You know what their job is and what you want their job to be. I think that’s extremely important. Then you find they right people for the job. We had a fellow who took care of the equus and he was there because he came from a farm in ohio… Read More
Some of them knew that I was going to make changes and some transferred to other areas. One went to the carbon shop. One went to the plumbing shop. One went to the machine shop. And then (indistinct) but I had to, I had some house cleaning to do. And… Read More
I was probably very much hands on management. I was there all the time. Because the mammal department wasn’t the department I wanted it to be when I took over. There were people who shouldn’t have been there. Not for any great reason. But it just wasn’t the job for… Read More
What would you say was your management style?… Read More
The chief veterinarian (indistinct) that was fine because it saved him his job. Then I got promoted. People thought needed to be promoted to be recognized who did the job the way I wanted it done. I wanted people to care about the animals and care about people too, that… Read More
No, no raise this week. And the other one never said a thing. He just wasn’t going to say a thing. That went on for a year, year and a half and met the fellow who was asking where his money was. (indistinct) he was 62. He was going to… Read More
And I told them, if they were not thinking of doing the job, that’s not what they should be doing (indistinct) one of them every two weeks, can I get my raise this week?… Read More
And they had no respect for keepers although they had been keepers themselves, they didn’t have much respect for any of the keepers. And vice versa. The way they were treated. And I could not let that go on. (indistinct) I didn’t see what was happening. Or I didn’t care… Read More
Part of the problem I think was that I had supervisors. I had three supervisors. One was a top person. He retired the same time Brad House left. And the other two men I had no use for them. They weren’t doing their jobs. They let the other guy do… Read More
As a curator, how did you affect the development of the sections of the zoo now that were under your control?… Read More
It was, Brad left in 1970, he left in October I think of 74. So probably, might have been 1976. That might be on my resume. So now, you’re in charge of the entire mammal department. Now you do have people working for you. Yes. Read More
What year was that, do you remember?… Read More
I didn’t know I just assumed that I was going to get the job of curator. Conway had in mind something else. He was going to hire us to be my own boss. He wanted someone else. Just hard to find anyone else that we wanted. And so I think… Read More
Well I think, see he didn’t know me when Brad House was there. Brad was the spokesman for the mammal department and I only had a bachelors degree. One of the requirements is supposed to be more than a bachelors degree but that was all I had. I guess my… Read More
What did you mean and how did you earn his trust?… Read More
No. You once said, in time Conway trusted me. Read More
I don’t think I ever did. But we spent days, months working with little insect eaters. As a quick aside, did you ever call him Lee or always Mr Crendal. Mr Crendal. Yeah. You once said, called him anything if he had said call me Lee, I don’t think I… Read More
They were showing a bat one time. They’re easy to feed. They were very hard trying to get these bats to eat. (indistinct) Bats were very hard to get going. Because they just wanted to catch insects on the fly. Crickets. Put a bunch of bats in a cave with… Read More
And then he left. Great guy. We used to have lunch in the staff dining room. This one long table down by the windows we would seat probably a dozen people. Then there were little tables scattered around the room and you wanted to be at the table that Mr… Read More
He said, what are you worried about?… Read More