Interview 30880 – Caption Index: 184
How, how important is, was professional growth for your staff?… Read More
How, how important is, was professional growth for your staff?… Read More
But the Lincoln Children’s Zoo is situated on very rich Antelope Creek silt. So very rich soil and a bit recessed from the cold, harsh desiccating, sublimating winter winds. And so we had a very, the plant collection at the zoo is more diverse and more valuable than the animal… Read More
Okay. ’cause nobody wanted this big maladjusted male Kodiak bear because nobody needed it for logical reasons. But when he passed away, I said, we’re taking that down. And we made it into a beautiful little seal harbor seal exhibit. And then eventually we made it into a penguin exhibit… Read More
One, the biggest thing that I championed was we had this horrible exhibit of a Kodiak bear and basically a bear pit. It was built originally as a sea lion pool. When they put the sea lions in, in seventies. They bailed up very shortly after being there. My predecessor… Read More
And was there any one exhibit that you really championed that we gotta get it going?… Read More
But I could see, I could see the commissary right outside of my office. I could see the zookeepers working right outside my office. They could see me up in my office. Okay. Facilities maintenance was just beyond that, along with horticulture. So we were always, I wanted to keep… Read More
So on the reverse of that, how would your staff, do you think, describe your management style?… Read More
Pollyanna. They’d call me Pollyanna because I’m soft. Okay. I’m not a good confronter. Okay. To be very honest with you, confronting a bad situation, I got better at it. But a dysfunctional employee, I, it was hard for me to confront it and to repair it. And sometimes I… Read More
Okay. The frontline fighters gotta listen to them too and hear what they’re saying, hear what they’re saying. Now what’s, words are coming outta their mouth, but what, what are they really saying regarding this situation or whatever. So I try to be a really inclusive listening door wide open… Read More
Quite often people are given responsibility, but not the authority to go with it. But I really worked hard to give them the authority to go with the responsibility of moving things forward and being leaders. So I think part of it was really believing in, in my coworkers listening,… Read More
I guess I always believed in my coworkers, especially those that I had a lot, a lot of faith in who demonstrated their ability and their knowledge. Okay. And I really wanted to listen to them and their influence and their recommendations because they’re the pros. You know, as a… Read More
Oh boy. Can I describe my management style?… Read More
So, two questions. Can you describe your management style?… Read More
Okay. But that was the right thing to do. And so, you know, it’s people in dollars. The biggest challenges, honestly. Read More
And I don’t know why that person really wanted to do that. I could make some comments, but I’d rather not. And there were sometimes when we had recession and rough financial times when had to cut back on the budget, cut back on staffing, reduce hours, things like that. Read More
Well, it was usually staff or money. You know, I had one period I, during my directorship, I had, what do you call it when someone wants to take over the ship, mutiny of some, some leadership. Okay. Because they weren’t always agreeing with my leadership decisions ’cause they were… Read More
What would you say some of your more frustrating, challenging times were as director?… Read More
And so, you know, like I said, well here’s an interesting fact. If you’re wearing a cochlear, IM implant for hearing. You cannot go down a plastic slide. The, the, and I don’t understand it, but, but, but the plastic slide affects the cochlear implant some way. And so we… Read More
I think, you know, visitor amenities, oh, everything from, you know, the parking lot to make sure the parking is convenient for people. Make sure you’ve got obviously all the right handicapped accessibility issues. We also are a, we work with, I think it’s called culture club regarding people who… Read More
I said, you’re kidding me. So when we developed a couple of new areas with large spiral slides, we spent a lot of money to import ’em from Europe because the big spiral slides are all plastic made in the United States. So to get a big stainless steel slide,… Read More