Great question. So the first few years, I was a terrible manager. I guess I’d been director… Well, while I was still let’s just say a not very good manager, (laughs) I managed to get a bond issue passed and double the size of the zoo. And the zoo went… Read More
And one day I just said, “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t, this is not good for me. It’s not good for the zoo.” And almost overnight, which is probably more like a year or so, I changed, and I completely changed. I began to… I gave the staff… Read More
They elected three directors, and I got the fourth number of votes. And I don’t remember to this day, but one of the three who was elected ahead of me left the profession soon after, and they moved me up to the board. So I had my fir- I actually… Read More
Can you describe your management style?… Read More
Did it change?… Read More
And at some point along that way, again, we’re still in the maybe 1980-’81-’82, I’m not sure, every year and still to this day, the AZBA, A, (laughs) AAZPA, now AZA, the incoming chair puts out a call for service if you would like to volunteer. And I sent a… Read More
So I got to talk on the phone to all these people who were budding directors, budding curators. I got to talk to their staff, not their staff, but to their supervisors. And just, I was networking. I was just, I guess that’s the word I would use. I was…… Read More
And that was another significant moment in my career, because now you… And I think accreditation at the time that I served, yeah, in fact, I know it was. The first term or two years, whatever, accreditation was voluntary, I became chairman of the accreditation commission the year that the… Read More
What happens now?… Read More
So I can’t say… I can’t honestly say that at that still early point in my life and career, I had formed a lot of opinions about zoos. I knew I didn’t want to deal with animal dealers. I had been burned too many times. So I started pulling back… Read More
He was the president or director of the Pittsburgh Zoo Society. And he taught a class on, his class was on revenue. And we had a class where we learned that you had to pop popcorn all day so that people smelled it and would buy more, and you had… Read More
I think he was actually an attorney talking about human resources, and I soaked that in like a sponge. That guy was, he was fabulous. But now I knew some directors and people that I would call on the phone and just shoot the breeze with, which was kind of… Read More
My best friend in high school had died of a cocaine overdose, and I wanted, decided I was gonna be a DEA agent. So I’d gone to the post office and was in the process of filling out an application to work for the DEA when they fired Mehrtens. You… Read More
Well, let me back up. So I became director in the fall of ’76, which was the first year that the AAZPA had a management school in Wheeling, West Virginia. And the management school, the philosophy behind the establishment of the AAZPA Management School was to teach business skills to… Read More
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