Well, I’m a type AAAA personality, so I’m always up to something. But I’ve been very blessed. We have a birth daughter named Catherine Casey, and we then, along the way, adopted six children into our family. They joined our family through adoption, older child adoption. We basically adopted two… Read More
My husband ran the National Aviary in Pittsburgh. As a matter of fact, he’s the one that got the designation for the National Aviary in Pittsburgh. That was his vision, that was his idea, and I’m very proud of that. So the national Aviary in Pittsburgh, he was the executive… Read More
It really was. I often give lectures to women in looking at president, CEO roles and wanting to have a balanced life. And they wanna know how you do that. Read More
How were you able to balance these two entities?… Read More
If you’re privatizing the zoo, I’d spend eight hours a day downtown with the city and nobody would say anything about, well, what’s the best thing for the zoo?… Read More
Nobody said that. So I think that is very different. I think if I had to go back and improve Barbara Baker, I think that what has made me a successful leader is that I am passionate about what I believe in. I think that if I had to improve… Read More
It’d be eight hours and nobody, I’d walk outta the meeting going, well, what’s the best thing for the zoo?… Read More
Oh, a ton of things. I screw up all the time, I’m really good at it. So a ton of things. Gosh, that’s a tough question. I think there’s a lot of things I would’ve done differently in my life. I might have second guessed whether I really wanted to… Read More
If you could go back in time, what, if anything, would you have done differently?… Read More
It’s growing, it’s very professional, great organization to be a part of, and I’m very proud to have been a part of it. Read More
As a matter of fact, some of the language is so close I’m like, who copied who?… Read More
It’s so close, and yet the animal rights folks take the standards that ZAA had 10 years ago, and they present those as the standards. Well, look, ZAA doesn’t meet AZA standards because, and here’s the proof. Well, those standards are from 10 years ago. They’re not the ones we… Read More
Almost identical. Read More
The biggest difference is that AZA looks at finance, and government, and all that kind of thing. ZAA looks specifically at the animals and the animal areas in their accreditation program. So we don’t get into finance, we don’t get into all that kind of thing. We do do safety. Read More
I think that the two organizations have very different goals. AZA’s goals, and recognize, I’ve been outta AZA since 2015 when we left. But AZA’s goals are to be an accrediting body, a regulatory body, and to be an organization that only allows certain members in who meet their standards… Read More
As president of the Zoological Association of America, why do you think there was an impasse with the two organizations?… Read More
Clearly. Read More
I mean, honest to God, they take great care of their animals. It leaves out the private owners who have their private animal collection. Good god, there’s more rhinos in Texas than there are in Africa in some parts. So it leaves out the people who have those collections, they… Read More
Is there room for both?… Read More
Absolutely, a hundred percent. Actually both of ’em are needed. They’re needed. So you’ve got AZA, and AZA is an established, been accrediting zoos since 1985 organization. And they’ve matured now to more of a regulatory, elite organization. And so, that’s fine and good. That’s where they are now. But… Read More