Interview 38268 – Caption Index: 53
And he called me and said, Hey, we’re doing this project, would you come in and look at what we’re doing?… Read More
And he called me and said, Hey, we’re doing this project, would you come in and look at what we’re doing?… Read More
And so I did a number of presentations like that for Zeus along the coast, and that was part of the company. And then while I was doing that, pat McBride had called me up and they had started working for Ogden Entertainment. And there was a gentleman there by… Read More
I think it was called Great Bear, maybe it was Grizzly experience, may may have been it. And he wanted to get into that business. So he had gone to Pat McBride, who was a friend of his down in Miami and said, here’s what I wanna do. I want… Read More
Anyway, they had me come out and said, okay, what do we need to do to prepare for hurricanes pre, during and post?… Read More
I’d gone to Jacksonville, Florida Zoo, I went to New Orleans Zoo. One of the things I was doing was hurricane preparation. And if, and if you talk to those institutions, well, I don’t know if the same people are there because I guess he went and be the curator… Read More
And which was the last exhibit I did. And I told, you know, I told the, the director or park and rec director at the time when that exhibit opens, that’s, I’m leaving, this is my last project. And I’d found a horse farm in Ocala. I, and growing up… Read More
But I wasn’t seeing the community come back and support the zoo. And understandably, I mean, they, they got knocked and they had to recoup themselves, but at the end of four years, it just wasn’t happening. And the director of the zoo had left and a new director had… Read More
And it was a very nice package, insurance, health insurance for a very long period of time afterwards, you still got a pension, you got all your sick time, all your vacation time that you’d accrued. And, and I looked at it and my daughter at the time was going… Read More
And what attracted you to this position with Ogden Entertainment?… Read More
Well, you know, I’ll tell you, before Hurricane Andrew, we were at about 1,000,002 as far as visitors every year. By 19 96, 4 years after Andrew, we weren’t seeing half a million people. And a lot of the funding disappeared because the community had to rebuild itself. And so… Read More
I mean, it was just too hot for the animals. We, we planted all those trees and by January one we opened up the zoo again. So it’s quite an experience To say the least. In 1996, you leave the zoo to take a job as vice president of Ogden… Read More
Why do you leave the zoo and go into the private sector and not go to another zoo?… Read More
They were like, oh my God, what?… Read More
I think they were as much shock as we were. And so my crew and I, we got out, got the forklifts, got our back, and we started bending fences back up. And you know, huff hoofstock, it’s flighty impalas, they’re spooky animals. Spring bucks, kudo. They stood right there… Read More
And that was it. As far as big stuff, the aviary was gone. But within five days, Ron Johnson, who was our curator of birds, had trapped 80% of the birds back because they weren’t going anywhere. They were as much shock as we were. Half of ’em we found… Read More
So if people made it to the entrance, they could get into the zoo because it was a mile drive once you were on our property to get to get to us. So we cleared that, and then he comes walking on his own. He had to end up walking… Read More
Now there’s not a lot of wind resistance at a chain link fence, but every one of ’em was laid down flat. And these holding airs, none of our hoofstock moved. They had all laid down on the ground, put their butts to the wind. And I guess because of… Read More
And so as things got destroyed, the only thing we were concerned about was, can we get water to the animals and are they gonna be safe?… Read More
And at our kitchen area was built with all concrete. So we knew we had food available and we’d stockpiled a bunch of foods and stuff knowing that it would be a while before we could get trucks back into us. And our, our electrician, a guy who’s on Facebook… Read More
And I’m glad I did because the wall there, hurricane covered homestead, which is where we lived, and it, it wiped our house out completely. But she was up with me at the zoo and our vet and our shoot team, and that’s where we hunkered down for the hurricane. Read More