Well, I think that the challenge always was finding where the animals were, whether they were national or international, knowing how to transport, again, soapbox, knowing how to part of a curator’s responsibility, at least, the way I grew up, was learning to write permits, and learning to deal with… Read More
Somebody’s gotta be in charge here. You know?… Read More
Yeah. And so I think I tried to make my management style in such a way that, as I say, do unto others, that I always got that and I wanted them to have the same kind of atmosphere that they could enjoy their job have, fun with it. That… Read More
Could you talk a little bit about your involvement with long term planning at the zoo?… Read More
I mean, everybody’s not gonna look at you in the same vein, but I’ve had certain animal keepers who have gone on to hire positions, say to me, “Oh, Mark, when I talk to my keepers that I have to talk to, I hear your words that you said about,”… Read More
And we had a trainer who would train us and was very, Don Meyer, a wonderful man who knew his profession and was very insightful and philosophical. And one of the lessons I learned from him was never defend what you say. Never defend, explain. You should never be in… Read More
And so here, we had people. We were learning from Don. And we were, I just always felt that sometimes I was insistent on doing certain things ’cause it was a safety thing. I would always tell people, “I’m never gonna tell you what to do without telling you why… Read More
If it’s an emergency situation, we have to react to this. We can’t be debating stuff. Read More
So how would you say the staff describes you as a manager?… Read More
Wow. That’s a really interesting question. I would always say that my best quality is my worst quality and that is you know where you stand with me. I’m not a devious person. I don’t think so. So if I’m upset, you know I’m upset. If I’m happy, you know… Read More
Yeah. But I always, I appreciated the fact that people allowed me to do my job and have fun with it. And I wanted everybody else, I didn’t wanna micromanage, I wanted them to do their job and at times, guide and talk and so forth. So I don’t think… Read More
You have charges who are dependent upon you. These elephants are not gonna water themselves and get their own food or get out into the yard. That’s all on you. And safety wise, you can’t have one person do it. God forbid, there’s a problem. There’s no one there to… Read More
But today, I need you to work as a team.” And, “Okay, we will.” I said, “Fine.” Now, whether the assistant curator could have done it, I don’t know. Obviously, he didn’t have the experience. He felt he had to reach out, which is great. But you had to do… Read More
And there’s a lot of people depending upon you to do your job in a certain way. And you can’t, and especially at that basic level where the charges of the animals. I mean, directors are not coming down to water the elephants. It’s not his job. His job is… Read More
What’s the deal?” And he said, “Look, I make you be excellent because one day you’re not gonna be excellent. You’re gonna fall below that. And you’re gonna be good.” He says, “But if I only make you good, when you fall below, you’re gonna be fair. And I want… Read More
That’s a good approach. That’s a good approach. And sometimes, and I will say this, sometimes you have to be inventive about how you get that information across to people. And I’ll give you a story. And I, we dealt, we had to get fire hose from sometimes the fire… Read More
So that’s why you’re getting the hat.” It was a little joke. And I got a call from the then zoologist or associate curator at the time. He said, “Mark, the two guys working with the elephants,” we always had two people for safety, “they don’t wanna work with one… Read More
So they walk in, they sit down, I don’t say a word. And they were looking at me and I don’t say a word. And I knew one of them, which happened, was gonna go, “What’s the fire hat for?” Which they did. Kind of obvious. Well, and I said,… Read More
It’s, you know, and I say, “Guys.” “Mark, we couldn’t get this done today because,” I get it. You only had two people. We should have four. I understand. No, no big deal. But most of the time, it’s not 90% of the time, we don’t get it. And 10%… Read More
You’re not gonna be doing 150% every day. It doesn’t happen. But you don’t. And here’s my story. When I was in college, I took a class, histology. We made slides as you would of the brain, of the, this, whatever it was. You learned, it was a mechanical thing… Read More