Interview 20517 – Caption Index: 107
That sort of thing. Sometime it works, most of the time it doesn’t work. People have independent minds. Now, at the Tulsa Zoo, as you mentioned, you got your citizenship. You got a master’s degree. Read More
That sort of thing. Sometime it works, most of the time it doesn’t work. People have independent minds. Now, at the Tulsa Zoo, as you mentioned, you got your citizenship. You got a master’s degree. Read More
How important was professional growth for your staff?… Read More
With the staff?… Read More
Yeah. At times, it’s difficult because they think that they know what they’re doing, but ultimately, you have a keeper class bringing speakers, including the zoo director, and so on, encourage them to, cannot force them to, but read books. At that time, it was before the internet, so just… Read More
At least I was very fair. And if you do the job, I may leave you alone. But if you can’t do the job, worse yet, if you don’t want to do the job, come to my office. Close the door. And have a talk. And just tell them you… Read More
You listen to me and prove yourself, or else. There’s the door. If you have any questions, fine. Otherwise, just get the heck out. Read More
And you could describe it, but how do you think your staff would describe your style, and over the years as you were seeing different zoos, did it change?… Read More
No. Basically, management of people pretty much remains the same, although new waves of those fresh off college campus, now more than half of them are women, and new waves arrive at the zoos, but people management basically stays very similar. Read More
So what kind of manager would you describe yourself as?… Read More
As I said, unionized keeper force. You have to really have a rapport with the section heads. Q3 section head. If you cannot get along, and you are not accepted by the section heads, you are sunk. And that’s not at times because of the personality differences. I don’t think… Read More
And can you describe your management style?… Read More
Mm-hmm. Read More
Similar, generalized collection with elephants to great apes to hoofstock to birds, so a little larger collection. Unionized keeper force, which I never had before. And ultimately, you look outside. And one of the accomplishment was to commute to regional university for master’s degree. And it was around that time… Read More
And in the job at Tulsa, what new challenges were you confronted with?… Read More
And as general curator, what were your new responsibilities at the Tulsa Zoo?… Read More
Basically very, very similar to other small medium sized zoos. You stand between the director and the group of keepers who scream at you at times. So you are caught in the middle. Oh by the way, excuse me, one step back. My accomplishment in Indianapolis Zoo was to research… Read More
What type of zoo was Tulsa as compared to the zoo you had come from, Indianapolis?… Read More
At that time, Dave Zukoni was the director then. And there was some problems with news media and so forth. You have to professionalize the zoo somewhat. So I talked to Dave Zukoni, and he said come on over. Read More
And was it a different title you were hired for?… Read More
General curator. Read More