You’re listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast. Conversations on how nonprofit attractions
are increasing attendance and sharing their missions through marketing. Your hosts are
Ryan Dick and Jenny Williams of Attend Media.
Jenny, today we got a spotlight episode joining us on the podcast is Eric Donovan. He is
the Chief Operating Officer at the Elmwood Park Zoo. Jenny, I think the theme of this
episode here is innovation. Some of the stuff that they’re doing at Elmwood Park is a little
bit different than others use across the country.
Yeah, I think a lot of first, right? So they definitely live by the motto of don’t be the
person to tell yourself no. So we’re going to talk to Eric about a couple things today
in terms of innovative approaches that they’ve had. And I think one of the really cool
things about this is how each of these events or each of these will say removal of the barriers
to entry for different audiences helps bring in a new audience, helps reach more people
in your community, helps make the zoo something that can be for everyone. And as marketers,
that’s something that is gold, right? So excited again to this conversation with Eric to share
more about how they’re doing that.
Yeah, and your point of view for your marketing work that you do has always been focusing
on those advertising dollars on reaching new audiences. Well, Eric, you know, he’s the CEO.
So he’s kind of looking at this like, well, what can we build in terms to reach those new
audiences? So we’re going to talk about bringing dogs into a zoo, right? Which not a lot of
zoos are doing. They’re selling dog tickets. And that incredible.
Talk about how that’s leading into those new audiences, right? They were the first certified
zoo that’s a certified autism center. It’s amazing. And I think the bigger story, we maybe
were bearing the lead a little bit, but this was a zoo that 10, 12 years ago was on the
brink of bankruptcy. And now they’re pushing almost a million, a million visitors a year.
So just the evolution at the turnaround of the zoo is kind of an inspiring story.
Yeah, let’s get into it. Hey, Eric, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for having me. Yeah, we met up in AZA and we had a couple
conversations. So I’m super excited. You’re taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
We really appreciate it. All right. So I did get to Elwood Park Zoo. Why is this? How did
you land in this space? How did I get here? Well, it’s been 21 years actually since I started
here coming up in March. And oddly enough, it was by way of my high school basketball coach.
His wife was the director of guest services here at the time. And she was looking for people
higher. And she happened to come to one of our practices. Now mind you, like years and years
before that, since I was eight years old, I work with my dad. And so I was always with him
on the weekends doing, you know, different renovation jobs. But it was always like, you know, I was
under under the age and not not a real, real job. So I found out that she was hiring. And
I was like, yeah, I’ll do it. I want to be on it. And on the book’s job, how cool is that?
Right? So I got through all the stuff and Saturday rolled around and I said to my parents,
I need somebody to take me to the zoo. And they were like, why? I was like, Oh, I have a job.
I got a job there. And they were like, what? But I was 14, 15 years old. So I didn’t have
a car. I didn’t have a license. So I needed to somehow get there. And, uh, yeah. So they
got me there. And mind you, I growing up never had any pets in my life. Nothing.
Right? But I always loved zoos. I always loved animals. But I also didn’t consider that I’d
also maybe be working with animals because it was in guest services. So pull up by clock
in. People are showing me around and then they tell me you’re going to do your first day
at the pony rides as a pony ride attendant. And I nearly, you know, blank myself there.
But went down and, you know, they showed me the ropes and everything went fine. You know,
it’s certainly not the way we do things today where we just throw somebody into an animal
and counter experience. That’s not how it works. So this was the zoo of the past, I suppose.
