(laughs) I said, yes ma’am. And she gave us $15 million. And we got somebody else to build the restaurant. And you know, we never did build the orientation building and we, and we built the greenhouse ourselves and, and we brought the project, and Stan Howe did his part. Read More
We staked out the outline of the building and the site, and put up some big tall poles so that she could visualize where it was going to be, how tall it was going to be. We, you know, we put a bunch of two bys in the ground that… Read More
And I can remember, and will always remember, trying to get up enough saliva in my mouth. And I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it for a minute to say $25 million. And, and to say $25 million for the first time in your life. Read More
She said, I’m going to to think about that. She said, why don’t we have breakfast in the morning, and I’ll think about it overnight. And I figured that this whole dang, this whole thing, you know, it was whole 8 1/2 years, it just went down the tube right… Read More
I had my mind made up about what I was going to give. And you asked me for $25 million and I’m just, I didn’t sleep a wink and I’m not going to do it. And I’m thinking, oh, you know, it’s, it’s done, it’s over. It’s down the tube. Read More
If you don’t fundraise, we’ll help you. But, you know, because we didn’t have a development, we’ve got to, you know, we’ve got a foundation now and we’ve got a development, you know, development staff and all that. But if, but in those days we didn’t, that’s fairly recent thing. Read More
So if you had a project and, you know, and it usually required just kind of a cursory head nod from the president or the chairman of the board, that sounds like this was a good idea if you can raise the money. And then you, you know, then you… Read More
(laughs) They, on the Lied Jungle, you know, that was eight, 8 1/2 year project to get to that first point where we could actually make the pitch. I can, one of the things that, there are things that you remember all your life. And we had been building up… Read More
You, hold on, how do I say this here?… Read More
You obviously did well. I mean, you obviously did well at fundraising, you. Yeah, well. Because I got to spend the money. Did you, okay. Read More
Did you enjoy it or was it a necessary evil of what you had to do to do the building you wanted to do?… Read More
One of the things, you know, and early on, I remember in the AZA you know, which, you know, before that was the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums, or AZPA, I guess. Somebody came up with the idea and actually it was written into kind of the bylaws. It… Read More
Send you knew, some you met with through the board of directors. You know, basically, basically we, we go to to let’s sit down, sit down with pad and pencil and, and put together a hit list. And the hit list basically included, you know, everybody in Omaha, Nebraska, that… Read More
Originally we call it the Omaha 11. It’s expanded out some since then. It’s more than 11 big guys, but you know, initially it was the Omaha 11, you know, which included guys like Mutual of Omaha. Read More
How’d you identify the major fundraisers for these projects?… Read More
is it because you knew them?… Read More
They came to you?… Read More
And the third one’s easier than the second one once you’ve done that. Read More
So you would say those are your major strengths in that area?… Read More
I think so, yeah. hat we, that we, that we were able to number one, get somebody to visualize and buy onto the project because they can see what we’re doing. And because we’ve got a reputation for bringing projects in on time and under budget. Read More