And then Steve came with me, came to me and he says, you know, and we had lunch together and he said, “We wanna make you director of the zoo, but we wanna bring somebody else in as president and CEO over you. Well what do you think about that?”… Read More
If this is a guy I can work with, yeah I’ll probably, that’ll be fine,” you know?… Read More
And so that’s what came about, and they hired Jeff Bonner as the president and CEO, and I was the director and COO, director of operations. So when Jeff and I first got together, and Jeff and I worked it out. And it’s like Jeff said, “Okay, I want you… Read More
Certainly with him. Oh, well Charlie stayed on. You know Charlie thought, well, he’d retire at 65, and he didn’t, and then he, well a little bit more. He’s got this project to do, and so forth. And so then when Charlie did retire, I was a candidate to take… Read More
But had you and Charlie talked about that, did he know your thought process?… Read More
By the time he was ready to retire, yes. Yeah, we talked about that. Was he in favor of it, or- He wrote all kinds of letters of recommendation for me to follow him. So they did a big search. When Charlie was about to retire, they did a national… Read More
Now while you’re assistant director doing these kinda things and involved in these various projects, in the back of your mind, did you think about the position of director?… Read More
Yeah, I guess that was always, you know thinking, “Well you know, Charlie’s, you know, 10 to 15 years older than me. Read More
When Charlie retires, would I wanna be director?” You know and, “Yeah, I think so,” and- Did you have those conversations with him?… Read More
But was the original intent to have aurochs, or other animals from the zoo having an ancillary breeding area?… Read More
Yes. But that never came to fruition. We never did put animals out there, just because before you do that, you know, you have to have somebody staying there all the time. You have to have security there all the time. It just, the cost of it kinda, it was… Read More
And it wasn’t until a week later when they were gonna go, the architect that they’d chosen was from, I’ve forgotten where, someplace in Minnesota or whatever. And we were gonna fly, and so here we took Ralston Purina’s private jet on air, and Charlie says, “Well, I want you… Read More
Now during the time you were assistant director, wasn’t there another proposal made to people about a breeding farm?… Read More
Charlie and I and a couple of others on the staff, we had always, were interested in acquiring some other property because we were limited as to what we could do within our own, you know, part of Forest Park. And we went and looked at quite a number of… Read More
Oh, maybe I’ll just keep my mouth shut.” You know, it was like that. Read More
Didn’t realize that Charlie felt the exact same way, but he just couldn’t say that to Bob Hyland, who was pushing this farming thing with Purina Mills, you know, down Charlie’s throat, you know?… Read More
They were gonna have chickens in layer cages, where the legs would come out and so forth. But they’re all in small cages. They were going to have hogs and that on slatted floors, and so forth. And then they were gonna have an area where they would be taking… Read More
While we don’t have, I think we have a great relationship with the Humane Society and that, there are certain animal rights people that don’t necessarily agree with some of the modern farming.” And I said something like, “And this manure transforming, this is a crock of shit. You know,… Read More
And it was like, “Oh shoot, here I’m doing, I was offering some advice, you know?… Read More
Or were you just kinda following what the director wanted to do?… Read More