Jeff the Zoo Guy’s Personal Goals

I will always remember the moment I knew I would work with animals. I was in the sixth grade and I shadowed a bird trainer at a science center. At the end of the day, he let me hold a Saw-whet owl and from that moment, I was hooked. Many zoo concession jobs later, I accepted a position at Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo as an assistant bird trainer. Seven years later, I am proud to say I now run that bird show and have successfully re-organized our zoo’s outreach program.

As I progress in my career, I am always looking to mold myself for the future. My career goals include directing at an AZA institution. I have always been very dedicated and passionate about the roles zoos play in conservation and particularly education around the world. Although I am relatively young, I feel my recent challenges and successes have made me a stronger manager.

I was recently given the task of re-working the zoos off ground outreach program. This program has never been able to pay for itself, hindering the zoo’s yearly budget. Once the program was handed over, I was quick to make many changes. I was sure to involve the current staff in as many changes as possible, but found certain reactions to these changes challenging. As time went on, programs were altered, animals were acquired and staff was re-trained. It was my philosophy that no program would be turned down, and many programs would be done free of charge. This style of management was quickly recognized within our community and our outreach program began to build. I am proud to say that despite all of the challenges, my second year of running our outreach program has yielded the first actual profit in our outreach history. I am currently doing 250 off grounds programs each year, all media events, and all on grounds presentations. This is all accomplished with a staff of 2 full timers, (includes me), and five part –timers.

In the future, I plan to have many contributions within the zoological world. I am a huge proponent of interpretation and education with in zoos today. We as zoo professionals must relate, reveal and provoke our guests to care about wildlife and its conservation. We must learn to educate in way that guests are willing to listen and feel as though they are having fun while learning. It is this type of education that I am committed to and plan master throughout my career. I have for many years now shared my ideas and philosophies about zoo education to many colleagues of mine within the IAATE organization, but I am now ready to take these ideas to the world of AZA. My other current contribution is zoo awareness. I have submitted a pilot episode of a television series to the Travel Channel titled “Zootopia” This series will be a weekly show designed to highlight a new AZA zoo each week. Zoos have drastically changed over the years and viewers need to see first hand what zoos are now doing for conservation around the world. Hopefully this show will create interest in local zoos, leading to more support and dedication to conservation efforts within local communities and worldwide.