Nancy J. Retzlaff
Chief Executive Officer
Nancy is co-founder and CEO of Okoa Animal Health. She is an animal lover and advocate, and proud owner and pet parent to Casey, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
Dr. Rob Silver
Veterinary Science Officer
Dr. Robert J. Silver DVM, MS serves as the Veterinary Science Officer of Okoa Animal Health. He provides technical support and formulates Okoa’s nutraceutical hemp pet products for dogs and cats.
Neshama Abraham
Communication Director
Neshama brings her professional writing, public relations, and event management skills to support Okoa’s mission to build a company based on love – one that provides pet parents with high-quality, safe, and effective hemp products.
Nancy J. Retzlaff
Chief Executive Officer
Nancy is co-founder and CEO of Okoa Animal Health. She is an animal lover and advocate, and proud owner and pet parent to Casey, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. A seasoned biopharmaceutical executive with over 20 years’ experience, Nancy began her career in the bio-pharmaceutical industry with Bayer Healthcare in Canada. Since relocating to the United States in 2001, she has held commercial leadership positions of increasing responsibility at Bayer US, Schering-Plough/Merck, and Pfizer. She has also held senior level positions at two start-up biopharma organizations. Nancy has a track record of leading successful product launches globally, including in the US, Europe, Japan and Canada. She has also served as an advisor to global pharma and start-up companies. Nancy holds a B.Comm. From the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.
Dr. Rob Silver
Veterinary Science Officer
Dr. Robert J. Silver DVM, MS serves as the Veterinary Science Officer of Okoa Animal Health. He provides technical support and formulates Okoa’s nutraceutical hemp pet products for dogs and cats.
Dr. Silver is a 1982 graduate of Colorado State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. He received his BS in Animal Science from Colorado State University in 1974 with Phi Beta Kappa honors, and his MS in Cardiopulmonary Physiology from Colorado State in 1976.
Dr. Silver established one of the first integrative veterinary practices in the United States in Boulder, Colorado, in 1993. There, he pioneered herbal and dietary approaches to many of the more difficult chronic conditions seen in veterinary practice. As an herbalist and integrative veterinarian in Colorado since the early 1980s, Dr. Silver observed firsthand the benefits of herbal and nutraceutical approaches to pet health, including the use of cannabinoid therapeutics in pets.
For over 20 years Dr. Silver has served as Chief Medical Officer of RxVitamins, an animal nutraceutical company providing products exclusively to veterinarians. He has formulated all 36+ of the company’s products and provides post-graduate education to veterinarians on integrative medicine.
Dr. Silver serves as vice-president of the American College of Veterinary Botanical Medicine, a newly organized specialty group that is establishing itself within the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). He is past president of the Veterinary Botanical Medicine Association (www.VBMA.org) and a former member of the board of directors of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association.
Dr. Silver authored the popular book Medical Marijuana and Your Pet (www.potforpets.info). He also contributed to the textbook Nutraceuticals in Veterinary Medicine (2019) and the upcoming textbook Veterinary Cannabis, both published by Springer Publications.
He is a subject-matter expert regarding hemp in animal feed. He has served as a member of the Colorado Hemp Industries Association’s stakeholders group on a Feed Additive Petition (FAP) to the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (FDA-CVM) to allow hemp as an ingredient in animal feed. Dr. Silver also has served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Industrial Hemp Research Foundation, a Colorado nonprofit corporation that matches private donors with industrial hemp-related educational and academic research projects at institutions of higher education in the United States.
Dr. Silver is the pet parent of Ollie, a six-year-old rescued white Labrador mix dog, and Chance, a 20-year-young Bengal cat.
Neshama Abraham
Communication Director
Neshama brings her professional writing, public relations, and event management skills to support Okoa’s mission to build a company based on love – one that provides pet parents with high-quality, safe, and effective hemp products.
She has been actively involved in the industrial hemp industry since 2013, when she co-founded the National Hemp Association (NHA), dedicated to the rebirth of the industrial hemp crop in the U.S. Neshama served as the NHA National Media Contact from 2013 to 2016, managing communications with farmers, businesses, and policymakers across the U.S. Her writing and educational events helped support passage of the Industrial Hemp Farming Act, passage of which in 2019 made hemp legal at the federal level.
Neshama is part of the founding team at the Hemp Marketplace, the world’s largest and most active online platform for all things hemp. She serves as an editor and contributing writer for Marketplace communications.
Originally from New York, she was the Director of Marketing for the tenth-largest public relations firm in the U.S., based in Manhattan and representing Fortune 100 companies. In 1996 she founded her own PR agency, Abraham Paiss & Associates, Inc. (APA), and moved to Boulder, Colorado, to support businesses and initiatives with sustainable solutions for people’s health and the environment.
In addition to being a mother to two adult daughters, Neshama is the pet parent of “Cookie,” a spunky, loving 11-year old Havanese. Neshama is an active hiker, yogi, and citizen environmental activist. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Rice University, where she competed as the #1 singles tennis player and was awarded the first women’s tennis scholarship.
