Very important. Very important. And, and I have to say both the commission and, and, and our executive director of Metro Parks always let us put a lot of money in there. And we might have used some society money at times, certainly during research times. But no, I went… Read More
Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah. We’d already gone to protective contact and we had an elephant restraining device even in the old one. And, but everybody thought, yeah, it’d be a good idea. The issue is, and God bless the keepers, at least two or three of them and Jerry Bourne… Read More
So it was a long process. Read More
So we did the hospital and then I finally, oh yeah, then we were, during the hospital, we were having all these meetings with the commission. And I’ll never forget this because it was what I previously told you. So we had some choices of what exhibits to, to do… Read More
And were you, and you included everybody in putting this elephant exhibit together?… Read More
So we did that. And then as I said, a donor came along and said, you need a new hospital?… Read More
Was that a high point for you?… Read More
Very much so. I wanted to do an elephant exhibit from the moment I got to Cleveland, but we kept putting it off ’cause of cost and stuff. So we started, had to finish the rainforest and we did that and then I, I don’t know if the commission of… Read More
So he had this crate for rhinos or something and Alan thought it was like a foot too short. So we spent a week with like two welders adding onto it. So it was perfect and it worked perfectly. We got the crate c crane it in, took it to… Read More
Maybe, but it just wasn’t necessary. So when we took the hippo out of the old elephant exhibit, we, we built him a hippo condominium in the giraffe barn. We were expanding the giraffe barn anyway, so we just built with a pool where he retired for three years. He… Read More
So did that make it less of an exhibit?… Read More
Maybe it’s a different word building, designing the Cadillac. But building the Chevrolet, I wouldn’t go that far. I think we designed somewhere between a Cadillac and a Chevrolet and kind of maybe did, did a really nice Chevrolet. I don’t know. You know, i I, I don’t know what… Read More
Did you sometimes find yourself, you call value engineering?… Read More
Well, we had everybody including our park commission and my boss. But we had keepers involved and, and veterinarians involved at some level. I don’t know if they came to every meeting, but certainly everybody was. And you know, we put, we put the plans out there and let anybody… Read More
We had, we were converting an old building, we needed to protect the ceiling. So there’s a lot of things that, a lot of details. We had great architects were very helpful and in that case we had a good contractor too. I love design, I hate construction. Construction is… Read More
But we, we worked through everything and there were some shouting matches between groups, but we, from the staff level, we included everybody including the Zeus society that was part of the funders. So at least you know, the land management of the Zeus society and in some cases even… Read More
We had a lot of endangered species, a lot of species that could use money. So if we ever any problem, we would just go to another project. But most of ’em are very successful. I love supporting Charles Foley’s Elephant research in Tara and Gary. One ’cause I love… Read More
Now when you were doing the exhibits and putting them together, what staff did you include in the development of these exhibits?… Read More
He probably, I mean you can’t prove that, but that apparently statistically that worked out well. So he found out a lot about following certain elephants for 20 years. He learned a lot about elephants in their societies. He could, he could not by, he had little cards with pictures… Read More
Have any of your conservation programs that you wanted to do had difficulties in getting off the ground and why?… Read More