HTTL BOARD MEMBERS

Craig is an avid outdoorsman with a passion for fishing and hunting waterfowl. Craig fell in love with retriever field trials and hunt tests after acquiring his Labrador Retriever Blue. Craig’s love and passion for the retriever sports and his dog Blue has led him to share his passion with others. In 2020, Craig started Zoey’s Fowl Retrievers, where he builds advertisement pages and promotes top retriever studs and litters. Craig is also a strong supporter of our veterans. Wanting to help those who have served and share his passion for retrievers led to Craig’s Hero To The Line Project. Hero To The Line works to donate quality bred retrievers to the great men and women who have and currently are serving our country. The goal is to introduce our veterans to the life long love of waterfowl hunting and competitive retriever sports, giving them a new hobby as well as an additional support system.

Sara's love for animals began at a very young age. She is a Virginia native and raised and trained horses for over 20 years prior to working with dogs. 
Sara's love for animals and experience makes for the perfect blend to work with retrievers.
While Sara's focus is on Obedience training, she specializes in breeding and starting labradors for hunting and AKC/UKC tests.

Loosing her only son to suicide she knows how much her dogs played a roll in surviving the hardest time of her life. Hero to the line is the perfect way to give back and help save one life at a time.

Guy began his career by training started gun dogs for friends and running hunt tests a few years later. He now owns Anderson Kennels in Huntsville, Tx where has been training full-time for over 25 years. Guy has competed at all levels of UKC and AKC hunt tests, including the Grand. He spends a lot of time teaching clients and their dogs together. He prides himself in being of a dierent mindset than most pros in that he encourages clients to run their own dogs at hunt tests. He gives back to the sport by leading a group of kids each at the HRC Youth Camp every summer. Here, the boys and girls learn all about gun safety, obedience and running a mock hunt test. Participants that do not have a dog to learn with are provided one of the finished dogs he has on hand. His passion for veterans evolved out of a dog he trained, Hawkeye. This dog was owned by Navy Seal, JT Tomlinson, who was killed in action in Afghanistan. He remains close to JT’s family and owns Hawkeye’s ospring, Frog and Six. He was fortunate enough to provide a veteran with a puppy from Six, who continues to carry on Hawkeye and JT’s legacy through the Hero to the Line program.

Nicole began her passion in life with animals and has always loved the companionship of them.  Through many hardships’ dogs, in particular, have been the main focus of her own healing journey.  Nicole was lucky to marry her best friend and have 3 beautiful children to raise.  Nicole is a military spouse and knows the hardships that come with such a commitment.  Nicole's great passion is bringing healing and empowering to people who have been through stressful events, who have struggled with addiction, or who are looking for alternative ways to think.  Nicole founded her own private practice (Empowering Inner Strength, LLC) and is working towards Animal Assisted Therapy setting.  Through the volunteer work as a mental health/substance use advisor, Nicole is grateful to be part of this organization and bring as much awareness to the family and friends of military personal.  

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 Nicole is licensed in District of Columbia, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Justin Diercks is currently serving in the U.S. Army on active duty and is close to wrapping up his nearly 20 year career and plans to move back to the Midwest upon his completion of service to open his own kennel business.  He began his love for waterfowl at age 13 through a close friend and his father.  Through his love for dogs, labs specifically, began even younger.  Justin began training his own dog, Gauge, about 7 years ago.  What started off as just wanting a dog for hunting, quickly morphed into a journey that has not only taken them around the country hunting nearly every species of waterfowl there is, but has had them traveling all over the East Coast and Midwest chasing hunt tests while testing their training time and time again.  After putting many titles on Gauge to include a HRC Finished and Upland title along with the induction into the HRC 500 point club, an AKC Master Hunter and Master Hunter Upland title, he decided he wanted to pursue it further and has since gotten a few more dogs to train as well as helps others with their training through training days at local retriever clubs and those he has met along the way at hunt tests.  Justin has three passions in life; his family, his dogs, and helping veterans.  Through his volunteer work with The Fallen Outdoors (TFO) as well as the Hunting Retriever Club (HRC), he has been able to incorporate all three of his passions into one package.  In partnering with Hero To The Line, he is excited about this future endeavor of being able to pair deserving veterans and Gold Star families with a quality puppy to give them the same satisfaction of training their own dog to a level they may have never dreamed possible.  All the while, incorporating his three passions in life and sharing this love of dogs with future recipients.