Equine Manager and Instructor

Nickole Aubuchon

PATH CTRI

I started riding horses when I was 10 years old on a family camping trip to Yosemite. I never gave horses much thought before that, but I haven’t been able to quit thinking about them since then. I showed hunter/jumpers as a teenager and worked as a wrangler on a dude ranch in California. I quit riding when I graduated high school and went into the Air Force where I spent the next ten years traveling all over the world. I wasn’t around horses again until 2009 when I started volunteering at a therapeutic riding center for their veterans group. I was hooked from the first day. I volunteered, became a barn worker, moved on to training the therapy horses and got certified as an instructor in 2013. Nothing gives me more joy than being able to teach people how to gain confidence from horses. I currently own four horses. Three of them are retired therapy horses who are living the good life with me in Black Forest. I also have a dressage horse who I hope to compete, that I train and board in Larkspur. I am also a certified equine massage therapist. When I’m not with horses, I enjoy hiking, reading and spending time with my husband and dog.

Programs Manager

Danielle Braman

Clinical Manager, Occupational Therapist, MSOT, AHA

I am super excited to join the team at Promise Ranch! Ever since I was little, I have wanted to “do therapy on horses”. Having the opportunity to work with clients AND horses is a dream come true! I am an Ohio native. I attended graduate school in St Louis at Washington University in St Louis.

I worked at my other dream job, “St Jude Children’s Research Hospital” in Memphis, TN where I met my husband. We moved to Colorado in 2016.  I have additional certifications in Neurodevelopmental Treatment (NDT) and Yoga Therapy which I incorporate into my therapy.  When not working, I enjoy spending time outdoors with my husband, daughter and puppy.

Operations & Volunteer Manager

Miriam Dudley

Miriam comes to Promise Ranch with over 20 years of experience in horseback riding and equine care. Her experience as a volunteer at a Therapeutic Riding center and a Horse Rescue will provide a common perspective for our volunteers as she paves the way for our expanding programs. As a team player with strong communication skills, her experience includes administrative tasks, customer communication, and management. Miriam earned her BA degree in International Business Communication from AKAD University Stuttgart, Germany.

Equine Advisor, Veterinarian

Dr. Mindy Smith, DVM, cVMA

Dr. Mindy Smith, originally from a small fishing town in Alaska, developed an interest in horses there despite the island having only one pony. She moved to California to pursue her veterinary education, where she graduated magna cum laude from Pacific Union College with a Bachelor’s degree in biology. She then attended University of California, Davis, earning her doctor of veterinary medicine in 2016. While in vet school, she worked as a large animal critical care technician in the teaching hospital, participated in pain management research in horses, and served as president of the student chapters of the AAEP and the Society for Theriogenology. She has since served as the Equine Field Services intern at Colorado State University.

Dr. Smith enjoys general equine practice but has a special passion for sports medicine, rehabilitation and integrative medicine. She is certified in veterinary acupuncture and looks forward to future chiropractic training. In her free time, she loves spending it in the outdoors with her husband (another native Alaskan), her two greyhounds and her ex-racehorse “Jack”.

Volunteer Advisor

Noanie Sullivan

Noanie comes to Promise Ranch with over 25 years of experience as a senior instructional systems designer and performance solutions architect creating engaging, award-winning web-based, instructor-led, and blended solutions for federal and military agencies. She also spent seven years as the marketing manager and educational consultant responsible for the creation and execution of ITE’s product programs in US, Canada, and the English-speaking Caribbean, to include: management of marketing activities, business development/channel distribution expansion, administrative management (i.e., establish and monitor internal workflows, interface with customers and resellers), and technical support management for educational hardware and software training systems.

Noanie is putting her technical skills to use at PRTR in website design and support of the ranch’s volunteer database. Her motivation to move to Colorado from Northern Virginia a few years ago is shown in the accompanying photo.

Legal Advisor

Jeff Edelman

I was born in the Bronx in the shadow of Yankee Stadium and eventually moved to the suburbs of Long Island, New York. I went to the University of Cincinnati and received a Bachelor of Business Administration. I then went to New England Law School in Boston and received my Juris Doctorate degree. After law school, I went to North Dakota to work for the Native Americans and the five affiliated tribes in North Dakota. While in North Dakota, I was able to purchase a horse and learn to ride.

A year later, I moved to Denver and worked for Legal Aid for a year before opening my solo practice. During this period of time, I handled all types of cases, including family law, criminal law, and general civil law.

I also volunteered to help indigent people to work out their divorces and to represent poor people in criminal matters. For a period of time, I also worked at the volunteer desk at Channel 9 News for a program called Call-in-Lawyer.

In addition to my law practice, I have three children. One is 28 years old and graduated pre-med from the University of Colorado and two other children, one of whom was adopted from Siberia is 21 years old and another child adopted from a small eastern city in the Ukraine is 18 and a half years old. I have some experience in the field of developmentally disabled children, having raised two.

I look forward to working with Promise Ranch as a volunteer Board member to assist in those issues typically relegated to a board and to pursue grants that are available to help fund a non-profit organization such as Promise Ranch as well as to represent them in matters