I don’t remember the exact year, but it had to be somewhere in the mid to late seventies. And again, this was another bump up, taking me completely out of being a keeper and giving me more curatorial responsibilities. ‘Cause Jim, Dr. Dolan was traveling a lot, not around. There… Read More
Who you’re talking about?… Read More
Yeah. Right, right. At some point in time, your named then the Curatorial Field Supervisor. Yeah. Read More
What were your responsibilities?… Read More
Well, that basically is a made-up title that allowed me to step out of the union along with another individual and now take an office job helping the general curator at that time, who was going between the zoo and wild animal park. We were always at the wild animal… Read More
Who was the general curator you were helping?… Read More
Dr. Dolan, Dr. James Dolan. Yeah. Read More
So what is a zoo technician?… Read More
What did you do?… Read More
Yeah. Read More
Those were coming in at a regular pace right up to the opening day. And so, I mean, you know, we were learning things, you know, by the seat of our pants basically. But I would say if I looked backed on it now and looked at our success rate,… Read More
Yeah, I think it was a combination of work ethic. Some people who had started in the very early years of the wild animal park moved on and through seniority. You know, you move up. Being a lead keeper is basically, you know, the straw boss for the working crew. Read More
Because of your work ethic, how did you make that transition?… Read More
Right. Read More
But you’re promoted then to a lead keeper?… Read More
And a lot of talk about what do we do, how do we keep it, do we keep it?… Read More
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
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
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
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