Rene Vasquez has been the Director of Fort Bend County Animal Services (FBCAS) since January 2015. He has been with FBCAS for 25 years and has contributed to the care and well-being of animals in the community.
He began his career as a kennel technician before being promoted to a field officer, a position he excelled in for many years. In 2011, he was appointed as the Assistant Director for Animal Services and served well in his role.
Taking over as Director, Rene inherited a less than 30% save rate for the pets in the shelter. Knowing that it was time to move the shelter towards becoming a lifesaving facility, he began a series of initiatives almost immediately, which included a larger social media presence, increase in adoption events, creating a responsible pet ownership program geared towards school children and reaching out to national organizations at conferences to help FBCAS in its lifesaving efforts.
Over the last six years, through the implementation of programs like Dogs Playing for Life and especially the Community Cat Program, the save rate for FBCAS has steadily increased and the shelter has maintained a 90% or more save rate since August 2018. Since June, 2018 we have saved over 3600 community cats. He was also instrumental in forming Fort Bend PAWS (Pets Are Worth Saving) a 501c3 non-profit organization benefiting the shelter and sits on their Board of Directors.
Like all other shelters, FBCAS needed to shift to a new mode of operations with the advent of COVID-19 last year. In early March we moved to curbside services, increased our foster base, instituted a finder-to-foster program and two successful home delivery programs, Dog Dash and Kuber (kitty uber). During this time we were also fortunate to be chosen as a second tier pilot shelter for the HASS Program (Humane Animal Support Services).
Moving forward with the help of grant funding by organizations like the Petco Foundation, Maddie’s Fund, ASPCA and the Petfinder Foundation, we are striving to create a more community- focused shelter by creating an intake diversion program, low-cost spay and neuter, pet food and microchip programs.
Rene has worked and trained with Health and Human Services to prevent the spread of rabies as well as preparing for any natural disasters that may put animals in danger.
In his spare time, Rene enjoys managing his two daughter’s softball teams in Needville and sits on the Board of Directors for the Needville Little League and Needville High School Booster Club.
He also appreciates any opportunity he can take to go fishing with his wife and children. Rene and his family share their home with their four dogs, five cats, a parrot, and an African-spurred tortoise. Their animals always make school presentations a blast for the kids!