Interview 30880 – Caption Index: 218
How would you say the new technology now can assist in promoting zoos, Twitter, Facebook, remote cameras to draw attention to wildlife relationships?… Read More
How would you say the new technology now can assist in promoting zoos, Twitter, Facebook, remote cameras to draw attention to wildlife relationships?… Read More
But they res we respected each other very much. It was a lot of work. Read More
By always being honest with them. Okay. I mean, I knew editors, news anchors, news people, radio personalities. I mean, I was, I did at least four radio interviews every week. At least two or three TV live appearances every week. Okay. So I was out there constantly connected. You… Read More
How did you nurture that?… Read More
You know, I couldn’t take a penguin into the studio, but they could come to the zoo. And then I’d go and we’d talk about the penguin footage that they had and things like that. Or the tiger footage that they had. And always bringing them up to date on… Read More
Very, very successful. So yeah. So I didn’t have to tell my successor at all what to do. He’d been there forever. He became a zoo guy. Okay. Over his years of experience and step, we just switched titles. He stayed in his office, I stayed in my office. He… Read More
Did you have, you had good relationships with the press. Read More
Going, is this gonna be a plan?… Read More
And he and I had many cups of coffee together feeling each other out, okay. Read More
And Evan Colleen is the zoo’s CEO now. And we had more discussions. And I said to the zoo board, this is the man that we want and this is the man who will be my successor. And Evan came in 14 years ago, 15 years we overlapped. And every… Read More
You’re gonna do that. You’re gonna go out and be the face of the zoo more than you are now. We’re gonna take you out of the day-to-day operation. Read More
I said, do you mean you’re taking my zoo away from me?… Read More
I love the operations of the zoo. Once I calmed down and thought about it and discussed it more with the zoo board leadership and going, you’re right. They had tried to have the same conversation with me four or five years earlier, but I was too cocky too. And… Read More
I had to get done. I had to get the zoo remodeled physically with great animal exhibits and husbandry. I had to get great education programs going. I had to get financially stable at the zoo. I had to get an increase in conservation. I had to expand the zoo. Read More
And the board said, yeah, and you know, who’s gonna do that?… Read More
And then that exhibit just was, was outta date. Okay. So, you know, we, I tried to build facilities that had flexibility so that if it could hold a small, medium cat, it could also hold a primate. You know, those sorts of things. My little zoo needed flexibility on,… Read More
When you retired, did you give the news new zoo director any advice? Did they ask?… Read More
Nope. Nope. ’cause I was lucky. My successor got handpicked before he, 12 years earlier. He came in as the COO, as the assistant director. And because he brought in all the talents I didn’t have, we were a perfect yin and yang. Okay. The zoo board and our strategic… Read More
Do you think a shelf zoo master plan has a shelf life?… Read More
Yeah, absolutely. I think people who come up with 20 and 30 year plans, what you discover is, gee, that species doesn’t need management anymore. You know, because for some reason or other, I, I, I really think master plans do have a, a a a shelf life. I, I… Read More