Some of them I didn’t know at all. But then I got to meet some zoo directors. And, you know, you’re locked up in Wheeling, West Virginia, and there ain’t a whole lot to do, you know, after five o’clock, after you get out of class than sit around and… Read More
I mean, the zoo was my life. My wife and I got married on a Saturday, and I was at work Monday morning. I was a workaholic because I felt responsible. I felt totally responsible for the zoo. And I just knew I couldn’t keep doing that. So in a… Read More
I hired, what else?… Read More
Education curator. So that all took place over about an 18-month to 2-year period of time that I went from being chief cook and bottle washer to now I had people who knew more about what they were doing than I did. And that… That sort of helped me. That… Read More
I would like to think so. Read More
Were you forming your own philosophy about zoo management now?… Read More
No, I was forming a staff. Even though… All right, not even though. Because I had no managerial, no managerial experience, I was a bad manager. I was, you know, my role model, if you want to call it that, was John Mehrtens. So I was pretty dictatorial. I was,… Read More
The election, the wording on the ballot was, “Do you wish to be taxed to support Riverbanks Zoo?” And it passed by the narrowest of margins. So these four guys took it upon themselves to have a meeting with their counterparts in Richland County. And with the mayor, we were… Read More
And they agreed, this is how we’re gonna fund the zoo, and we’re gonna make it a millage agency. We’re gonna assess local property taxes to fund the zoo’s operating budget. And as I tell people, this was now three years after I’d been director. So for three years I… Read More
We’ve been giving you this money voluntarily, but we’re not gonna keep doing this. And this was the two counties and the city. One of the two counties, Lexington County, had historically been- Remember this is the South. This county had historically been, it was literally the oth- It wasn’t… Read More
And they were the ones putting the most pressure on the zoo, saying, “This isn’t what we do. We don’t fund zoos. You gotta fix this.” Fortunately for us, there was a major shift in state government, where power transferred from the state legislature to local governments. Prior to the… Read More
We’re gonna have county councils and city councils, and we’re gonna have mayors, and they’re gonna do the work of the people. That rural county, Lexington County, held its first election right about the time Mehrtens was fired. And they elected, by single member districts, four young guys who all… Read More
You’re not making enough money to pay salaries, feed the animals, do all that you, keep the lights on. You’re not making enough money. Read More
Where’s that money, where’s the balance gonna come from?… Read More
But I got on the phone with other people and said, “Look, let me tell you what we’re feeding saki monkeys.” And they’d laugh, you know, you gotta be kidding me, you know. So I slashed the food budget probably three-fourths with no impact on animal health or on animal… Read More
And I’m trying to think there was any, oh gosh, I can’t remember. It’s not that important, but a good number of the staff within the year of my becoming director had gone, had moved on. They just, their jobs weren’t needed anymore, mainly because they had been tasked with… Read More
I didn’t terminate anybody. I didn’t eliminate any positions. But that was probably the first time that I had any contact with politicians because I appeared before them to show them how much we had reduced the budget and that we were trying to be fiscally responsible and good stewards… Read More
Who was your senior staff then?… Read More
Well, actually the only true senior staff member was the business manager. Dennis Decoursey was no longer working at the zoo. And a head bird keeper, the head bird keeper was the acting bird curator. There was a, Dow was the maintenance supervisor, and he left soon after. And he… Read More
Clearly spending had to be brought under control. So I got with the business manager and we went over the budget, and based on my experience up to that point, I knew… There was clear we had two issues. We had a bloated staff, and our food budget was off… Read More