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
Okay. First, as far as education, my dad and I actually used to talk about this quite a bit. It’s the one department that you could spend unlimited amounts of money and justify it with the programs and the messages you want to get across. I mean, how much do… Read More
How important are amenities at a zoo, and do you think people think of them enough?… Read More
If you’re referring to amenities of everything from park benches to decent bathrooms to good food and the gift shop, it’s the entire package. You know, I can still remember Wendy Fisher, the wife of Lester Fisher from Lincoln Park Zoo, giving a talk on toilet paper and how important… Read More
And you know, we had a special committee on it. And as long as we could have per caps and generate net profit that met industry standards, it made sense. I mean, it took a lot of work, but you had total control over the thing. And if you had… Read More
And were they gonna step up and raise more money?… Read More
And what could I do to scale back?… Read More