You said, I gotta change this right away. The pair exhibit was horrible. It was so small, you know, and it was little and either get rid of it. And then we had a small mammal building that I said, we gotta close this thing. It’s just these window, you… Read More
How does the zoo prepare for natural weather disasters?… Read More
Excuse me. How does the zoo, now you’re Houston Zoo and, and there have been hurricanes. Read More
Were there certain exhibits in your mind?… Read More
So, so we had some semi employees, but most of them that were five years or less, they didn’t, they they, they, they then went to to, to the new zoo and had a 401k instead of a retirement fund. And there were, there were a few keepers that didn’t… Read More
So it worked out, it worked out, it worked out pretty well. But it was stressful. It’s always stressful. It’s all, you know, and that, you know, the end result was worth it. But God, you know, there was a lot of debates When you were there looking at the… Read More
It was a zoo where I’m, I’m in my office and a lady comes in and says, could you come out to the restrooms?… Read More
They’re all flooded, you know, had to wade through water and squeegee. The bathrooms were like third world bathrooms, you know, things were overflowing. They ran outta toilet paper. Nobody did. The animal, the animals were taken well care of. But the public was like, they didn’t get, they didn’t… Read More
But if we wanted somebody, we could offer them more money and a promotion. So the ones we did that we want, the ones we wanted to save, we offered more money. The others we’d get the same. And so we only had a few people leave. Well, we had… Read More
What kind of zoo was it?… Read More
It was a zoo that had long lines. When the, when the lines got busy, the cashiers took a break because it was too stressful for them. Read More
They go, what? I’m not gonna lead it. What do you mean?… Read More
You, you we told you to lead it. No, I got somebody, I’m gonna be the vice chair. Bill Barnett’s gonna lead it. Their drawers dropped. They knew the train had left the station. They were giving me kind of lip service. But now I had somebody in there. They,… Read More
So when you first got to Houston, what kind of zoo were you finding that you needed privatization, you wanted to do things?… Read More
And it proves that if you try to do everything yourself, it’s either not gonna work or it’s not gonna work well. And, and I, and I got, that was some of the best advice I got. ’cause the mayor said, you can do a task force, but you have… Read More
You know, and we’ll take it from there because we had talked to people like Terry Maple and he said they, they left too much money on the table. They didn’t ask for enough when they privatized. And they struggled at first, you know, so we still had, the city… Read More
I remember Bill, who, who was a managing partner of Baker Bots law firm, good friend of James Baker, secretary of state, chairman of the board of Rice University. Bill had impeccable credentials. Nobody knew he likes Zeus. But another board member introduced me to him. We had lunch and… Read More
I said, well, yeah, it’s $2 and 50 cents right now and 50 cents for kids. It’s $3 for, you know, a parent and a child to come to the zoo. I said, and they’re not getting a very good experience. We can charge more and they’ll get a much… Read More
’cause they were a little skeptical because wait a minute, you’re gonna make the zoo better, but you’re gonna charge people more?… Read More
And I thought it had a lot of potential. And so, you know, one thing led to another. And then I got that one, I made a stipulation that if I take the job, I can put together a task force within the first year to evaluate. I wanted to… Read More