I had a master plan, I had two master plans. I had the master plan they saw, and then I had the master plan that underlaid that master plan that they didn’t get to see for about 12 years. In all honesty, they never saw it. The master plan they… Read More
Who was helping you develop the master plan or was this all your vision?… Read More
I guess it was me. I mean, it sounds rather pompous, but it was just me based on visiting zoos, visiting parks, and thinking about how I could teach people about the desert and how I could afford to build certain things, because again, I couldn’t build it unless I… Read More
After you had done the, what I guess I’ll call the basics of what the board wanted with the trails and so forth, did you have any things that you knew you wanted to develop first?… Read More
Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I knew I needed to bring animals in because if we were gonna make money, the kids weren’t gonna come to see plants and hike. ‘Cause again, Colorado Desert’s pretty barren even at its best and so I said to the board, when we designed… Read More
I could explain it to the board that it’s why we’re gonna have this, these funny little animals that don’t live in our desert, but they live in another desert. “Well, okay.” Made sense. Read More
To create what we created ultimately, a desert conservation center where we taught people about the desert, the whole ecosystem. So there was kind of the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum model, but instead of just modeling Sonoran Desert with plants and animals, I said, “Well, okay, that’s been done.” And… Read More
We had at that point 400 acres that they had leased. And so, I never had to refuse to do what they wanted to do. I could just incorporate what they wanted to do into my vision of what needed to get done anyway and just do what they wanted… Read More
How did that evolve into president and CEO and what’s the difference?… Read More
There really wasn’t any. I mean, for the first two years there was just me. So, and so I’d just get up in the morning, look in the mirror and tell myself, “This is what you’re gonna do today and go out and do it.” But over time, as we… Read More
There were a couple of people associated with the University of California system in the Life Science Department that one of which had a lot of money himself, but he was also, he really was, he liked to think of himself as a field biologist. And so, he got involved. Read More
Right. Read More
What was that secret vision?… Read More
So, I never, I just gave them their vision and then I just added a few things as we went along, and as long as I added them in a way that seemed to make sense to them and I got them paid for it was all right. So, the… Read More
So, it wasn’t easy to raise money there, but there was money there and there was, Mr. Boyd had access to it because he was first mayor of the city of Palm Springs and so forth and so on. So, and he had a good reputation, and so his friends… Read More
Who were some of these other movers and shakers that your remember?… Read More
One of them, I still see. She’s 100 years old and she lives in Glencoe. Miriam Hoover of H. Earl Hoover of Hoover Vacuum. His son, Bud is still on our board. H. Earl had a winter home in the desert and he was on my first board and stayed… Read More
He was an interesting man. He was from the East Coast, but he’d moved to California for health reasons when he was young. He was a banker, a land developer, and he also was interested in education and he became a regent with the University of California. And he too… Read More
And it’s still operating that way, in the same floodplain that our facility was in. So, he was a great believer in educating people, but he just loved it. He had his own reasons. Maybe it just spoke to him the same way it spoke to me. He never studied… Read More
There’s no trees in the way. And it just spoke to me immediately, immediately. And you mentioned that, I believe it was Mr. Boyd had purchased this land. Oh, he leased it. Read More