But it was definitely like, wow, okay, I’m in this. And then so for the next several years,
I worked in the guest service department in all sorts of jobs. I went to college during
all this time. I got a background in film and video production and screenwriting from
Los Al University, although I was still working at the zoo. And then when I graduated, I was
still working here five days a week. I was cleaning the grade school that I went to five
nights a week. I was doing a local online journalism for what’s called the patch just for
the local area. So I was writing articles for that. It’s just a staff writer. On the weekends,
I was still working with my dad at a local family’s house doing landscaping. And there’s
one of me. Am I missing one? That should be five. Is that five? Did we count that? But
any of those hours of the day, right? Yeah, I mean, just like just, you know, rang it out
as much as I could. So yeah, I was working five jobs. Oh, my fifth was I was a freelance
videographer for a sports recruiting company. So we would tape college and high school football
games mostly. And then we would turn them in packages so that they could be sent to recruiters
to recruit them to college or to professional sports. So I did that any random times. That
was freelance. So that was kind of like the journalism stuff. I was just all over the place
with that whenever it was available. Ended up doing equipment managing for that too, which
was interesting. And then still working at the zoo and 2011 rolled around. It was August.
It was like the week after my birthday. So maybe this was like a little birthday gift or
anything. But we had a major turnover in our senior leadership from the top down basically
over those next couple months. But that week, they were in need of a new leadership in the
guest services department. And having been there for a long time, it kind of just rolled
right on to me because I was here. I know how everything was working. So they asked me if I
would, you know, step into that position and give in everything else I was doing. I was
like, this is great full-time job, you know, just settle in with this for a little bit,
you know, less than the chaos in my life. But taking on this job was like, is like taking
on like a million different jobs anyway. So it really kind of was just if it really changes
a lot, like a jackpot. No, no, I mean, it was like, well, I really say Robin Peter to pay
Paul, you know, I was just stopping those jobs, but doing a thousand others when they started
here. But it’s been great. And that same week our executive director and CEO now, Al
Zown, he started as an interim business manager. And so the two of us kind of really got
acquainted and kind of rolled back our sleeves and just started working hard at trying to
figure out what we needed to do to turn the zoo around. And we literally shared a six-foot
folding table, which proved to be not enough space. I don’t know if you can believe that
two people, you know, can share a six-foot space and not have enough room, huh?
And didn’t your CEO use to play football? I mean, he’s not a…
Yeah, yeah. So he did college, obviously, football throughout his life and was signed to
the Tennessee Titans and then did a little bit of, I think, Canadian football as well.
All right. So six-foot table with a linebacker. Yeah, I’m here with… Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
I’m already a big guy myself and I’ve got, you know, where are you maxing out the six-foot
table? But, you know, we were digging in and he ultimately realized that I needed more
space just because I was doing all the guest service stuff and he was kind of figuring
out the rest of the zoo. So he literally took the trash can next to me, flipped it over
and that’s what he used as his desk, you know? So, I mean, from the get-go, I knew what kind
of guy this was and what he was willing to do to get this place moving. So it’s been a lot
of fun, you know? From there, we just kind of dug her heels in. We were doing things as simple
as making preventative maintenance programs, which weren’t in place, you know? You can’t
operate a place and make it look like it’s going to close. You have to be operating like
you’re staying open because you need to build that confidence in your guests, particularly
your members. You know, those are the people that have been supporting this place for years
and years and years. You want to make sure that they know that where they’re putting their
money, it’s going to take them there again and again and again and that we’re doing something
with their money and we’re doing the right things. So that’s kind of where it started
and then it’s, you know, really blossomed into something amazing. So that year, that was
2011, there’s 120,000 visitors in attendance, about 1,900 members, I want to say. And, you
know, in these last couple years, it’s, it’s bloomed up to almost a million visitors annually.
We’re at about 90,000 membership households. It may be close to 100,000 now. That translates
into about 500,000-ish individual members within that whole category. So we’ve become
definitely a neighborhood and local attraction, well known and cherished. And we’re just
continuing to spread our wings and grow to today. And I’m happy to go through some of the
history of kind of where we went from then till now if you want to hear about it.
