Yeah, some, well, kind of two, if it came to animal or personnel. On the animal side, there’s a tendency for us as humans to wanna over manage all animal management facets. We get crazy with it, I think. We forget the animal’s biology and you know, we jump ahead… Read More
That’s been a struggle with some staff who want time to think about it. I said okay, you can have time, but we’re gonna make a decision here. And when it comes to those kinds of decisions, I was very firm in saying, I will have the last say. So… Read More
Tomorrow, and he’s up on the, you know, walking around having a great time. Oh, can’t do him. Look, he’s recovered. Read More
I’m not trained in landscape, but I’ve done many homes and I know what I like when I see it. And I spend some of my vacation time looking at botanical gardens and things like that. So I have a pretty good feel for plants. And the zoo has a… Read More
But we did it, turned out well. Landscape is one of my other passions. You wouldn’t have to pay me to do landscape, but I oversee the landscape design for the zoo and I took that on because the CEO was extremely frustrated with the look of the zoo when… Read More
What was your management style for dealing with negative issues?… Read More
I mean, they know water quality, and they know how water moves through pipes, and all that. But now we’re asking you to make sure the standard is the following water quality. And it was even driving the engineers crazy. So I don’t feel so bad about that, that I… Read More
Kind of goofy, just worked out of a building that was turned into a commissary. Now, we actually have a commissary and don’t get dinged by USDA anymore. So that and the manatee are probably the biggest projects. I think the frustration comes with, it really wasn’t a money issue… Read More
Why is that over there?… Read More
‘Cause they were part of the process and we made sure they were part of the process. I do have a funny story about one thing we did miss, but nonetheless, that hospital was the first, ZooTampa was the first zoo to get American Animal Hospital Association accreditation. And still… Read More
And we’re just getting that point now. The Manatee facility, I was part of that planning and that’s under construction as we speak. $17 million facility. The whole back-of-house of manatee, all the filtration has been redone. I was part of that, state money to do that. Boy, I learned… Read More
But when that hospital opened up, and we had staff involved in certain parts of that, nobody walked in and went, what?… Read More
Why did you do that?… Read More
Can you talk about some of the exhibits at ZooTampa you championed and the highs and lows maybe of each of them?… Read More
Yeah, actually, it’s not an exhibit as much as a facility. And that’s a brand new hospital that we opened up in 2016, which was the first really large project after I got to ZooTampa. It was seven, $9 million. There was some ancillary, other facilities that were part of… Read More
Which as you know, children can be a challenge, especially in a crowd setting, you know?… Read More
And God, you just watch the kids and they’re like really leaning into every word that they say. So you’ve gotta have ’em, you’ve gotta have those people there that are willing to fill in the gaps that the paid staff can’t get to, you know, schedules don’t permit, you… Read More
We do, they’re not called docents now. I forget what the new term is, but very important. I mean, these people tireless, absolutely tireless. Always available to help you out with events, and large group management, and way-finding, and you name it. The program changed in ZooTampa. It was a… Read More
And boy, do people relate to that?… Read More
You know, an older gentleman standing there, you know, that could be Grandpa. Grandpa’s telling me about rhinos right now, you know, whatever that is, to watch these people, and like I say, some of ’em have been there as long as I’ve been there, very good at engaging children… Read More