Oh, we built a new entrance. I actually relocated the entrance. Our ticket, we had two little ticket windows, and lines would form, you know, half a block long trying to get in the zoo ’cause we only had two ticket windows. Plus the entrance that was in the original… Read More
So I needed six votes here, and I needed five votes here. I needed 11 people to raise their hand, and I could get untold millions of dollars. And I did all of the lobbying for that. Let me go back. The Zoo Commission had been through holy hell with… Read More
And I said, “I want to do a bond issue. I want to expand the zoo.” And I told them what I thought would work, and I developed that with the staff. We needed reptiles. Every day, people came, “Where are the snakes, where are the snakes, where are the… Read More
Where are the snakes, where are the snakes?… Read More
This was in the early ’80s. And we designed the building that we still use to this day. It needs work, but anyway, it was a good building for a long time. And the significance of that is that I had never been involved. When the zoo was constructed, I… Read More
So I immersed myself in the construction. And I loved it. I just loved it. And that had a profound impact on me. It was, hey, you could dream of something, and then it gets built. There it is, you did it, you know. I had a lot of help,… Read More
And the gorilla exhibit in particular, it was showing that you didn’t need. You could have moats, but then you could have landscaping. And I was just and I saw it, I saw it. I went and saw it, and I was just, this is the greatest thing I’ve ever… Read More
Well, he just, he became obsessed with that concept. So when he designed the bird house, and he had a team of two local architects, and he would say, “This is what I want you to do.” There was never any, “Hey, have you thought?” No, that didn’t happen. He… Read More
It was just a mess. The building was rotting. It was awful. And that’s just one example of flaws that were throughout. Because he didn’t know. He didn’t know any better. And he wouldn’t listen to anybody. Now I don’t think another zoo person set foot on that site till… Read More
He wouldn’t, he didn’t want them to come. He didn’t want any zoo directors to come. So I spent 10 years basically fixing that. But within that 10 years, my first project was an education building. And I hired the same architects. They were good guys. I hired them, but… Read More
He did not have a single consultant. I learned over the years that he had virtually no experience in mammals and birds, but yet he built these exhibits. And all of them, almost every one of them had major design flaws in them. So, from that time in becoming director… Read More
But the bird house was the centerpiece. It was an icon. It was huge. It was 30,000 square feet. And to this day, again, everything in that original zoo was built in an oriental motif and was painted red and black, from the administration building to the snack bars to… Read More
But this bird house that was touted as maybe the best bird house ever built and touted by Mehrtens that way, and a lot of people felt that way ’cause they had an incredible collection, he had it built out of wood, and it started to rot before the zoo… Read More
I had a PR director. I had, and I’m using titles that were used back then. I had a, finally we had a guest relations manager. It just, things just started to change. The zoo’s attendance went from about 450,000 to 900,000 in a year and stayed there. We hired… Read More
And my whole life sort of changed. I became more… I guess I just was more at peace. I had two children by then. They became more of a focus in my life. And I think I became a pretty good manager. And I’d like to think that my staff… Read More
I don’t know what else to say. I just, it was like half of my career was this not very nice guy, and the second half of my career, I think I was pretty good at what I did. Can you tell me about the- You talked about you’re building… Read More
And how would your staff describe your management style?… Read More
Great question. So the first few years, I was a terrible manager. I guess I’d been director… Well, while I was still let’s just say a not very good manager, (laughs) I managed to get a bond issue passed and double the size of the zoo. And the zoo went… Read More
And one day I just said, “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t, this is not good for me. It’s not good for the zoo.” And almost overnight, which is probably more like a year or so, I changed, and I completely changed. I began to… I gave the staff… Read More
Can you describe your management style?… Read More