Part of it was just this elephant thing was time consuming and overwhelming ‘cos it was a double thing. It was the issue of importing the elephants and the issue of getting this elephant exhibit built in time to receive the elephants. I mean, it was a race against time… Read More
Can you expand upon that?… Read More
You know, there’s a tremendous amount out there. I mean, I had a large book collection one time maybe approaching a thousand books. I mean, it’s big, but it’s not monstrous like Michael or anything. And well, my wife could say that she’d read ’em all. I couldn’t say that,… Read More
You know, I always said that I asked three things from my staff. They be professional, and that covers a lot of things. That they have fun. And I added a third one and I got this out of Disney, and that is pay attention to detail. Disney uses the… Read More
I had pretty open discussions. And when I saw certain strengths in certain areas, I would see if I could compliment that with some extra attention. I believed in staff training and exposure, whether it be travel just to see the zoos, travel with the chances to move animals from… Read More
I looked through every annual report, everything that ever came. If anything was longer than one page or something like this, it usually went in my briefcase and I read it at home at night. You could learn what to read and what not to read, but that’s how I… Read More
Horticulture, there’s a horticulture one, zoo horticulture. I would’ve killed for something like this when I was a student. And out of this, there are curators around the country. Bert Castro did it as a master’s special thing and a master’s thing in the early days and now director of… Read More
And I enjoyed it. It sort of kept me young in a way. I remembered those days when I was young and enthusiastic and how exciting things can be when you’re first starting out on your career or dreams. And you could see it in some of these young adults. Read More
The same thing in horticulture, graphics, exhibits, and curatorial staff and probably at the director level. They’re probably at 30% now, which is good. Women are smart. Well, you were talking about these different people that are part of your staff and stuff. Read More
Can you describe your management style and how do you think your staff would describe your management style?… Read More
But at the time, they brought in a new professor to head out the program. I was the new director. We got together and we said we’re gonna make this work. And I am so proud now. It’s a maximum of 60 students in the program at any one time. Read More
It was amazing the number of hours that they have, it’s more than volunteering. I mean, they’re working one on one with a keeper, and that’s one of the reasons for how many people you can take ‘cos it does take time to do this. In fact, we have a… Read More
But the one requirement was that they would have to take at least one kind of structured program while they were at the zoo so they’re just not out running around the zoo the whole time. Now, whether it was in the classroom or out in the zoo on a… Read More
There’s a lot of good wildlife and biology programs at the other state schools. Wichita State really didn’t have it. But we were able to develop a relationship with Friends University, which was originally a Quaker school. It’s got some connection still, but when I became director, we had a… Read More
Some of the best messages are delivered by well trained docents or even keepers with the elephants there versus in the education building. At Sedgwick County Zoo, we actually had I think the second education building dedicated totally to education was built in 1980. And I expanded it and more… Read More
And then how far do you go?… Read More
You always have those questions in your community and so forth. And then we had a thing on a tremendous number of school systems that couldn’t afford the trip to the zoo. And it’s not because of the cost of coming to the zoo. It’s the cost of the bus… Read More
And if you hired the right people, you could compete at industry standards for food and gift concessions. And so those were important and you know, our job, you had to look at it in some ways in a funny way, our job was to extract every penny and every… Read More
So yeah, they were quite important. I mean, it’s the whole package of we’re there to display the animals, but it has to be in pleasant surroundings. You talked about amenities at the zoo and so forth. Read More
How important is education at a zoo and can you talk about your college degree program and how that came about?… Read More