Yeah, you guys look some like big evolutionary steps, but Jenny, I want to kind of dig into
your CEO role. Eric CEO role, like, we talked about like the day of the life, like how big is
your team? Just set the stage for us a little bit. Yeah, so in, like in many ways, my team is
everybody in some ways, I’m a one man person as well, you know? But we have awesome departments
that have all their own teams and everybody works together. And so there’s myself, the
COO, Alzone, our CEO and executive director. And then there’s also Reffelene and Asalini,
our chief financial officer. And then on the animal side of things we have Dr. Michelle
Goodman, she is our director of animal care. And she oversees our education department, our
animal keeper department, and our veterinary department, which then they have all their
own teams there. That probably is about 40 individuals there. And then on the other side
again, then we have our services department, which is about a dozen full time individuals,
but that goes up to, you know, the 50, 60s range in season. So you’ll have your part timers
and seasonals there. We have our marketing department, which is a team of three with our director
of marketing Sean Rogers. And then we have a development department of three and we have
a sales department of four. And then of course we have our our our ground support, which is
our facilities and grounds, which is led by our director of facilities and grounds Stephanie
and her team of about 10. And then finally our our maintenance team of four actually, which
is pretty incredible for the amount of stuff they have to get done with our director
maintenance mat there. So you know, it’s a great it’s a great group of people. We have about
10 or so individuals in the senior leadership team. And you know, we meet weekly to make sure
that everything’s kind of running smoothly. I lead those meetings to make sure that everybody’s
got FaceTime, you know, how hard it is to be able to coordinate with this many people in
this many departments. But if we’re not doing that, then nothing’s working. So I tend to
just be like the oil to get everybody together and moving. And they all do amazing jobs to
support their teams. So I know we’re going to go into a lot of the, you know, the revolution,
a lot of things you’re doing. You just describe the team. So you guys are doing so many events.
Again, we’re going to talk about that in a minute. But do you have an events team as well?
Two, that fall under kind of, you know, you does a fall under your marketing department
house, that’s structured back in the day. It fell under me. Not anymore, which is great.
Yeah, we started our sales and events team kind of started back when Alan and I started
together. That’s when we started to create that kind of events program. We went from in our
first year, which I’m going to call 2012, about four weddings a year. That’s bloomed up to
over 50 weddings a year plus countless other social events. Our corporate business is
very big now, which is really important and a big, a big piece of, of our sales. But yeah,
so it started as, you know, internally within guest services, you know, with me and then
several other individuals. And today it’s now a team of four in our sales department. So
they sell all the different events. So you know, each of them kind of has their specific
area, but they all work together. So one will sell corporate, one will sell social, one
will sell the weddings, one just sells different kind of group gathering type of pieces. And
then they work hand in hand with guest services and our catering team to execute the events.
So it goes back and forth between the two groups mainly.
Got it. Well, let’s, let’s talk about that evolution, right? From a 120,000 to, we’ll just
call it a million. Yeah, so much over the roughly what just just over 10 years or so, you
know, since that that leadership change, tell us about the story of the giraffe. So I feel
like that was a big story in terms of kind of the evolution of what you were able to bring
with Elmwood Zoo. So why don’t you share that with us? Yeah. Yeah. So taking just one step
back, you know, we kind of got our feet in and heels in in 2011, late 2011. So we let 2012
be the first year of just getting the operation right, getting everything smoothed out,
making sure everything was working and doing the best that it could, right? And then 2013,
rolled along. And our CEO, Al, he worked with our curator at the time, Dave Wood,
wanted to find something that would be really attractive, really a wow factor. We needed something
to bust out the gates and say, we’re here, we’re here to stay, and we can’t wait till you come
and see us again, because this is a whole new zoo. And so that ended up being the giraffe exhibit
for us. And so with the help of a local donor, we were able to build the initial giraffe exhibit,
I say initial, because there are many iterations and another iteration to come in the next month and
a half. But we started with this giraffe exhibit. And the big thing was that we were going to do hand
feedings every single day to everybody that wanted to do it for a nominal fee. It was like, I think
it started around two or three dollars when we first did this. And our curator was very much on board,
and so we ended up working with the service out of, I believe it was Ohio, through the ASEA,
to make the exhibit a seasonal temporary exhibit. So they came in, I want to say April or so,
and they stayed with us till after Labor Day. And then they would go back to that facility,
because at the time, we only had it as an outdoor facility for them, so we couldn’t house them.
