I mean, and I would tell the chairman, I said, “We don’t do that.” And he said, “Why not?” He said, “That’s what government does.” He said, “Yeah, but we’re not government. We don’t have to follow government procedure.” If I send somebody on a trip. I pretty well trust… Read More
So he was chairman of Bird Park, chairman of the zoo. And so about three years later, and we got all fine, there was no problem. He kind of said, in fact, the first thing he said to me is like, “Bern, just do what you’ve done. You’re doing a… Read More
It’s just stupid. Two small companies in the same business. I mean, come, let’s just get on with it.” So we merged. Dr. Kwa obviously was the chairman of Wildlife Reserve Singapore, I became the CEO. And so we went on for a couple of years. We actually struggled with… Read More
They’re totally different.” The corporate culture in the zoo is one of Dr. Ong’s personality, is a very open non-civil service, almost cavalier sort of a management style with very few concerns about the rules and regulations of government and with the Jurong Bird Park, because it’s been run by… Read More
And there will definitely be a clash, but the worst thing is to be a clash between the two chairman ’cause one’s gotta go, right?… Read More
If you merge the two companies, one’s gotta go. You can’t have two chairman. So the chairman, Dhanabalan, had a… Chairman of Temasek Dhanabalan who had asked for the merger, said, “Okay, I understand. I mean, let’s not rock the boat. It’s not a big issue.” So everything went well. Read More
How does that come to place?… Read More
Why?… Read More
So what happened was we had a new chairman of Temasek Holdings, a gentleman called Mr. Dhanabalan, who formerly was the Deputy Prime Minister. So quite a hot shot. And when he came into Temasek, quite some time before the merger, I mean many, many years before that, he looked… Read More
Was your creativity and fame an issue with others, top civil servant?… Read More
People within the city government, were they jealous of the fame?… Read More
I’m not sure, actually. I don’t think so, It’s difficult to say, but I didn’t encounter any jealousy. I think the zoo is always sort of out on a limb anyway, so that it’s never really mainstream anything. And I think even within zoos, within a zoo, you have so… Read More
Is that because does he give you new responsibilities?… Read More
Yeah, I think so. I was executive director up until that time. Executive director was a position I had. Okay, so I started off as director in 1980. And then Charlie Schroeder comes along. We bring him out as a consultant in about whenever, ’86 or something. And he said,… Read More
So what’s the difference between Bernard and the director of your board?” And so I said, “Should be called executive director.” So I had this change of title with absolutely no increase of responsibility or increase in salary. And then when we opened the Night Safari, the board said, “Yeah,… Read More
Yep. It’s successful. You get a title, another title, A title. Chief executive. Oh, right. Read More
Is that because of the ninth Safari?… Read More
We go down to the Raffles Hotel.” He said, “I shot a boat.” So I get into the mini bus with Sam. And as I get in, I see this like six orangutans, six orangutans, therefore six keepers. Each one has orangutan. So there’s six keepers, six orangutan. And I… Read More
He’s just kind of just into the orangutan. And he’s not so much with Ah Meng, but with the babies, a couple of babies there. And he’s just like just fascinated. And then the manager, his manager says, “He really wants to go to the zoo.” So I said, “Well,… Read More
And even then there was like word that obviously got out, I mean, through our keepers, there was like hundreds of people around just kind of waiting, looking, trying to get a glimpse of him. But it was like just amazing. Just the kind of the presence that this guy… Read More