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Now you had mentioned changing of the guard and so forth, HBJ is, no, Anheuser-Busch purchases SeaWorld from HBJ?… Read More

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Correct. Read More

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or another new owner?… Read More

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At this time, was it you’re still competing, SeaWorld’s still competing with Disney?… Read More

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Was there issues, do we know?… Read More

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I think there’s always competing with Disney in some form or fashion, especially here in the Orlando market because of, you know, Disney World’s here and now Wild Animal Kingdom and Universal Studios with Harry Potter. There’s a lot of competition here in Orlando. I think even in San Diego… Read More

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And somebody would say, “What are we gonna do with these elephants in Tampa?” And I’d go, “Well, what do you wanna do?… Read More

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And why do you ask? What’s going on?” “Well, we don’t know how to do protected contact.” And I go, Well, I think we should talk about that then and talk about positive reinforcement and talk about the things that make sense, what’s evolving.” And so the evolution worked out… Read More

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So it’s San Diego, Orlando, and the third is?… Read More

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Well, actually, there were four for a while. San Antonio was being built in ’88, and SeaWorld of Ohio existed. So, at one time, there was four. Then the SeaWorld park sold the SeaWorld of Ohio park to a theme park that was across the lake, at Geauga Lake. So… Read More

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What do you do? How can I help you?” Did you have new responsibility?… Read More

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Well, basically, the new responsibilities was encompassing the whole animal collection at that point for all the three SeaWorld parks. And we were in charge of all the, you know, veterinary, education, conservation, animal transport, aviculture, aquarium, so all the different disciplines that were under that, those buckets were under… Read More

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Was it that you, as you said, raised your hand, or was this a natural transition?… Read More

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It was an interesting transition because I had only been working, after SeaWorld had bought the parks from HBJ, or HBJ bought the parks, or the Marineland park, excuse me, HBJ owned SeaWorld. They bought the Marineland park and then closed it, as I said earlier. And I was there… Read More

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So I had to double my effort (chuckles) to try and get good relationships built with everybody that had been there for a long, long time. And I was sort of the new kid on the block. So it was fun, but I did the same thing I did in… Read More

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I just asked, “Why? What’s your job?… Read More

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And all we would do is sit down with the directors and producers and say, “What do you want?… Read More

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We can’t do that. We can do this, we can do this.” And we’d modify the script accordingly. And so it worked out very well. It was always fun to meet people like that, though, ’cause Hollywood was Hollywood. It’s 1988, you’re the assistant zoological director of SeaWorld, you’re moving… Read More

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How did this position, this assistant zoological director of SeaWorld come about?… Read More

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And how did that work then?… Read More