Most definitely the being a keeper first and then a veterinarian and curator before I became a director, made me sensitive to the entire spectrum of animal care. And I appreciated the work that keepers did and the fact that they would have to be the eyes and ears of… Read More
Yes, the days were long, but the days were always interesting. No two days were the same so that you never became bored. and it was something where I always looked forward to going to work. Read More
Were your days long?… Read More
Was it difficult to do both jobs or how did that work?… Read More
It worked very well because we had a very experienced keeper staff in Columbus. They knew their animals. They didn’t need a lot of hands-on. This is what you feed this animal. This is what you do here. The curatorial work at that time, mostly consisted of representing the mammals… Read More
Well, basically we weren’t, as veterinary students, given much training in exotic animal medicine. There was one elective course as a senior and I had these students for one week out of the year to come to the Columbus Zoo and to try and teach them. And basically the main… Read More
Anything surprise you about animals exotics as you were teaching this class?… Read More
Were there any discoveries that you made along the way?… Read More
You were teaching exotic medicine, but that was still an emerging science. Read More
And at that time, our curatorial staff urged me to go ahead and step up from associate to the directorship. Well, let me ask, go back just a sec, ’cause we’ll hit more of that. Read More
When you were talking about exotic medicine with animals and you were teaching at Ohio State, what were you trying to convey to the people there?… Read More
And that was, and then we’ll do a little more detail, why did you wanna leave veterinary medicine per se, to go then to the zoo in Brownsville where you were gonna be more into management?… Read More
A zoo veterinarian has a very defined function, and that is the care of the animal collection to provide for their animal health. It doesn’t take into consideration all of the different ramifications that for instance, the educational, the research, some of the other aspects, unless you get into a… Read More
And it was just an interesting challenge. So in 1970, I went from Columbus to Brownsville, Texas to work with Warren Thomas. I worked with him for four years and in April of 1974, he left and subsequently then went on to Los Angeles Zoo. And then I became the… Read More
So what was your relationship with Warren Thomas?… Read More
Warren, I did not know when I was at Columbus. He had already moved on and was in Omaha at that time. Warren went on to do a consulting job for the people in Brownsville, Texas for the Earl C. Sams Foundation who were going to build the zoo, which… Read More
And did you work with Warren Thomas or have association with Warren?… Read More
Warren Thomas was one of three people that were quite active in Columbus. When Warren went to veterinary school there as well, 10 years before I did. And Warren and Lou Desabato and Don Davis were all at the Columbus Zoo at the same time working as keepers and then… Read More
Jim Savoy was always an upbeat, happy go-lucky guy. He demanded a lot out of his employees, but he didn’t micromanage. And he let you do your do your thing. He was pretty good at getting along with people at city hall, because at that time Columbus was a municipally… Read More
So he would not fare too well in this day and age with the zoo exhibits, but he was the state of the art back then quite good. The aquatics curator was Arthur Hagatus. And Arthur was another artist. It seems like they had a lot of artists there, but… Read More