even before joining the rescue, she had taken in Danes locally that needed a home, having up to 4 at one time. In 2019, she responded to a plea to foster a dog who was being returned to the rescue, Jericho shortly came into her life to not only warming her heart but also her couch. After adopting Jericho to her family with her current Dane (Lexi Lou), she continues to help transport and foster, while hoping to grow the volunteers by attending events with her current fosters and sharing their stories.

Pauline is a CPA and works as the Financial Controller for McKenna Pro, which is a professional photograph lab. She has provided banners for events with the rescues new logo and showcasing foster/adopted dogs. Being original from Canada her and her family enjoy vacationing at their cottage in northern Quebec every summer. There at the lake is where she was able to teach her Dane, (Tache) to swim with a pool noodle and a bungy cord. Being able to travel with all her Danes has never been a question. So, when she walked in a Car Dealership showroom to see if one could stand up in a new SUV, no one was surprised, except the sales person. Since joining the rescue, she grateful for all the volunteers that have help her learn about caring for rescued dogs, and this also has allowed her to meet and help the public understand rescued dogs and the needs they have.

Pauline says, “I look forward to serving UMGDR as a member of the board and helping in such a worthy cause.”

Emily Sawall
Director of Foster Homes

Term: 04/01/2023–03/31/2025

Emily found UMGDR in the summer of 2020 while searching for a Great Dane to add to her pack. One of her core passions is animals and she began volunteering as the plea writer and learned a ton through the fostering experience. She was blessed in November of 2020 to add one of the puppies in rescue, Pixie (white girl), to her brood, which also includes 2 other rescue dogs, Brutus and Oliver. Her day job includes working full-time as a technical training manager with Thermo Fisher Scientific and coaching the local swim team part-time. She is married 18 years and has 2 teenage boys to keep her busy at home. She spends the majority of her free time training for triathlons and other endurance races and is super proud to be called an Ironman.

SONYA MALVICK

Director of Transport

Term: 04/1/23 - 09/30/24

Sonya has been involved with UMGDR since November 2020 when she first adopted Moose from the rescue. Little did she know that it was just the start of her involvement. Sonya first started volunteering as a transporter and then slowly joined the transport team. She worked under Matthew eventually taking on the role of Lead Transport Coordinator in 2022. Most recently, Sonya jumped in to help with home visits when a call went out for help.

Sonya has had a passion for Danes since meeting her sister’s first Dane, Titus, a Blu back in the early 2000’s. Her sister used to joke that her Danes loved Sonya more and always were excited when she came to visit. For years Sonya longed for a Great Dane and eventually found her way to the UMGDR website, and the rest is history.

Sonya lives in Waukesha, WI with her husband Ron and dogs Blue (Weimaraner) and Moose. She has a 24-year-old son Hunter who lives in the area. Ron is always eager to help with fundraising events like the Pet Expo and is a huge support to Sonya and the rescue efforts.

Director of Fundraising (open position)

Director of marketing (OPEN POSITION)