But you know, the right decisions were made, and it’s still there today, and it’s a fantastic place. And it really set the stage for those kinds of facilities. There wasn’t anything else like it in the United States. There was no playbook for us. And we were setting standards… Read More
And a lot of talk about what do we do, how do we keep it, do we keep it?… Read More
Can you give a little kind of quick history of the San Diego Zoo was established, what was the concept of this new place you started at?… Read More
And so they floated a bond issue for $15 million, and the public supported it greatly, and they got their $15 million bond. And I mean, laughable in today’s numbers but the 15 million allowed them to build a village and opened up the public area, put the tram in… Read More
Yeah, the offsite facility wasn’t going to be open to the public. It was strictly going to be a breeding facility. In fact, those were the first pens that were built there. And they were in a very remote area. And this area was, you know, the wild animal park… Read More
It was 1971. So it was a year before the wild animal park actually opened up. And the month I started, they were just grading for the village to build it. Read More
And we grew up, there’s a whole group of us that grew up together, seven or eight of us that all kind of grew up together under that. And you know, actually, one of the gentlemen I worked with is still my best friend today after all these years so. Read More
When did you become a keeper, what year?… Read More
When did you get your next promotion?… Read More
Yeah, so I moved up in the grounds crew to a couple levels. And then they put out bid sheets for jobs coming up. And the wild animal park was in its very early stages. There were no animals out there. It was beginning to be built. So in the… Read More
It was hot, and dusty, and dirty. And so I applied and didn’t get the first job but got the second one that I applied for. And it was like, holy cow, I’ve never done anything like this. But they didn’t want anybody with experience because this was gonna be… Read More
And that was just his tenacity and his wanting the zoo to always look the best it could. So I found it a really exciting place to work and a place that, you know, I wanted to be. And people were great, the staff was great. And when you have… Read More
How did you, or when, the year, if you have?… Read More
Yeah. Read More
I mean, my impression at that time, it was animals all over, you know, things I’d never seen before, birds I’d never seen before. It was an exciting place even though on the grounds crew, you felt really engaged in the facility. And the then-director, Dr. Schroeder would walk the… Read More
And what about this and what about that?… Read More
And I remember my boss getting messages from Schroeder and we’d hear about it the next day saying, how come this area wasn’t cleaned up?… Read More
Can you describe it?… Read More
They kept me on the grounds crew after he came back, yeah. Read More
When you started at the San Diego Zoo, what kind of zoo did you find?… Read More