And then one other Joe McHale story. My last Joel McHale story, he called one time and he says, “I’m gonna give you a life experience.” I said, “Joe, you always do.” He said, “No, you’ve gotta go to the airport with me.” And I said, “Okay.” Then he said,… Read More
They all could read and write now, I mean, what changed when you were assuming those responsibilities as assistant director. Over time, the keeper staff evolved just like the zoo evolved. The keepers that came to us were, they might still be political animals, but they were better informed, better… Read More
And the old timers didn’t do that. The old timers were more subtle. The old timers would just sort of take care of things unsaid, but with the new group more and more, it was, there were more people that were better educated, better informed, who had stronger opinions, good,… Read More
Can you give us just maybe some basic, kind of quick recollections that come to your mind of memorable characters within the zoo that you dealt with?… Read More
And I was one of the few times that he essentially looked me in the face and said, “I don’t care what kind of rhinos they are, but there will be rhinos in the exhibit when we dedicate that building, or there will be whatever to pay.” So I understood… Read More
And at this time now as assistant director, had you achieved some of those goals were, was the keeper staff being upgraded in the hiring?… Read More
Was there better education?… Read More
You probably didn’t change the great apes too much, but, or did you, what kind of latitude did you have?… Read More
Did you know what his direction was, or did he tell you?… Read More
The director’s wishes for the collection, were largely predetermined by the facilities that we built. So that, for instance, when we redid the large mammal area, we knew we were going to have a giraffe, an elephant and hippo and rhino and taper. And we built the spaces so that… Read More
We didn’t do anything to antagonize the union. What we tried to do was accommodate the union’s needs or demands or suggestions before they were even suggested in terms of the caregiver staff. And by and large, this was handled above me in whatever political arena there was. We tried… Read More
Within the collection, how much latitude did you have in altering or changing the collection?… Read More
For example, I’ll use you as an example. Read More
It must’ve been very heavy times doing all this improvement where other zoos didn’t even come close to what you were now being involved with from the time you were curator to this, was there a template of how you went about putting all of this together as these projects… Read More
I don’t think we, I don’t think there was a template. I don’t believe there was a template in place for capital improvements. I think what happened is just simply evolved. So that park district architects, park district public relations people, contractors, general contractors, project managers, we kind of felt… Read More
we’re gonna be doing this. It’s interesting, I think for me, no single project stands out as the project I wanted to put my thumb print on or to put my fingerprint on. I was more interested in updating, modernizing facilities, modernizing the holding the exhibit and the holding space… Read More
We’re gonna have the same ones, different ones. Read More
And what are the implications for the zoo?… Read More
In terms of budget, Les would come back from the park district and would say, okay, this year, the park district has said that we need to have our budget cut by 10% or by 15% or 18%, whatever it was. And that the categories are essentially the same. Take… Read More
How should we do it?… Read More