I’d always had an open door policy. Basically the idea was anybody could walk into my office at any time. Nobody had to make an appointment to walk into my office and talk to me. I made rounds, and certainly in those early days, a long time, I made rounds… Read More
The problem of course is that if that keeper won’t talk to you, if that keeper doesn’t communicate with you, if that keeper doesn’t say, hey, we got a problem down here. I don’t know what it is, but we got a problem, then having him around is, is kind… Read More
As director now, when you first start, are you continuing to work with animals?… Read More
Well, as, since I’ve oh, yes. Well, because, you know, in effect I was, yes, I was director of the zoo, but it was also still, I was also still veterinarian and curator because we only had 14 people when I became director. We only had 14 people on the… Read More
I mean, we used to, and they still do today yet. You know, I mean, it became a tradition around the place to do work parties and that you couldn’t afford to hire something done in those early days. So you put together a work crew, a work party if… Read More
And each one of them builds a fence and a stockade and a moat around their department. Then they defend their department and, huge amounts of energy wasted by defending territory. And, you know, it’s not that there isn’t some of that, we just never have had that developed, never… Read More
So you became acting director in 1970?… Read More
And when, so you were on probation for a little while?… Read More
Yeah, for a little while. Yeah. And then director, and then. Read More
And then a little bit later, the board voted for, to make me as director. And, and then a little bit later on. And as I say, after, you know, about the next, well, the next board president, we managed to ease, get rid of the monthly board meetings. I’ll… Read More
And I said, sure. And he said, at lunch, he said, well, I’ve been of watching this last year about how things have been running. And you know, we’re going to change things. And up til that moment, I thought this is a really good guy. And I’m sitting there… Read More
So, and we pretty much run the place like that ever since. The board over the years, I’ve never had a, never had, never had the board reject or change or modify, or even attempt to modify a budget. We’ve always balanced the budget, no matter what it took, no… Read More
Did you instantly know this is the job I want?… Read More
Did they approach you?… Read More
Well, basically, basically this whole ex Marine came in, said, I’m going to go have a little meeting and talk with Dr. Thomas, could you stick around and have lunch with me afterwards. He came back in about 20 minutes and we went to lunch and he said, well, I… Read More
And I guess I got lucky in that I just kind of could instinctively do numbers. So instinctively, I always knew exactly where we were and I can do numbers. And it was small enough that you could look, you know, you could learn along the way. And so, you… Read More
And I said, they can’t be anything wrong, Mr. Becker, your it’s your, you know, your accountants that did our audit. And the good thing about it was was that from that point on, I really didn’t, you know, really didn’t ever have very much problems. I mean, they, the… Read More
No. Now Warren leaves. Read More
How do you become director?… Read More
And the advice basically was, you know, look, boy, we want you to be successful. And whatever you do balance the damn budget. If you have balanced the budget, the board’s probably going to let you do anything you want because they’d never had a balanced budget. The board members… Read More