But Ron Blakely, who had been at Lincoln Park Zoo as a curator with Marlin, went to Brookfield and he was one of the co-directors. I can’t recall the names at the moment of the other people, so there wasn’t, that I can recall, clearly a good linkage between Brookfield… Read More
Well, the zoo had a organization called the AAZPA, the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, and they had conventions, they had meetings. And certainly when I became director, I got into this organization, became a member, a zoo director member. And that was my initial sort of interlink… Read More
In the early years, first of all, my zoo experience with other zoos was pretty much limited to the other zoo doctors. And at that time, I think there were perhaps three, maybe four full-time zoo vets in the country, one at the Bronx Zoo, on a San Diego, and… Read More
Did anything make communication between zoos better or worse?… Read More
And so they weren’t about to give me an inch either until they realized that I wasn’t gonna tell the trades how to do their job, and finally developed a solid, meaningful rapport with them. But I think that Marlin was able to accomplish one expansive physical part there before… Read More
When you started as zoo director, was there communications between zoos?… Read More
It’s a little hard for me to reflect at this moment on how my time at the zoo compared to Marlins because things change and my memory changes. With Marlin it seemed to be that things ran well, but then again, I became aware at the end there of his… Read More
So I quickly lost all my visions of a great, big, fabulous major expansion at Lincoln Park, and realized that we better just to do the best we could within that little space. And that, that was a good thing. So that was how I kinda got over that hurdle. Read More
When you look back at your tenure as director from your predecessor, how would you compare your directorship with that of your predecessor?… Read More
I also realize that a weakness, the small size of Lincoln Park was a strength. When I lived in Riverside, that was right next door to the other zoo in town, the Brookfield Zoo. And at that time they didn’t have a full-time doctor either, and so there were times… Read More
And as a result, I benefited by that because over the years, if I needed support at the zoo, even though there were times there were bureaucracy bottlenecks that came up, usually the various support forces would respond whether it’s an electrician, the plumber, the painter, somebody would be there… Read More
But at the zoo was totally different, I had absolutely zero idea of what the work ethic, what the work load would be to accomplish different goals. How long it took a keeper in the Bird House to clean a cage. How long it took the barn people to clean… Read More
About three years before I took over, Marlin had started a Friends of the Zoo organization called the Lincoln Park Zoological Society. And here were a group of people that were committed to help the Chicago Park District, which owned and operated the Lincoln Park Zoo, to raise a few… Read More
When I first came to the zoo, I guess for me, I had to figure out how to handle a large group of people. Administratively, I’d had no professional exposure to any classes or anything about running an organization. My animal hospital was kind of self-contained unit, and I had… Read More
Well, I learned the hard way that working around zoo animals, you had stress factors involved. And my goal was to get in and get out of any situation that you were in, including surgery with the collection. And so there Eric and I’d be scrubbing up together doing an… Read More
In the beginning, what were your top items that you wanted to address or enhanced when you first came in?… Read More
And of course, I was able to fill in, in between. So he had a lot less emergency calls than I ever did in that same spot. And so I continued to be able to indulge and do some medical work. And Eric was able to kind of take care… Read More
Were you the director part-time veterinarian?… Read More
At the time I took over the zoo, Marlin, certainly, had never budgeted anything for the medical department, as I mentioned earlier. Whatever that $75 a month stipend may have been and no hospital and no facility, so I, of course, proceeded logically. I was there and I would look… Read More
I had the understanding that if at any time I wanted to leave, I could. And if they wanted me to leave at anytime they could. So I had kind of, I think a good, in my mind anyway, comfort level that this was something I would try, do the… Read More