Alexandra Ashe
Chief Executive Officer & Founder;
Board of Directors
Alexandra has over 20 years of experience with various exotic animals. She operated a captive wildlife and exotic animal organization — where she fell in love with kinkajous after meeting one. While raising her first kinkajou (Arkham), the lack of information on the captive species became evident.
She was running into behavior obstacles and had no research to fall back on. Information was limited, she saw little stability for these animals in general, the community was small ... and there were (are) so many suffering in various ways. Kinkajous needed a voice.
In March 2018, she launched Kinkatopia.
Alexandra literally lives and breathes kinkajous — in addition to working 2 jobs, taking care of her health, enriching herself with other interests, and giving back to the world in other ways. She is a woman on a mission ... the Mother of Kinkajous.
Bennett Dreibelbis
Chief Financial Officer
Board of Directors
Bennett has always had a passion for animals. As the Senior Accountant at a Delaware-based real estate company and brother to the CEO, he has equal-weighted expertise and drive to assist the kinkajous. Bennett is the mastermind behind Kinkatopia’s finances.
Michael Klein
Security Specialist
Board of Directors
Michael has been working with animals professionally for over a decade — everything from venomous snakes to alligators, from foxes to kinkajous. Having interest in animals and security most of his life, he was able to expand on his skill set to overseeing the organization’s enclosure and property security needs.
aka The Father of Kinkajous
Dakota Terrazas
Secondary Beneficiary
Board of Directors
Dakota has privately kept exotic animals for her entire life. With over a decade’s experience in keeping kinkajous and having worked as a vet technician, she is a chief consultant on Kinkatopia’s board of directors. Her family currently keeps three adult male kinkajous.
Amanda Vaughn
Director of Outreach — Texas
Board of Directors
Amanda has over 15 years’ experience working with exotics. She professionally worked in pet shops for 9 years and entirely operated one for 6. She visits expos for networking and conducts outreach throughout Texas for Kinkatopia.
Amanda keeps a kinkajou name Itty Bitty who was saved from a troubled past. He acts as an ambassador for his kind!
Heather Magenta
Graphic Design
Heather helped Kinkatopia take its first steps in 2018 by creating our original logos! Since that moment, she has been our chief graphics creator. The majority of our artwork for merchandise and all things Kinkatopia has been created by this angel.
Heather completed her undergrad at Millersville in 2014 and then entered her field of work (Graphic Design) with a small agency located in the greater Philadelphia region. One year later, she moved to D.C. where she worked in-house for the George Washington University (for 3 years). During her time in D.C., she also pursued her masters degree in User Experience Design from MICA which she later received in 2020, after relocating back up to Philadelphia. Currently, over the past year and a half, she has taught design at the university level while also working at an agency based in Philadelphia.
Permanent Volunteers
Michelle Gassen
Lead Volunteer
Alex reached out to Michelle in June 2022 to inquire the name of Michelle’s kinkajou. She had rescued one from a flea market in Louisiana and was looking for advice on her male. The rest is history. Michelle fell in love with the species and Kinkatopia’s mission.
Since then, she did damage control when the killer bees happened, drove Rue to her forever home, and even took in a kink for Kinkatopia. So much in such a short time!
Michelle assists with Kinkatopia’s messages and correspondence.
Alexandra
Volunteer
Alex has been regularly helping Kinkatopia for over a year now!
Kevin
He started in early 2023, and hit it off with everyone very quickly.