Hoffmann of the Month: May

The "Hoffmann of the Month" for May is animal trainer Martha Hoffman! (That is clearly not Martha pictured above, but it is the cover of her book.)

Martha's website is a little out of date, but she's earned a break--check out her impressive CV. She says she's tested tens of thousands of dogs, a staggering number, to determine their suitability to be trained as service dogs. Most people are probably more familiar with the concept of seeing-eye dogs than hearing ear dogs, but I've seen some videos of these dogs in action and they're just as amazing.

When people ask what I do for a living, I usually tell them I help run the JetBlue Airways Twitter and Facebook accounts. I tell them this because it's true, and because it's the most glamorous part of my job. But it's not the only thing I do. My team also reaches out to customers who are traveling with service or emotional support animals and check if they have any questions and find out what we can do to best assist them while they're traveling. It's helped me to be very grateful that I don't need an animal assistant to perform regular life functions, and it's also left me in awe on more than one occasion when customers describe to me what their animals do for them. I'm very glad there is help available for people who need it, and appreciate people like Martha Hoffman who train these animals.

(This seems like a good time to point out again that the things I write on this blog are my own views and not those of my employer. Though I'm guessing JetBlue's views match up pretty closely with that last paragraph.)

Some other things I like about Ms. Hoffman:

--she started off training hamsters and parrots.

--her name rhymes with Marta Kauffman, co-creator of Friends and other less memorable NBC Thursday comedies.

--speaking of TV...Martha and one of her dogs have been on Letterman! I'm assuming they performed a "stupid pet trick," but don't know for sure.

Congrats on being named May's "Hoffmann of the Month," Martha!