All that time that I spent worrying about the zoo, I wish I’d had taken that time and spent it on family. Probably as you get older, I think we’ve all looked back and probably think, gosh darn it, probably should have spent more time doing that. I was very fortunate that I had a wife that supported my career. A great mom, great homemaker. Kids were taken care of but I wasn’t there as much as I should have been. And it just pointed out by one of my children recently, “Dad, you were never there.” That hurt but it was true. There are fewer and fewer zoo directors it seems with animal collection experience in recent decades, many did not start in zoos and made a career change in midstream to the zoo field. You had roots in animal care.
