Lori Kayashima, DVM grew up in Southern California and graduated from the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine in 1984.  She started working at Valley Animal Hospital (then located in Morgan Hill).  At the time, it was a mixed practice and she divided her time between the horses, dogs and cats.  She was made equal shareholder with the practice when it was incorporated in 1988.  Together, she and her husband, Richard McCormick, VMD opened Orchard Veterinary Hospital in Gilroy in 1989.  She continued to split her time between the two practices until 2003 when staffing needs pushed her over to Orchard full time.  After discovering a wondrous world of a climate controlled work environment and no constant threat of broken bones from flying hooves, she can only be seen occasionally at Valley helping with Richard with surgery, rounds at Happy Hollow Zoo or overflow appointments.  After hours, she enjoys trail riding at Mt. Madonna, playing life guard for Z out in the duck swamp and fulfilling her role as "cat furniture" to her two cats while she reads.

 Dr. Richard McComick grew up in the Gettysburg area of Pennsylvania and developed his love for horses taking care of them at the family farm and showing junior jumpers.  He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine in 1976 ( with a Veterinariae Medicinae Doctoris degree hence his title of VMD).  After working in a mixed practice in Maryland for a year, he headed west and purchased a small animal practice in Mill Valley, CA were he worked for five years.  After selling that practice in 1982, he came to Valley Animal Hospital while it was still in Morgan Hill and ultimately, purchase it from Eugene Carroll, DVM in 1984.

While most of his time is spent at the equine practice--Valley Animal Hospital, now located in Gilroy, he will often assist Dr. Kayashima at Orchard with complicated soft tissue or orthopedic surgeries.  In his spare time, he can sometimes be seen riding one of his horses on the local trails at Mt. Madonna with his wife Dr. Lori Kayashima, out on SF Bay fishing for halibut in his wooden Devlin Dipper that he built or duck hunting with his Labrador, Girl (he is still waiting patiently for Z to figure out how to swim).

Dr. Alex Frederick originally hails from the Santa Rosa area and graduated from the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine.  After finishing an internship at the Veterinary Referral Centre in Toronto, Canada, he stayed on to work at the Niagara Veterinary Emergency Clinic while he courted his wife, Leslie.  Finally, they decided to leave the land of ice and snow and made their way to California--luckily for us, Dr. Frederick chose to join us here at Orchard!

In his spare time, Dr. Frederick enjoys archery, paintball and drawing new designs for his custom T-shirts.