Twenty-six years after Carol Wolfson landed in Shanghai, she's managed to launch a consulting firm, open an art store, publish a book and serve on various charity boards. Yet, her most cherished moments have been with animals.

On a recent weekday afternoon, Wolfson escorted five cats to a veterinarian for a medical, a requirement to prove they're healthy enough to take part in an upcoming adoption fair. The prognosis wasn't positive but she wasn't about to give up.

"They're still all sick, they've got ringworms and they've already been with me for a month and a half," Wolfson says afterwards during a mobile phone interview from her car. The cats could be heard purring in the background. "Sunday is an adoption day but they can't go, so I will have them for another two weeks."

The five cats will move in with her own two cats but will be confined to a vacant bedroom in her Shanghai home. They will be nursed back to better health, or until they're strong enough for adoption. It's not unusual for Wolfson and her friends to open their homes to abandoned animals.

Second Chance Animal Aid, which Wolfson runs, is Shanghai's only non-profit private expatriate animal rescue organization. It was launched in 2005 and has found caring homes for 228 kittens, 63 cats, 65 dogs and two bunnies.

"This organization has been huge and by far, it's the most important thing I've done in Shanghai," says Wolfson.

If her resume reads like that of a CEO, in some ways, she is one.

In 1981, the Chicago-born Northwestern University student won a one-year scholarship to Fudan University. After the year was up, she found a job, but she was swiftly deported after police learned she was working illegally.

But it wasn't long before she returned to the region and worked in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and several other Asian countries before moving back to Shanghai with her husband, an Irish diplomat. After stints at several major companies, Wolfson, 45, who is fluent in Chinese, opened Wolfson & Associates, an independent consulting firm that offers investment, marketing and environmental advice to companies. She also opened her own jewelry, art and framing boutique in Shanghai.

In addition, she uses her time to raise funds for non-profit groups that assist people and environmental causes across China. She's a board member of Beijing's first vocational school for migrant workers' children and sits on numerous boards geared towards abused and unemployed women in rural China.

Her recent book, The Last Pluck, refers to a decision by her husband not to pull out any more of her gray hairs. An underlying theme in the book, she says, is that everyone should help others and to laugh more even if they work 20 hours a day. "To make a difference in the world, that is the bottom line in the book, it's that everyone could make a difference and to be compassionate," she says.

By Bryan Virasami

(China Daily August 3, 2007)