Well, the big one that did happen was the advisory board. Joe Rody was on my side on this. I I, I, I reported more to Joe than I did the operations guy. Bob was later, but Bob hired me. But I was really an imagine with the imagineers. And… Read More
So when you were at Houston and Disney as the leader, were there programs or exhibits that you would’ve wanted to implement during the time you were there, but just didn’t happen?… Read More
He was the guy that built all the restaurants for Disney. He was Dietrich, his name was d Dieter Dieter. And he had a German accent. And he was brilliant guy. And he said, Rick, when I design these restaurants, I have one group, but then when I open ’em,… Read More
Who gave you that advice of builders and maintainers?… Read More
You would’ve made a lot more money. You could have retired at 40 and you would’ve had millions of dollars to give to conservation. You would’ve made a bigger impact. I said, I don’t wanna do it that way. I wanted to have fun. Now, when I was young, not,… Read More
You don’t, you hire people that are better than you, that challenge you, that make the organization better. And if you can’t, and you’re eventually gonna get phased out, and then you do something else, or you, or you stay. But the best advice I got, and that’s your question… Read More
There’s, there’s my curse word. Okay?… Read More
That’s all that’s operate. Those are operators. I’m not an operator. I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m more about, you know, going outside the, the, the envelope and, and trying new things and a little bit more risky, you know, which I think is important as a leader, that, that, that you,… Read More
But, so I, and I still agree, I still agree with that philosophy. I don’t agree with people hiring puppets. That, and basic, you, if you’re loyal to me, I don’t care how qualified you are. Read More
But it is, you know, then you’re hired. That is bullshit. Read More
This sounds a little political right now, you know?… Read More
But I knew in the long run, I knew at Disney, I hired a woman, Beth Stevens, that would run this place. I knew she was capable of doing that. It’s not what I wanted to do. I wasn’t good at, I was good at, I was a builder, not… Read More
You know? Yeah, it is, I think it’s, it’s the approach you use. It got me in trouble. It got me slapped down a couple of times. But you get back up, you know, I, I think it taught me resilience. You know, there, there were bosses I had that… Read More
Now if you could go back in time, what, if anything, as a zoo director, would you have done differently?… Read More
You say, well, you could do that, but how about we do this instead?… Read More
You know, there’s little things, but as far as me as a person, I probably should have been a little bit more diplomatic. Not sacrifice my principles, but I was pretty outspoken. I could see some of the people that had to manage Rick Bargi had their hands full. ’cause… Read More
And ZAA is the same way. You know, they have some very good owners in there. And there are a few institutions that are, are members of both, but very few. But it’s a shame. It should be, to me it should be one organization. ’cause it’s, it’s confusing. ’cause… Read More
You know, you can, you can, you can focus on, well, yeah, well this, and this is, I I, I don’t wanna be told to do this. I don’t want to. Hey, that’s part of the game guys. You can play that. These are recommendations sometimes too. They’re not like,… Read More
I think this should, ideally it should be one organization. And, and, but I just, I don’t see that happening. ’cause it got it, it it, it started because this, a ZA was such an exclusive club and it was more expensive than people wanted. And the accreditations facility, the… Read More
Hey, there’s always a little bit of risk. But when you have a one-to-one ratio, or you have a, if you’ve got, if your animal care staff has plenty of time to work with the, the more the animal does something, the more reliable and the more dependable it is,… Read More