From what they tell me today, they felt that my first interest was always the zoo and not myself. I think they always thought I was fair. They didn’t always agree with me. But they always thought that whatever I dictated, it was in the best interest of the zoo. Read More
Guess you couldn’t say that for a lotta the directors. Read More
I think being a good zoo director, for me was to recognize other people’s talents and utilize ’em and let them shine. Have a lotta stars on the team and not try to be the only star. Because I did know from historically, the first director was very, very good,… Read More
I learned that from Marlin and I think Marlon wanted to create a team because he wanted to be able to run the zoo. He also wanted to be able to go away and do Wild Kingdom. He could only do that if he had a responsible team. But I… Read More
They got a paid membership and they participated in committees, SSPs. By that participation, they were further developing in their own careers. Read More
Yeah, the past people I worked for were more micro-managers I felt. I also groomed as many keepers as I could to be potential curators, gave the opportunity to our keepers to become all they could. Just as Marlin had encouraged me, I tried to be the best encouragement I… Read More
Now you mentioned that because as we talked, many directors have backgrounds in zoology or biology. Read More
So do you think these things that you’ve mentioned made you a good zoo director?… Read More
What were those little things that made you a good zoo director?… Read More
How would you describe your management style and how is it different from the past directors you worked for and did it evolve?… Read More
Delegation. Enhancing staff and delegating. Enhancing the staff and delegating responsibilities to them and then giving the support they needed to use that delegation, give ’em the support. Read More
From the past people you worked for?… Read More
What’s the first thing you wanted to do?… Read More
You’re the new director, what’s the first thing you wanted to do?… Read More
First thing I wanted do is develop the education department and the children’s zoo even further than it had ’cause now I had the opportunity. That’s with the docent program and began planning a education senate which had new classrooms, new auditorium. That came about in 1985, took three years… Read More
I made sure all my curators got to go to management school, take advantage of any HR training in the area that was available to them. There’s several private programs for executive training. And so I made sure that I surrounded myself with a capable staff and gave them the… Read More
They’re still there running the zoo. So there’s a new person who’s called president replace me. Jeff Bonner who came from Indianapolis Zoo, he’s doing an outstanding job. But he kept in place all the reports that I had and they’re still reporting to him and they’re still running the… Read More
You said, “Now I could do stuff I want.” What was the first thing you did?… Read More
I was scared to death because suddenly I had the responsibility for everything and I knew I had some limitations. Because you know, I came up through the ranks. I only had two years of college, but I had worked with University of Missouri. I had worked with St. Louis… Read More
So I hired a good finance. My director that I followed was a finance officer, he was no longer there. I hired a young but retired finance officer that was a CPO, certified accountant. I brought him in as my assistant director because I knew I needed a good, strong… Read More