Operation Freedom Paws (OFP)

Mary Cortani joined the Army after graduating from high school. She was one of the last of the US Army’s WACs (Women’s Army Corps), and served from 1975 to 1984. She became a certified Army Master Instructor of Canine Education. After leaving the military, Mary earned her degree in computer engineering and worked in information technology until 2007. During those years, she continued training dogs on the side and participating in K9 Search and Rescue. In 2007 she started a fulltime dog training business and became an American Kennel Club Certified Canine Good Citizen© Evaluator. Throughout her nearly 5 decades of dog-training experience, Mary has trained sentry, patrol, narcotics, explosive detection, search and rescue, and medical alert service dogs.

In 2010 Mary was contacted by a military veteran who had been on another organization’s service dog waiting list for several years and was suicidal. Her work with this veteran was the beginning of Operation Freedom Paws (OFP). In the nearly 14 years since that phone call, Mary has accepted over 525 clients and their families

into OFP’s program, and rescued over 430 dogs who needed jobs. As the Founder and Executive Director of Operation Freedom Paws, Mary has won numerous awards, including the 2012 Top Ten CNN Hero, Red Cross Clara Barton Award, Loretta Scott King Award from the Martin Luther King Foundation, KSBW’s local and national Jefferson Award, 2022 District 17 State of California Woman of the Year, 2023 Woman’s CalVet Trailblazer Award, and 2023 Morgan Hill Woman of the Year. In 2021, Operation Freedom Paws was selected as the Gilroy Nonprofit of the Year. Mary is certified in K9 CPR, and as a LIMA instructor.

In addition, Mary is a speaker and author who, along with veteran Connor Quinn, wrote a children’s book about service dogs entitled “Four Paws, Two Feet, One Team®”.