It, yes, Dr. George Rab was the director and I at the way things were set up at that time. I directly s reported to Dr. Rab and the, Dr. Rab was an amazing director and conservationist, but he was a super interesting personality and he could be kind of,… Read More
Was he your immediate boss?… Read More
And so long story short, I did, they were building this brand new hospital and I came and I interviewed and that’s how I made the move from Lincoln Park to Brookfield. So it wasn’t, it wasn’t something I sought out, but, you know, because of that relationship that developed… Read More
Would you be interested in thinking about Brookfield?… Read More
What kind of zoo did you find when you came to Brookfield?… Read More
Obviously with my particular interest in, in the medical aspect of it, they had just built this state of the art hospital that was a real attraction. We were talking at Lincoln Park about what we can do to expand this, you know, 20 some year old facility and you… Read More
I said, not really. Why do you ask?… Read More
When I got a call from Dr. Phillips saying, Hey, have you ever thought about working at Brookfield?… Read More
And he said, well, I’m being recruited to go out to Davis, California to the vet school out there. They’re really interested. My wife is from there, so she’s really interested in heading out to California. And so it looks like I’m gonna be headed that way. Read More
But we started talking about the new dean at the vet school at Illinois, who was a pathologist by training and had worked, had been the head of pathology up at the University of Guelph in Canada. And they had a relationship with the Toronto Zoo and pathology was an… Read More
And then eventually that grew into a program where they actually hired an individual to help do the pathology service. But, you know, because we were trying to cobble things together, he had multiple responsibilities that probably each could have used a full-time person. And two of those were down… Read More
So you work at Lincoln Park Zoo till 1993?… Read More
Yes. And Then in 1993, you leave Lincoln Park to work at Brookfield Zoo. Read More
And can you talk about what prompted your decision to change jobs?… Read More
That was interesting because I wasn’t, I wasn’t looking to go anywhere. I was happy at Lincoln Park, but one of the things, pathology, finding out why animals died, doing necropsies or animal autopsies is a critically important part of zoo medicine. That was part of my training at St. Read More
The goals was to have a more, more complete coverage. You know, the, to have, nobody would really think about having a collection that size, you know, be the responsibility of one individual. I mean, you know, as I mentioned, Mumby mumby took place later. I was on vacation. If,… Read More
And then I either push or watch for any opportunity to, to take that first step. The associate veterinarian, assistant veterinarian is a perfect example of that. Dr. Barbara Thomas at the time now, Dr. Barbara Baker worked with us as, as an extern during vet school, had obviously a… Read More
Were you able to expand the veterinary staff during your tenure?… Read More
And so it’s a very precise scientific and kind of involved way to determine percent body fat. And then we also experimented with some other, or took some other measurements so that we could come up with a considerably less complicated but equally precise way of doing it. And so… Read More
What were your goals?… Read More