Joel Pond is the VSPN Featured Moderator this month!

VSPN is an information site for veterinary technicians.  Joel hos been a moderator there for some time.  He shares his knowledge and experience with fellow veterinary technicians this way.

Joel Pond, CVTJoel Pond, CVT, has been involved with zoos in various capacities since 1968, including volunteer programs during high school and college and his hire as Lincoln Park Zoo’s first zoo veterinary technician in 1976. He became a Certified Veterinary Technician in 1979.  He has worked in private practice, emergency practice (human and veterinary) and as a hematology technician and supervisor in a commercial veterinary clinical laboratory. He is a consultant for Idexx Veterinary Laboratories providing clinical pathology (urinalysis, hematology, cytology, and parasitology) in-services to local veterinary practices. He recently retired from Lincoln Park Zoo after over 40 years there. After retirement he worked part-time in a local veterinary practice, (The Royal Treatment Veterinary Center) that uses an integrative approach to veterinary medicine that includes both holistic, Eastern and Western medicine. He is currently working at Chicago Exotics Animal Hospital in Skokie, Illinois as a certified veterinary technician.
As one of three certified veterinary technicians, Pond was responsible for maintaining the zoo animal hospital’s veterinary facilities and assisting with veterinary procedures. 

Since the beginning of his career he has been active in veterinary technician associations, beginning with his home state of Illinois. In 1981 he co-founded the Association of Zoo Veterinary Technicians, now an international organization of zoo veterinary technicians. He is a past executive director of the AZVT, continues to serve on several committees, and is a Life Member. He has served as a Board member of the Veterinary Laboratory Association. He is a clinical pathology moderator for VSPN in his spare time. 

Joel has lectured on clinical pathology and zoo technology topics at meetings in North America including the AVMA, Illinois State Veterinary Medical Association, Canadian Association of Animal Health Technicians, Association of Zoo Veterinary Technicians, North American Veterinary Conference, Western States Veterinary Conference, Eastern States Veterinary Conference, and a host of other local venues. Pond also participates in the Peregrine Falcon Banding Project in Northeastern Illinois in collaboration with the Field Museum of Natural History.  He also participated in the Chimpanzee Health Monitoring Program at Gombe National Park in Tanzania, where he assisted in training some of the Park staff in parasitology. Earlier he and another technician examined over one thousand preserved chimpanzee fecal samples collected at Gombe. He gives frequent lectures to allied health organizations, veterinary clinics, and veterinary technician groups on topics of veterinary clinical pathology. 

Joel’s hobbies are nature/animal photography and historical re-enacting, which often allows him to do both at once.  One of his photographic specialties was the use of urine as an art medium, which is his featured picture here on the right (Sahar lion urine). He is a Civil War re-enactor mostly portraying a surgeon and also portrays an earlier and often ignored part of American history as an Indentured Servant broker.

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