And it was gangbusters. I mean, we went from that 120,000 visitors, we added at least another
100,000 on by the end of that when all of a sudden done. And this is, we’re talking about a zoo that,
with prior leadership, not me, was on the verge of closure at the end of 2010.
So to go from that 120 to year before and then double that, it was pretty incredible. And it started
to sink in with our local base here that the zoo is going to start going places, and we wanted to
keep building on that memento. So the giraffe came back another year, and then we were able to start
upgrading other exhibits and adding new exhibits to that. So the giraffe came back,
had another great year, added another 100,000 in attendance, it almost went up 100,000, almost every single
year after that. And so then we started putting in some other exhibits like the Red Panda exhibit.
So that started to expand our scope in terms of our geographic collection. We had been a North and
South American species zoo for a very long time. So this was now giving our guests an opportunity
to see animals that they had never seen in our zoo before. So we had the Red Panda, we added Zebra
into the collection, and it just kept going and kept going. And then we made the giraffe exhibit
permanent around, I want to say 2015 or so, the same donor that helped us fund the initial build,
then funded the indoor year round enclosure for them. So they’re able to stay with us all year,
and we still do the hand-feedings every day as weather permits. I say weather permits,
because the indoor enclosure is just for them, it’s not for our guests unless it’s a behind-the-scenes
experience. But that will be something in the near future that will be addressing as well.
So after we got the giraffe in, we were kind of rocking and rolling, and things just,
we started adding some other things. We really got the animal collection in a good spot.
And so there were other opportunities that we wanted to look at where we could start to
make sure that all different types of guests wanted to come. Not just our kids and our families,
we love them, but we want to be able to bring in young adults for date, night, or date day,
or whatever that is. You got to start to diversify your audience once you have the product
in the operation running. So 2015 rolls around, and we were able to acquire, through the state,
a public venue license to sell alcohol on premises. Obviously, we’re not trying to throw a party
every day or a zoo, right? But it’s a compliment to an experience for certain adults that want to
engage in that and have that as an option. And it’s a fun, a relaxing way to enjoy a walk around the
zoo, observing the animals and enjoying the nature and everything. So we did that, we opened a bar
called Zubru, and we put it right by the bison because they’re in favor, and I also liked the bar,
too, so that was also fun. And we opened a beer garden shortly after that that attached to that,
but also the same year in that effort to really widen our demographic. And I’m not even just
talking about the young adults, but also our kids and those like the tweens that might kind of be
aged out of the zoo experience in their mind, but in my mind, a zoo experience is for everybody
every day. Let’s just point that out. But anyhow, so we opened a zip line course. We partnered with a
company and we did like a profit chair. So they put in most of the investment, which was great for us.
So that way we weren’t having to put up the cash, but then they also ran the operations. So they
brought the expertise and the knowledge. And that just opened the doors again, you know, to another group,
another age set that we hadn’t really tapped into before. And then it’s basically like a gateway
to so many other things, which I can keep. Yeah, tell us like this evolution here, you know,
you got the bar, you got the beer garden, you got the zip line, maybe you can kind of talk about
how maybe your marketing evolves along that process. Like how are you promoting these new experiences
that go beyond pure animal? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so we had to, you know, look at the marketing in
so many different ways now. We’re not just looking for the families in the young kids situation. We
needed to tap in in all sorts of other ways. So we were using our social media in a lot of different
ways, you know, and this was, we’re talking around 2015, 2016. So I mean, to talk about it now,
it kind of just seems like old hat, right? Like you got, you got to be leaning into that, but at that
point, it was still like, I wouldn’t say new, but still untapped potential for what you could do.
