Our Team
The American Wild Horse Foundation is made up of team of gracious and talented people from throughout the country.
Jenn Suarez
FOUNDER
Jenn has had a successful career in the for-profit sector. Her work has ranged from creating and implementing global strategies for Fortune 100’s to helping start-ups build strategies, create infrastructures and launch. Her expertise is building the successful vision and bringing it to life. She has brought this expertise to several national wild horse non-profits to help fix their operations and be more successful in their mission. Through her immersion into the issues facing wild horses, she deeply understands what is needed to ensure our wild horse heritage is not lost. Her legacy work is to save America’s wild horses in a way that embraces for-profit best practices, provides safekeeping of both our horses and the land, and can be financially sustained for generations. It is a model that will be freely shared.
Iva Peele
Education & Programs Director
Iva has a unique and multi-faceted career focusing on teaching and development. Her work includes creating successful community and after-school programs, a specific focus for AWHF. She also uses art as a teaching medium through photography, and award winning documentary films. Iva skillfully weaves together history, hands-on experiential learning, and storytelling. Her specialty and passions are at the juncture of history, discovery and connection to horse and/or nature. Her work will bring to life the AWHF’s mission of curating the history of the land, history of our wild horses, and creating a range of experiences for everyone to reconnect to nature, the horses, and their own wild spirit.
Shelly Martin
Wildness & Well-Being Director
Shelly has whispered with horses for her entire life, excelling in every horse forum. For the last decade, she has used her horse wisdom to help humans connect and partner with horses. She holds a world champion cutting horse title and ran a successful training business that included helping two clients become world champions. She is a recognized natural horse trainer and equine coach. She has won the trust and respect of horses in all horse/human communities. She adds to this an innate gift of understanding a business practicality for managing (financially and responsibly) equine operations that include wild horses. She managed almost 500 wild horses for a national sanctuary where she significantly reduced costs while increasing the horses’ quality of life. Shelly will bring all of her talents to ensure that our horse and land operations are healthy, wild and well cared-for.
