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Brandy Nicoll
RVT
Brandy has been employed by the Medical Center for Birds since May 2004. She is a Registered Veterinary Technician and is our lead technician and supervisor. Brandy's favorite birds are budgies, African Greys, and Queen of Bavaria conures. At home Brandy has two dogs and a few birds, like "Domini" pictured with Brandy in this photo. Brandy is a graduate of the Veterinary Technician program at Western Career College. Outside of work Brandy enjoys running with her dog "Liebe," as well as adventuring and teaching her daughter about animals.
Brandy loves anesthesia and anything in the lab including hematology and cytology. Brandy has taught members of our team how to read CBCs as well as lecturing on the topic of hematology (among other topics) to several conferences including the Association of Avian Veterinarians, Wild West Veterinary Conference, and North American Veterinary Conference. If your bird has ever had blood drawn at MCFB there's a good chance it was read by Brandy! Brandy is an active part of the Association of Avian Veterinarians (AAV) and has been the Lab Coordinator Assistant for 12 years. This year Brandy is the President of the Technician Committee for AAV, where she helps to plan the technician track of the conference and all of the behind the scenes work to help technicians learn about working with birds in the veterinary hospital.
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Shellie Dominguez
RVT
Shellie has been employed by the Medical Center for Birds since 2008, although she started volunteering with us in 2006. She is a Registered Veterinary Technician and also fills in to help the receptionists occasionally. Shellie got her license in 1996 but has been working in the veterinary field since 1990, including Cypress Veterinary Hospital, Brentwood Family Pet Hospital, and East Bay Veterinary Emergency. Providing all of the care and treatments needed for hospitalized patients in her part of her job.
Her favorite types of birds to work with are poultry and wildlife. Shellie has two birds of her own, a finch named "Valentino" and a black-capped caique named "Bappy."
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Melody Hennigh
RVT, KPA-CPT
Melody has been employed by the Medical Center for Birds since April 2008. She is a Registered Veterinary Technician and Certified Trainer. She is the founder of Busy Beaks Academy, a training service that works closely with us at the Medical Center for Birds. Melody has completed Susan Friedman's Learning and Living with Animals course and Steve Martin's training workshop at NEI, Natural Encounters, Inc, where she received hands on training and the opportunity to work with many different species of birds including her training partner, Logan the pied crow. Melody is a graduate of the Karen Pryor Academy in 2013, where she received her certification as a positive reinforcement trainer. Melody has enjoyed many training adventures with dogs, including a puppy training program with inmates at Valley State Prison. Although Melody loves teaching dogs and other furry animals, teaching birds is her passion.
Busy Beaks Academy offers group classes and private sessions in person or online via Zoom. Classes vary in topics from medication training, towel training, and foraging. Busy Beaks Academy has recently started offering webinars and many more services! To find out more, visit the Busy Beaks Academy section or the website.
Melody has a small flock of her own, including Sage and Alberto, shown in this picture. Sage and Alberto are skilled teachers when it comes to low-stress toweling and restraint, medication training, and many more husbandry and enrichment behaviors! In 2018 Sage even attended ClickerExpo, a positive reinforcement/clicker training conference, in San Diego and flew to Atlanta, GA, to teach veterinarians about low-stress veterinary care at ExcoticsCon with the Association of Avian Veterinarians. Also in Melody's flock are her Yellow-Naped Amazon, two goffin's cockatoos, a border collie, toddler, and two cats.
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Nick Kobierski
RVT Manager
Nick started at Medical Center For Birds back in 2008 as a Kennel Technician. He loved working with Avian species so much that he decided to go to school and became a Registered Veterinary Technician in 2012. Nick then decided to pursue another career from 2018-2020 and during that time figured out MCFB is where he truly wanted to be for his career. Nick is now the Veterinary Technician Manager at Medical Center For Birds.
He is married to Arianna who is the MCFB Practice Manager and together they have 2 children, 3 dogs, 1 cat, 6 birds, and many reptiles and fish. Their birds are all rescues including three 40(ish) year old macaws named Harriet, Red Fred, and Petie, an African Grey named Mickey, a Jardine's parrot named Emi, and a pigeon named Sunny. In his off time Nick loves caring for his animals, fishing, and spending time with his kids and wife.
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Sara Hawkins
RVT
Sara has been employed by the Medical Center for Birds since July 2009. She is a Registered Veterinary Technician. Sara has a shepherd mix names Ivy, an African Grey named Dylan, and a new Conure rescue soon to be named. You will always find Sara in a variety of colorful scrubs and fancy socks.
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Natalie Martinez
RVT
Natalie Martinez joined us September 2017 as a kennel assistant. Natalie completed her Veterinary Technician program at Carrington College in January of 2020 and now holds her Registered Veterinary Technician license.
She is a cockatiel lover and has four cockatiels and 2 canaries in her flock, all adopted from MCFB. Pictured with her here is her first cockatiel, "Wall-E." Natalie is joining us as a technician and especially enjoys learning and assisting with radiographic and surgical procedures.
Natalie is an expert when it comes to enrichment for our patients and boarders and enjoys target training, also. We are very excited to have Natalie on our team and joining us as a technician!
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Julie Dinsdale
Veterinary Technician
Julie Dinsdale joined us December 2017. Julie has nearly 20 years Veterinary Technician experience.
Her love for animals does not stop here as she shares her home with ducks, chickens, mini goats, cats, a border collie, a bunny and saltwater fish!
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Faith McClure
Technician Assistant
Bio coming soon!
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