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
And what were your responsibilities as assistant director?… Read More
Everything. Everything because we had, we had no, when, when I first got there, you know, Saul Kitchener who, you know, ultimately came up and worked in your shop, was primate curator, but then Saul moved on and, and went to Lincoln Park. And so we had, as I said,… Read More
And as I said, early on, you know, the board president who hired me, Ben Morris, who was an old, rough and gruff profane ex Marine, but probably one of the, one of the best guys I’ve ever known, you know, kind of, they took me aside and said, we’re… Read More
Well, it was brand new. I mean, it had, Riverview Park had had a zoo since 1895. The park had been gazetted in 1894 and they’d had a zoo since 1895. But basically when I got there, you know, the red barn was built. The gorilla house, orang house were… Read More
So we had, you know, over a period of time, we developed a really incredible collection of hoofstock. And, you know, we built, we built plywood barns and, and bought Cottonwood planks from a saw mill, you know, over 30 miles away and built corrals and, and fences and all… Read More