I remember Bill, who, who was a managing partner of Baker Bots law firm, good friend of James Baker, secretary of state, chairman of the board of Rice University. Bill had impeccable credentials. Nobody knew he likes Zeus. But another board member introduced me to him. We had lunch and… Read More
You know, and we’ll take it from there because we had talked to people like Terry Maple and he said they, they left too much money on the table. They didn’t ask for enough when they privatized. And they struggled at first, you know, so we still had, the city… Read More
And it proves that if you try to do everything yourself, it’s either not gonna work or it’s not gonna work well. And, and I, and I got, that was some of the best advice I got. ’cause the mayor said, you can do a task force, but you have… Read More
’cause they were a little skeptical because wait a minute, you’re gonna make the zoo better, but you’re gonna charge people more?… Read More
I said, well, yeah, it’s $2 and 50 cents right now and 50 cents for kids. It’s $3 for, you know, a parent and a child to come to the zoo. I said, and they’re not getting a very good experience. We can charge more and they’ll get a much… Read More
But the task force then came about and I got a really good leader for the task force. A guy named Bill Barnett, who was just amazing leader. And we got, we got the, we, we privatized the zoo. We had McKinsey, a big consulting firm, do pro bono work… Read More
We met with each one of them individually. Read More
And I thought it had a lot of potential. And so, you know, one thing led to another. And then I got that one, I made a stipulation that if I take the job, I can put together a task force within the first year to evaluate. I wanted to… Read More
You know, that I, I don’t think I really wanna go. So I, I didn’t do that. And then, and then Houston called me and said, you know, would you, our director is, is resigning Don Olson at the time. And, and he called me Don Olson and said, you… Read More
And then Diane, my senior, says, do you really want to go there?… Read More
But he still, so when they did that, I said, I, that’s it. I’m, I’m, you know, there’s not much more for me to do here. So then I, I left on my own. But at that time, I, I consulted for about eight months and I, I I, I… Read More
And because I was reluctant, I think they liked more. So they offered me the, the job. And I remember talking to Conway about it, bill Conway. And he said, Rickett’s, the other side of the world. He says, you know, it’s a good experience, but you’re so isolated. Read More
And I, I remember the head guy because he said, what’s, and next year’s gonna be less busy, why are we delaying it?… Read More
Said, let, let’s, we’re too busy this year. Read More
A place you built to go to Houston?… Read More
I was done at Disney the last year. It was apparent that they did not really need me and they kind of made a different position for me. Same. They wanted me to run Safari, do Disney safaris to Africa, which I, which I wanted to do. I suggested it. Read More
You could take any species and make it, you know, very interesting. And without having to, to go with the typical stereotype opinion that giant pandas and koalas are. If you don’t have those, you don’t, you know, you’re not a really big zoo. We want, we did not want… Read More
So my first question is, what prompts you to leave Disney?… Read More
So that was part of it. The money wasn’t really an object. Disney could have gotten pandas. I’m sure Koalas were, I would argue that, you know, they don’t do much. It’s just the name and they look cute. I said, you know, I, I don’t think I, I don’t… Read More
Why did you not consider, or did you giant pandas or koalas that might have been very popular with the public?… Read More