DawnWatch Team

DAWNWATCH BOARD

Karen Dawn
DawnWatch Founder, President and Executive Director

Born in the US, Karen Dawn grew up and studied in Australia and studied Science at the University of NSW. Immediately after college she worked as a news researcher and writer for various Australian publications and on ABC’s nightly news magazine, “The 7:30 Report.” She moved to New York in the 1990s where she worked in personal fitness, performed live music at clubs such as the Bitter End and CBs, and spent Sundays preparing food at the Saint Francis of Xavier soup kitchen. Vegetarian since her teens, as Karen learned more about the industrialized abuse of animals by human society, she was moved to devote herself full time to helping them.

Karen founded the animal advocacy media watch DawnWatch.com in 1999. (Almost two decades later it became a nonprofit organization.) As a spokesperson for the animal rights movement she has appeared on all of the major news networks, most frequently, though not exclusively, at Thanksgiving, discussing DawnWatch’s annual Thanksgiving turkey rescue. She hosted the the radio show Watchdog, which ran for two seasons on the Los Angeles Pacifica station, KPFK. She served on the Genesis Awards voting committee from 2001-2014. Her opinion pieces have been published in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Newsday and the UK Guardian, and she has written for The Progressive Magazine and blogged for the Huffington Post. She is a contributor to ‘Terrorists or Freedom Fighters: Reflections on the Liberation of Animals” a 2004 anthology edited by Steve Best and Anthony Nocella, and to “In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave,” edited by Peter Singer. Her first book, Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals, was published by Harper Collins in 2008. The Washington Post included it on a list as one of the best books of the year. It is a general handbook for animal advocacy, which gives background information on any of the issues covered by DawnWatch. The fully updated e-edition came out in 2014. A fully updated second edition is in the works.

Bruce Friedrich –  Secretary
(And acting Treasurer for 2024)

Bruce Friedrich is executive director of The Good Food Institute (GFI) and founding partner of New Crop Capital (NCC), organizations focused on replacing animal products with plant and culture-based alternatives. He has spent over two decades working for non profits in the animal advocacy world, including as Senior Policy Director for Farm Sanctuary’s policy and litigation efforts, where he initiated the “Someone, Not Something” project. Bruce graduated magna cum laude, Order of the Coif, from the Georgetown University Law Center and holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the London School of Economics. He is a TED Fellow, and frequent contributor of opinion pieces to major newspapers including the Wall Street Journal.

Frances Gonzales

Frances Gonazales founded VegFest Puerto Rico and  is a vice president of the Puerto Rico’s Misfits Pet Foundation. She is a wine industry professional, who coordinates events for “Women of the Vine & Spirits,” which supports women in the wine industry.  As the founder and president of  “Vegan Wines,” Frances has been enthusiastically supporting DawnWatch ever since we became a nonprofit and has been involved in all of the DawnWatch fundraisers and in 2023 we officially welcomed her on board.

Josh Garrett

Josh Garrett hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches 2650 miles from Mexico to Canada, in 59 days, setting a record in 2013 for the fastest known time. He did it, in his words, “to call attention to the unnecessary suffering on factory farms and in slaughterhouses, unnecessary because a plant-based diet provides everything we need for strength and endurance.” Those words were quoted in media sources from National Public Radio, to USA Today, to the Los Angeles Times, to the front page of the Oregonian, the cover of the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle Sports Section, and on KNX Los Angeles where he was the KNX hero of the week.
Josh has a Master’s degree in Exercise Science from CSU Northridge and has taught Kinesiology and Nutrition at California State University LA. He has coached high school football,  and coached track and cross country at Santa Monica College. He has a wealth of vegan nutrition knowledge and unparalleled physical experience to back it up, as well as extraordinary experience with major media. We are excited to add him to the DawnWatch board, in 2024, to oversee all things diet.

Laura Keats 

Laura Keats is a television producer who specializes in reality TV. She has produced various animal friendly shows and is the co-executive producer of the hit series Pit Bulls and Paroles, which ran for 19 seasons on Animal Planet through 2023, and is now enjoyed in reruns. Vegan and involved in animal rescue, Laura sits on the DawnWatch board in order to help make those values reflected more and more in the major media.

Karen O’Connell

Karen O’Connell is the business manager for Mutts, the internationally distributed comic strip that amuses millions of fans while also covering all aspects of animal advocacy, from dogs kept on chains through factory farming. With that animal advocacy pedigree, plus having worked for a decade as a consulting marketing specialist for IMB, she is an extraordinary fit for the DawnWatch board, to which we are thrilled to welcome her in 2024.

Jack Stephenson — Treasurer/Chief Financial Officer. 
(On hiatus for 2024) 

DawnWatch Chief Financial Officer/Treasurer Jack Stephenson has 25 years’ of experience working at the intersection of financial services, technology and innovation. He has held top tier positions at McKinsey, PayPal and JP Morgan Chase and since 2014 has been at the global payment technology solutions company, First Data, where he is responsible for strategy, partnerships and client solutions in digital commerce and mobile payments.

Jack has served on the boards of the San Francisco Aids Foundation, the Center for Market Innovation at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. He also has two decades experience working with leading environmental NGOs focused on international biodiversity conservation and climate change issues.

Cathy Larson – Accountant

We are grateful to have the volunteer services of Cathy Larson, who holds an MBA and a Master’s Degree in Accounting from the University of West Florida.  She is a Certified Managerial Accountant, a Certified Financial Manager and a Certified Government Finance Officer.   She spent 4 years as a nonprofit accountant at the United Way and 7 years at the South Carolina Education Association.  She and her 4 rescue cats recently relocated to Florida.