DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) — The Montgomery County Animal Resource Center (ARC) will soon find itself under new leadership as a new director has been chosen to lead the facility.

A release from Montgomery County identifies the new upcoming ARC director as Amy Bohardt.

The new director of the ARC will be taking over for the current director, Bob Gruhl. Bohardt has held the position of Shelter Manager at the animal shelter for the past 4 years, but has been with the county for 16 years in several different positions.

Michael Colbert is the county administrator for Montgomery County and says Amy has been a beneficial part to the shelter over the past few years to implement change.

“Amy is organized and determined. She played a huge part in building new processes and creating a great new team for our ARC,” Colbert said. “She worked hand-in-hand with Bob Gruhl to implement the Team Shelter USA recommendations that helped our ARC become what it is today. She is incredibly capable of leading the ARC.”

Gruhl is retiring on Tuesday, Feb. 28 after being employed with Montgomery County for 31 years. He has been with the shelter since he was selected to become interim director after the county decided to move in a different leadership direction from the director before Gruhl, following recommendations from Team Shelter USA.

Colbert says Gruhl made significant changes in increasing the live release rate of the animals during a difficult path.

“Bob led ARC staff through a turbulent time,” Colbert said. “His leadership resulted in the kennel’s live release rates increasing from 50% to 88. The ARC was also awarded the Ohio County Dog Warden’s Association 2020 Agency of the Year.”

Team Shelter USA is an outside consulting firm, which ran an evaluation process in and released its’ recommendations for change after the evaluation in 2018. The third-party firm was sent to the ARC to see how the facility ran and eventually made several recommendations for change, which the county was able to review and enact some of those changes.

The release goes on to say both Bohardt and Gruhl have enacted “national best practices” in the categories of animal care and control.