DALE PICARD

CO-FOUNDER  & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
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Dale comes from a large farming family in the northern part of Maine. When he was nineteen, he left for Connecticut with a high school friend and found work in the iron industry. He also found his soon-to-be bride, Lu. They were soon married and had two daughters while traveling for Dale’s iron work.  Four years later, Dale and Lu came back to Connecticut and began working for his brother-in-law’s highly successful software company. While Lu loved her position managing the warehouse and distribution, Dale dreamed of having his own business. In the years to follow, Dale would own and operate two very successful delis in the Granby, CT area and start his own landscaping business. However, when Lu’s father came to live with them, her passion for educating both children and dogs to help people living with disabilities became his own. In 1995, Dale began converting their home in Torrington, CT into kennels and office space, repurposing materials from the existing structures. He did this, not knowing that his hand-built space would transform into the volunteer and awareness hub that is the present-day Laura J. Niles Breeding and Volunteer Center. Dale has made ECAD his supreme labor of love, and continues to do so each day.

LU PICARD

CO-FOUNDER & DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS
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Prior to founding ECAD, Lu helped several businesses in their startup efforts and gained experience in business and administration. Though a native of Connecticut, Lu has also lived in Arizona and traveled the country extensively.  When Lu’s widowed father suffered a debilitating stroke in 1992 and came to live with them, she quickly recognized that he was becoming more depressed and angry, as he had to rely on someone else for his every move. Lu has a gift of being able to assess the possibilities, the potential of a situation. So, she looked at her Dad, and she looked at the family dog, Jules (short for Juliet.) The leash was in her hand. She pulled, Jules pulled, natural to both woman and dog. Within a short time, Lu had educated Jules to respond to her Dad’s tug by pulling him up to his feet. Then they would walk together. Or maybe Jules would retrieve a favorite magazine or just lie nearby, inseparable from Lu’s dad. To complete the picture that was forming in Lu’s mind, she found that her daughter, who had a learning disability, had no trouble in training Jules to do more and more things that would help her grandfather. In fact, the process was therapeutic and a great confidence builder. The stroke suffered by her father and the frustration her youngest daughter was feeling, drove Lu to find solutions.  And, ECAD was born out of that drive, passion and need.  Lu and her husband, Dale worked tirelessly researching, networking, following lead after lead to build ECAD into the organization it is now.  Lu sees every placement as a remarkable success for the Client, the student-educator and the organization.

LESLIE JOHNSON

DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST
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Leslie was introduced to the organization many years before her work with ECAD began.  While attending Quinnipiac University and majoring in Public Relations, she approached her classmate (Carrie Picard) to do an internship with ECAD as part of her coursework.  ECAD was just beginning then, but she saw the “immeasurable potential and worth in its mission”.  Ten years later, in 2012, when she returned to Connecticut after living in rural New Mexico for some time she re-introduced herself to the organization by volunteering for the Marketing, Development & Communications Department. A few short months later, she took on a full-time staff position in order to dedicate more time to furthering ECAD’s mission.  She loves that her work “contributes to improving the quality of life for both the Clients and the student-trainers” as well as her own.

CARRIE PICARD

DIR. MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
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Carrie is both an imaginative leader and a creative doer. She joined ECAD’s marketing department in 2010 when the department was in its earliest stage. Having worked for ten years in the corporate offices of Stop & Shop in Boston she had the experience and the skills needed to enable ECAD to expand even more. She transitioned to her current position in 2012. Carrie has played a dominant role in helping ECAD become a recognized force in the Service Dog field through a powerful, informative social media and public relations presence. Her team produces highly selective direct mail pieces and email blasts that highlight the lives of ECAD’s clients as well as the importance of the donors without whom ECAD could not exist. All material is designed in-house. These efforts result in ECAD meeting its’ annual operation budget. Carrie and her team are also capable of turning on a dime to meet all requests. "I love being the catalyst that brings those who want to help people with disabilities and those who need it together!"

She is a graduate of Quinnipiac University with a Bachelor’s Degree in International Business.

As the eldest daughter of ECAD co-founders Lu and Dale Picard, Carries takes pride in “seeing my parents’ passion becoming my own and being dually vested in the organization not only to further their dream but to further my own of being an advocate for people living with disabilities”.