So that’s where we started to really try to invest more in our social. And that way we could tap
into those, you know, young adults that are using that all the time, obviously, to get them engaged,
to get them over here. But we also used the marketing to and did it in ways so that there was special
events, specifically, you know, aimed at those individuals so they knew that they had a welcome
opportunity to come to the zoo. It would be something they’re interested in. So whether it was happy
hours or we would do after hours, you know, festival type things, we did an event where it’s a sampling
event and you come and you try wine or you try beer, the liquors, all that sort of stuff. So we just
wanted to make sure that not only were they thinking, not just in the box of I’m going to a zoo,
but I’m going to something that’s so much more in addition to that experience.
You’re listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast. Conversations on how non-profit
attractions are increasing attendance and sharing their mission through marketing. Your hosts are
Ryan Dick and Jenny Williams of attend media. Attend media is a media planning and buying agency,
specializing in zoos, aquariums, gardens and museums. For more information, please visit attend.media.
Now back to Ryan and Jenny.
So you’ve been removing all these kind of barriers to entry. If I’m a 22 year old and I’m thinking
of Algrin the zoo, you know, you guys at El Maldzoore saying no, you haven’t. There’s so much we have
to offer everyone. But I’m super interested in hearing more about this kind of yappy hour events
and how that came about. Can you share some the dog program that you’ve worked on and reaching
those dog moms too? Yeah, absolutely. So that really started out of the brain of Al, our CEO.
And he was just posing the question, which I love. Ask questions, right?
We’re animal lovers. Dog lovers are animal lovers. Dogs are a part of people’s families,
basically. They take them everywhere. They are a part of the family. Why can’t they come to the
zoo? We have animals here. There’s got to be a way. How can we make this make sense?
So he asked the question. And he really did his due diligence in terms of
making sure that everyone was on board because if nobody’s on board or you have people that are on
board for it, that kind of program just will not work well at a zoo. You know, we have all different
kinds of people here that work passionately for this institution. And they are also passionate
about the animals that they care for. So they want to make sure that obviously we have dogs coming in,
they’re not going to rough, many feathers pun intended, I think, right there.
So yeah, we went through the process and we did a lot of trial and error, a lot of rehearsals.
We had the staff bring in their own dogs just to see how everything would go. And then we put the
rules in place that everyone was comfortable with. And I can say from then up until now,
we really have had no incidents. I’m looking forward to really expanding the program, but to talk
about what it is as it stands, we do a handful of days a week where families can bring in their dogs,
they can pay a mission ticket for their dog or they can get a membership for their dog,
which I think is the cutest thing ever. That’s perfect Eric, Eric, I already talk about.
And so we do that on the daily and then we also do these special events called Gapy Hours.
So those are after hours events that you can bring the dog and the bars open and they’re special
and we can bring in a bit more of a population of dogs than during the normal day just because it’s
kind of in a certain area so you can keep other exhibits offline and stuff like that.
But it’s proven to be, while not like a huge, huge revenue generator, it’s more of, it’s been a great,
I want to say, marketing tool because it has opened us up to so many new opportunities with new
guests and other things. And anecdotally, I will tell you, I have a friend that had initially just
started coming to the zoo because of the Gapy Hours. They have a little corgi that is like their
pride and joy and they were so excited when they heard about these Gapy Hours. It’s just another
thing for them to be able to go and take their dog to. So they got here and they were having so much fun,
they came up a whole bunch of those and then don’t you know, they then go and they have a beautiful
baby son and now they’re coming as a family during the day, which is great. Now they have a membership,
they’ve been to every event that we have under the sky. But then they also started bringing mom
groups with them. So then we’re, and those people had never been to the zoo and now they all have
memberships. And so it just speaks to the idea that like no idea is a bad idea, you should always,
you know, at least kick the tires on and see if it’s something worth looking into if you think it’s a good idea.
