Interview 9078 – Caption Index: 296
Did you have a favorite animal or animals when you were director?… Read More
Did you have a favorite animal or animals when you were director?… Read More
Yeah, you always have a favorite. For a long time, aquariums had a problem keeping this big south American fish called the arapaima, and they had trouble with them trying to swim through walls of tanks, bang, knock themselves up. And we had an opportunity once to get a small… Read More
You could hear it through the glass front of the tank (grumbles) like that when he sucked them in. That was, I think for a long time, it was my fish, I raised him, and I kept telling the curator, he’s got to put up jump boards ’cause this guy,… Read More
Well, how did the volunteer department evolve?… Read More
It’s just, I think, part of the natural growth of the aquarium that almost every other institution in Chicago had a volunteer department. And it’s a great way, right way to expand your programs with very little cost. And people just love to be down there and be part of… Read More
And they just love it. Do you have a favorite…… Read More
But you did have them when you were director?… Read More
Yes. Read More
How did that evolve?… Read More
And again, charter to government agencies like NOAA, they loved the boat. They think it’s great. Still education programs, collecting, chartering to other aquariums that use it. So it’s a big, big, I think, important part of our operation. You mentioned education with the boat. Read More
How did the Aquatic Science Center come about?… Read More
Well, that’s part of the education department, call it either the education department or the Aquatic Science Center. That was something that John Reed’s mother, Mary Shedd Reed financed for us, and her name is on that. So Aquatic Science Center is just another name for the education department. And… Read More
I don’t know what size it is now, but it’s been condensed considerably. You didn’t have volunteers in Chuke’s time. That’s correct. Read More
And when the first vote coral reef became obsolete, was it hard to sell the acquisition of a new boat?… Read More
Well, I think some people on the board had doubts about whether we should replace it, but fortunately John Bent was still on the board at that time. And we had a new director, or a new president, Don Olson, and he supported the idea. So we did, and we… Read More
So they cut their profits on that. We hired a boat architect from up in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin to design it for us. And the aquarium still has that boat. It’s a twin screw, it’s twin generators. It has its own water-making facility a reverse osmosis water maker, which is… Read More
Oh, and as I said, there was a generator. So we put in new generators, we couldn’t do anything about the propulsion engine. We couldn’t put in another engine and make it twins screws. And it was very economical to run, although it made about 8-9 knots, which is pretty… Read More
We could take high school. We had a high school marine biology class, we’d take the high schoolers on these trips. And that was very, very important, a very popular program to take those kids down there. You can imagine that much high school kids, “Man, we’re going to Florida… Read More
We had to be careful on the dive groups, there was somebody who was licensed as a divemaster, and that person had to have his own insurance. And we imbursed him for the insurance in case somebody got in trouble underwater, had an accident. ‘Cause that’s the only way that… Read More
Why did we get a collecting vessel?… Read More