She was good veterinarian. So then my latest hire before I left, I retired in 2007, at the end of 19, or yeah, at the end of 2006, I hired Tom Derma who had about five years experience working in Africa at Old Joji wild animal park in Kenya. And… Read More
Or were you having to do again both jobs?… Read More
In the beginning, did you automatically first hire a full-time veterinarian?… Read More
Oh yeah. Read More
Or did they do a search or. They didn’t do a search. They already had their mind made up, apparently. And two attorneys for the Sams Foundation came to me the next day and they gave me an ultimatum that I could either be the next director, or I could… Read More
So as director, you had to give up being a veterinarian. Right. Right. Read More
So now he leaves, how do they approach you?… Read More
I mentioned earlier, Dr. Thomas was very direct and sometimes didn’t keep his board of directors and the Sam’s Foundation fully informed on what he wanted to do or what he was going to do. And this became increasingly evident over the years that there was a void in their… Read More
You had someone who was already there who was fairly dynamic. Read More
What was the process and how did that unfold?… Read More
How did it come about that the position of director opened up and how did you get into that position?… Read More
Was the title managing director or director?… Read More
Well, the title was director. Some people used executive director, some used director, some used managing director. I just used managing director because I felt that that was appropriate title because we had the zoological society and every one of the people on the zoological society was considered to be… Read More
He turned and chased Jerry. And we played volleyball with Ichabod for about five minutes until they could get the capture gun equipment and get out there with us, so. Good thing you didn’t slip. Yeah. (chuckles) Yeah. So that’s Ikabad. Now in 1974, you become the managing director of… Read More
I don’t have any capture equipment. I don’t have a big net. I don’t have anything. Well, there was a pile of construction material laying there. So I picked up about a five foot two by four and was gonna contest the bridge with Ikabad. And so Ikabad’s coming across… Read More
And he’s screaming and howling. No, get back, get back, go away. He’s killer. And so I slowly backed up and gave ground as he kept coming, but trying to slow him down. And he got out in the middle and he saw Jerry and he hated Jerry. And so… Read More
And about the time I pulled up, what am I gonna do?… Read More
He is the one that when he was only like a 40 pound animal, he came into Omaha and Lee Simmons at that time was the associate director of veterinarian in Omaha. And Ikabad came out of the crate. Lee tried to take him by the hand and Ikabad ended… Read More
And just so happened that I was the first one to get there after the radio call went out, that he was loose in the building. And I got there just in time for him to come across the bridge. Read More
We ended up with Spolski’s horses and that I don’t think anything other than the following, the endangered theme and we needed to have an equine. So we had gravy zebras and we had Alkis horses. We ended up then transitioning out of the gravy’s into regular grants zebras, the… Read More