Yes, yes. At Lincoln Park, 50% bigger. There were, there was a head veterinarian and two assistant veterinarians at Brookfield, and there was a head vet and an associate at Lincoln Park, roughly similar collections. But you did not start out as a staff veterinarian, you’re director of veterinary services… Read More
And so he asked us all to come on board. He asked me to run to, to chair the search committee simply because I was really close, I could come out and communicate much more easily than the, the folks that were widely scattered. So through that process, I, I… Read More
Rab and to talk at length about the program without being one of his employees. And so I, I think that was a huge help and, and I think, you know, may have been a factor in me getting the job after the person that was hired after that search,… Read More
And even some things that turned out to be disaster management, it had a giraffe procedure that didn’t go well and wound up having to euthanize the giraffe. I had all those experiences and I had met George multiple times throughout that time and prior to my immediate predecessor getting… Read More
So Who was the zoo director at the time and what was your relationship with him?… Read More
It, yes, Dr. George Rab was the director and I at the way things were set up at that time. I directly s reported to Dr. Rab and the, Dr. Rab was an amazing director and conservationist, but he was a super interesting personality and he could be kind of,… Read More
Was he your immediate boss?… Read More
Would you be interested in thinking about Brookfield?… Read More
And so long story short, I did, they were building this brand new hospital and I came and I interviewed and that’s how I made the move from Lincoln Park to Brookfield. So it wasn’t, it wasn’t something I sought out, but, you know, because of that relationship that developed… Read More
Obviously with my particular interest in, in the medical aspect of it, they had just built this state of the art hospital that was a real attraction. We were talking at Lincoln Park about what we can do to expand this, you know, 20 some year old facility and you… Read More
What kind of zoo did you find when you came to Brookfield?… Read More
And he said, well, I’m being recruited to go out to Davis, California to the vet school out there. They’re really interested. My wife is from there, so she’s really interested in heading out to California. And so it looks like I’m gonna be headed that way. Read More
When I got a call from Dr. Phillips saying, Hey, have you ever thought about working at Brookfield?… Read More
I said, not really. Why do you ask?… Read More
And then eventually that grew into a program where they actually hired an individual to help do the pathology service. But, you know, because we were trying to cobble things together, he had multiple responsibilities that probably each could have used a full-time person. And two of those were down… Read More
But we started talking about the new dean at the vet school at Illinois, who was a pathologist by training and had worked, had been the head of pathology up at the University of Guelph in Canada. And they had a relationship with the Toronto Zoo and pathology was an… Read More
So you work at Lincoln Park Zoo till 1993?… Read More
Yes. And Then in 1993, you leave Lincoln Park to work at Brookfield Zoo. Read More
And can you talk about what prompted your decision to change jobs?… Read More
That was interesting because I wasn’t, I wasn’t looking to go anywhere. I was happy at Lincoln Park, but one of the things, pathology, finding out why animals died, doing necropsies or animal autopsies is a critically important part of zoo medicine. That was part of my training at St. Read More