Benedict was a drama teacher and I had just been elected senior class president. I was giving some speech and she took me aside, I gotta teach you to public speak. He said, I gotta teach you to project. Now you can see I’m yelling too much. So I have… Read More
Everybody I worked for gave me something. As I said, Warren Thomas, one of the things he taught me is no matter how small the, the pro, how small the issue is, do it. If I say do it. So when I was that assistant curator, you know, I, Rick… Read More
And when I went to San San Francisco, Margaret Burs was my boss, Peggy Burs, and she was the head of the Zeus Society. She got us taking a class called Management by Objectives. And my whole life I’ve worked that out, you know, where you set up plans and… Read More
You’ve had mentors, what lessons did you take away from ’em?… Read More
We don’t have to do that. It took a long time to change people’s mind, but now that we do it, everybody understands that, that elephants are much better off. They, they, they have choice and they, they volunteer to do things. They’re smart animals, they do it. So I… Read More
There’s a lot of quotes. I like, I think, I think it was Warren Thomas that told me, and maybe he quoted somebody else, it’s not enough to be right and what it, what it meant. And that, and remember I grew up in the fifties and the sixties and… Read More
Right. So I think that was important advice and I, I knew that it would, again, no matter how passionate I would feel about an idea, unless I could sell it to other people, it didn’t really make any sense. But I love the mile angel quote about do the… Read More
What was, if there was, what was the most important piece of advice you received that has stayed with you throughout your career?… Read More
I think elephants can do very well in zoos. They’re smart animals. They adjust very well to, to human care, I believe. Read More
In your professional opinion, what is your view regarding zoos, maintaining elephants and how it should be done correctly?… Read More
And I think we have the capacity now to keep both Asian and and African elephants. And we probably are gonna have to import some that may not even be able to happen anymore. But I, we probably will need some, some new blood in our population or at least,… Read More
Well, I think we’ve come a long way and I mentioned it a little before that I think sort of attacks by the Humane group have helped us do a lot better job. It’s gonna be hard to have enough to have a self-sustaining cat zoo population. Fortunately they’re long… Read More
I mean you’d have to put WCS and Bronx Zoo there. You’d have to put San Diego. I put Denver and St. Louis, but we could all argue which are the best. And there’s some great small zoos. I there’s a neat little zoo in, in Green Bay, the New… Read More
We probably have a lot of the same, you know, what are the 10 best zoos in the United States?… Read More
In fact a lot of good zoos now. It’s hard to, hard to pick. Yeah. Read More
I think it’s just a classic zoo and it’s obviously in a very tropical area. I love Zoo Victoria with the three or four zoos. ’cause I really like the Hillsburg Sanctuary outside of Melbourne. It’s all native animals, you know, they got platypus and they got, and it’s really… Read More
It’s absolutely gorgeous. I’m trying to think, some of the zoos in Europe, Munster had some really good exhibits and another one, I can’t remember which one ’cause they all kind of go together now. Incredible polar bear exhibit where, you know, you can go under water in a ship… Read More
So I think 60% goes to the general operating fund, which is a sense operates the zoo and then 10% goes to a conservation fund of their, and then, and they’re able to raise a lot of money that way. So that arrangement is, is very good. I’m really proud… Read More
We hired, so we had a marketing department. We, the, the education department at the time when I got there was also running guest services. And now they have a real professional guest services department. So creating those departments was good. And also helping to build up the Zeus Society… Read More
And I have to say all the, the chairs of the Zeus Society, I, most of them went to Africa with me. So I, you know, I was, well, well-liked by the Zeus Society and, and we worked to, again, the commissioners got concerned that the Zeus Society was raising… Read More