They’re all flooded, you know, had to wade through water and squeegee. The bathrooms were like third world bathrooms, you know, things were overflowing. They ran outta toilet paper. Nobody did. The animal, the animals were taken well care of. But the public was like, they didn’t get, they didn’t… Read More
But if we wanted somebody, we could offer them more money and a promotion. So the ones we did that we want, the ones we wanted to save, we offered more money. The others we’d get the same. And so we only had a few people leave. Well, we had… Read More
It was a zoo where I’m, I’m in my office and a lady comes in and says, could you come out to the restrooms?… Read More
What kind of zoo was it?… Read More
It was a zoo that had long lines. When the, when the lines got busy, the cashiers took a break because it was too stressful for them. Read More
You, you we told you to lead it. No, I got somebody, I’m gonna be the vice chair. Bill Barnett’s gonna lead it. Their drawers dropped. They knew the train had left the station. They were giving me kind of lip service. But now I had somebody in there. They,… Read More
They go, what? I’m not gonna lead it. What do you mean?… Read More
So when you first got to Houston, what kind of zoo were you finding that you needed privatization, you wanted to do things?… Read More
I remember Bill, who, who was a managing partner of Baker Bots law firm, good friend of James Baker, secretary of state, chairman of the board of Rice University. Bill had impeccable credentials. Nobody knew he likes Zeus. But another board member introduced me to him. We had lunch and… Read More
And it proves that if you try to do everything yourself, it’s either not gonna work or it’s not gonna work well. And, and I, and I got, that was some of the best advice I got. ’cause the mayor said, you can do a task force, but you have… Read More
You know, and we’ll take it from there because we had talked to people like Terry Maple and he said they, they left too much money on the table. They didn’t ask for enough when they privatized. And they struggled at first, you know, so we still had, the city… Read More
I said, well, yeah, it’s $2 and 50 cents right now and 50 cents for kids. It’s $3 for, you know, a parent and a child to come to the zoo. I said, and they’re not getting a very good experience. We can charge more and they’ll get a much… Read More
’cause they were a little skeptical because wait a minute, you’re gonna make the zoo better, but you’re gonna charge people more?… Read More
But the task force then came about and I got a really good leader for the task force. A guy named Bill Barnett, who was just amazing leader. And we got, we got the, we, we privatized the zoo. We had McKinsey, a big consulting firm, do pro bono work… Read More
And I thought it had a lot of potential. And so, you know, one thing led to another. And then I got that one, I made a stipulation that if I take the job, I can put together a task force within the first year to evaluate. I wanted to… Read More
We met with each one of them individually. Read More
You know, that I, I don’t think I really wanna go. So I, I didn’t do that. And then, and then Houston called me and said, you know, would you, our director is, is resigning Don Olson at the time. And, and he called me Don Olson and said, you… Read More
And then Diane, my senior, says, do you really want to go there?… Read More
And I, I remember the head guy because he said, what’s, and next year’s gonna be less busy, why are we delaying it?… Read More
But he still, so when they did that, I said, I, that’s it. I’m, I’m, you know, there’s not much more for me to do here. So then I, I left on my own. But at that time, I, I consulted for about eight months and I, I I, I… Read More