Employee Spotlight: Meet Jeffery Statts

Florida Exotic Bird Sanctuary (FEBS) is blessed to have over a dozen caring, dedicated, enthusiastic, and talented employees. We’re thankful for and proud of our staff, and always at a loss for words that fully express just how greatly we appreciate each one!

In September, we published the first two in a series of articles intended to showcase our employees so that you, our loyal supporters and benefactors, can come to know and applaud them to the same extent we do. In this third article, with pleasure and high honor, we introduce Jeffery Statts to you:

Jeff Statts is a bird caregiver and the Inventory Manager for FEBS. Jeff started contributing to the welfare of our birds in mid-2024 when he joined our team of volunteers. About 14-months later, in early August 2025, he agreed to share his talents with us as an employee, which gave us the benefit of his strong work ethic and love of animals for many more hours each week.

Jeff feels his enjoyment of and comfort in caring for and handling animals is a natural consequence of his having grown up on a farm in Binghamton, New York. He has a harder time, however, explaining just how it is that his career paths since high school have been so diverse, even though he has no regrets and would change little, if anything, if starting over.

His first post-graduate education program earned him an Associate of Science degree in Business Management. That then lead him to focus on hotel and restaurant management, with a Bachelor of Science degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Talking to Jeff today, there are no solid tell-tale signs of his New England heritage. That likely is due to the fact that he moved to the deep south soon after completing his post-graduate education. His diverse life interests continued in full force however. Excellence and success hallmark each career path, such as:

• Teaching K–12 children with emotional handicaps and/or behavioral disorders;

• Serving as Assistant Food Service Director at Georgia Institute of Technology;

• Founding, owning, and managing a private food catering enterprise in Atlanta; and

• Gaining significant information systems, internet and related experience and expertise through employment with Oracle, Microsystems, and similar companies over the span of 20+ years.

Early retirement found Jeff settling in Hudson, Florida. A part-time job at a local hardware store supplemented his leisure activities. That’s where Jeff first met CEO, Patricia Norton, during one of her shopping trips for the sanctuary; soon thereafter Jeff started on his journey with FEBS. Loyal followers of FEBS may remember the article we published in late June 2025 (Our Birds are “Nuts” for this Volunteer) recounting Jeff’s success in convincing a local food bank into donating nearly 750-pounds of almonds that it could not use to FEBS for the birds. Needless to say, that made Jeff an instant hero with the parrots and everyone else at FEBS!

Jeff feels blessed by life and is always looking for ways to “give back” or “pay it forward”. He regularly helps local youth and other nonprofit organizations, and his home is also a sanctuary for 10 – 12 cats he rescued and now cares for. He loves to cook and bake, and he loves working in the outdoors with the many parrots at FEBS. He takes pride in and joy from his work, and we are blessed and honored to have Jeff Statts as a loved and valued member of the FEBS Family!

Thank you for the opportunity to introduce Jeffery Statts to you. We look forward to introducing you to another outstanding FEBS employee next month. In the meantime, please help us maintain a competitive living wage standard for our staff by making monthly, quarterly, or other periodic gifts to FEBS: (1) donate online at Donate | The Florida Exotic Bird Sanctuary; or (2) mail checks to 8933 Casper Avenue, Hudson, FL 34667-3676. Our beautiful and loving feathered residents greatly appreciate your ongoing financial and moral support!