So we run over to the mailbox, we get the check, we are all, we’re dancing around with it in the office. We’re like, look at this, this is $2.2 million, and everybody wants to touch it, ’cause they never touched $2.2 million. We did the happy dance, the money… Read More
It can’t be sold, it can’t be developed. If for whatever reason Pittsburgh wanted to get rid of it, for whatever reason, I don’t know what that would be, it would have to go back to RK Mellon. So that was the start of our international conservation center. And it… Read More
How did you become associated with the Zoological Association of America and develop that relationship?… Read More
I’m like, what?… Read More
You’re kidding me?… Read More
But we got ’em down to $2.2 million, and RK Mellon funded it completely. The whole amount. Sent me a check, it came in the mail, just the regular mail. We get the mail. My secretary, my assistant comes to me and she says, there’s a check from RK Mellon. Read More
I mean, what do you mean there’s a check from RK Mellon?… Read More
She said, there’s a check from RK Mellon for $2.2 million in your box. Read More
So now how much do we pay for it?… Read More
So I really like negotiation. I think that’s fun. I think it’s fun to go back and forth, either arguing a point or discussing something. People who know me know I like to do that. And so negotiation was fun. So they originally wanted $3.2 million, and by the time… Read More
And so they have a whole branch to do that. So I’m like, whoa, okay. But RK Mellon is one of the foundations that was upset in 1975. So I haven’t cracked that nut yet. So I don’t have a relationship with them that’s real good yet. I’ve gotten little… Read More
Very few people get to present to the RK Mellon board, but they let me present to ’em. So I presented to them, and then they came out to the, what was then the conservation center. Wasn’t the conservation center, it was Glenn Savage Ranch at that point. They came… Read More
We called their land preservation branch and we said, we’ve got this idea, we wanna build this breeding farm. We wanna conserve this land. We don’t wanna change the land, we just won’t put animals on it. Keep making hay, keep doing all the things that are going on out… Read More
Who funds that?… Read More
Wow. Lo and behold, the foundation there in the city of Pittsburgh is the number one funder of land preservation in the whole nation. RK Mellon. They buy more property and preserve it than any other foundation in the country. And what they do, generally, is they buy land, and… Read More
So it finally came across the idea, well wait a minute, what about land preservation?… Read More
What if zoos became involved in land preservation, in conserving land, and having it not become developments and all that kind of stuff, and keeping it natural?… Read More
So I started Googling that. Read More
Who wants to buy a hunting ranch, and manage all the animals, and manage all the infrastructure, and all the stuff that went with it, hay fields, everything?… Read More
Basically a working farm. And so anyway, it sat on the market, we kept fundraising. Read More