Interview 34507 – Caption Index: 254
Did they ask?… Read More
Did they ask?… Read More
When you retired as zoo director, did you give the new Zoo director any advice?… Read More
You want, you want them to really seem to be active or comfortable in their exhibits, in, in ways that you only know by watching, you know, watching your animals and not, I try to, you know, which they also, interacting with the public really helps I think the animal… Read More
Oh, I would think so. The way things change nowadays, you know, if you, if you can’t design it, build it and open it within five years, you better not do it. First of all. The other thing is you got donors that, you know, they don’t wanna give you… Read More
Extremely important. I think the Houston Zoo would send more people to workshops and conferences than most zoos of its of its size. You have to be careful ’cause they all want to go to conferences no matter what. But I said if you’re gonna go to a conference, you… Read More
Is there a shelf life for a zoo master plan?… Read More
People that are willing to omi their mistakes are more likely to grow more professionally and be better leaders than ones that just think that they’re always right and demand, you know, that and dominate everybody else. I, I always surrounded myself with, with good people that were always better… Read More
How important to you was professional growth for your staff?… Read More
And what did you learn from it?… Read More
I mean, that’s a question I would ask a lot in interviews. Read More
You know, you know, you had a great career, but, you know, what decisions did you make that that were not a, a good decision at the time?… Read More
Because rather than looking for people to making mistakes, you, you encourage them to, did you, what’d you learn from that mistake?… Read More
You have to be good. And I think that was sometimes surprising to people. ’cause you know, oh well I thought we were friendly, Rick. Yeah, we were, but you, you’re not doing your job. So I, I think I was pretty, I was upfront maybe too upfront sometimes, but,… Read More
But if it doesn’t work you say, Hey, let’s try it a different way. You don’t wanna get in the weeds too much. You, you wanna hire good people, but you gotta tell ’em, Hey, don’t be afraid to make a mistake. I would always forgive people for making a… Read More
Most of the staff I’ve worked with, I keep in touch with quite a bit. The curator of mammals at the San Diego Zoo now. I hired her. I gave her an opportunity when other people didn’t. And she’ll never forget that. The same thing at Houston. I mean there… Read More
But I, I think if people said Rick ji’s animal style management style was hire the best people and get out of their way and let them do their work, What would your staff, how would they describe your management style do you think?… Read More
Gallup, they did our profiles and other sub and with all these other top executives from oil companies and medical companies. And what they taught us or what they kind of made us believe more of is go with your strengths. Don’t try to do stuff you’re not good at. Read More
And, and, and they all remembered it and they all liked it, you know, because you weren’t critical back then you, but, but it was, and then I built on that. And so, so you know, you, you, you, you, you start accumulating all this stuff. So I think my… Read More
I got the vision award because my presentation started out with how many of you remember your first visit to a zoo?… Read More
Somewhat unpredictable because we’d have, I’d like to plan things and, and we have plans, but then sometimes you have a plan and as you go through it you realize you gotta change things a little bit. Some people say, no, we gotta stick to the plan. No, sometimes we… Read More