And even if it seems like, wow, it’s a zoo, we’re not gonna, why would we let dogs in?
Like, it’s worth asking the question and pushing it a little bit to see where you can get.
And you know, I said I would like to expand that program because I think there’s a lot more
untab potential there. So I’m excited to see where we can go with it. But from what it has yielded
for us and generated, it’s been really cool just to see kind of that rolling effects to build from
coming with your dog to now you’re bringing a whole bunch of other families that were never at the
zoo before. So it starts small and it gets bigger and bigger. And now they’ll all be bringing other
friends and other friends. So it’s just a really cool way that it kind of blossomed.
And I mean, talk about just marketing gold there in terms of the content you’ve got,
I mean, I think people love to show off their kids on social, but they love to show their pets off
even more. Oh my gosh, absolutely. And everyone want to share that. Like those ones too and share those
ones too, right? Yeah. We had dog influencers at one of our happy hours. I didn’t know that was a thing.
But they have a huge fan base and they were so cool. These dogs are really cool. And you know,
we actually got connected to them because we work really closely with our local tourism
board. It’s the Valley Forge Tourism and Convention Board. So they, they always, their tagline is
basically something along the lines of we have 99 golf courses. We have X-Many hotels. This,
that, the other thing, all in Montgomery County and it always ends with, and we have one zoo.
So we worked with them to get those dog influencers over here, but that was kind of just a little
nugget of like their involvement and their creativity and wanting to help us kind of keep that
bowl rolling and make that even more interesting than it already was. Brilliant idea. I love it.
Let’s talk about Elmwood, Elmwood Park Zoo becoming the first certified autism center. You know,
kind of this barriers of entry, how do we get new or audiences? Audiences that might not
become into the zoo every day. How do we reach out, build something specifically for a segment of
the population? Yeah. So my involvement with this program actually first started when I saw
a release about Sesame Place, right down the, down the street and is it laying more than I think?
They had been designated as the first amusement park to be a certified autism center. And I had never
heard of this before and I was so curious. So my self and our director at GetServices Morgan,
we started looking into it and realized this is a really great opportunity for us to get more
education about more accommodations for our guests with all different kinds of abilities.
And so it was through a group called the International Bureau. It’s IBBCES. I don’t want to put
your name so I’ll just go with their acronym. Sorry guys. But they’re great. They provide, so you
basically you’ll engage and partner them and they will give you the training for X-Sember of
Employees. They will give you an on-site evaluation. They’ll work with you to create what’s called
a social narrative. So that’s something that individuals can read before they come to the zoo. So they
have an understanding of what the experience is going to be like. They also help us with the sensory
guide, which basically rates every single area of the zoo on a scale of the five senses of what’s
more sensitive versus more intense kind of situation. So there’s a lot of those different things that
is included with that and it provides a much more well-prepared and rounded experience for those
guests that do need that. And like Jenny you were saying earlier, we want to be taking barriers down
as often as possible for people. We don’t want to have any walls up. We want everyone coming here
and feeling comfortable and accommodated. And so this was really just the first step for us to get
there. But we did get the designation as the world’s first zoo to be a certified autism center. And I
believe that was back in 2018. And it’s a really it’s a very proud thing for the zoo. We’re really proud
of taking that kind of step in that direction. And we’ve seen that a lot of other institutions have
done that since then. And you know, I will say that it’s an absolutely great piece for marketing
because we want those individuals to come here and feel comfortable. And we want to make sure
that they know that we’re here for them. So it’s just another way for us to make them feel more
comfortable and have everything they need. And we build that in our programming now. So everything
that’s being built moving forward has that kind of in mind. We just opened a brand new state of the
art 39,000 square foot building. I knew that hospital, a new welcome center, new gift store,
ticketing, a welcome plaza, you know, exhibits all up front. And this was a piece that was definitely
of top mind. So included in our new building is a a restroom designated specifically for adults
with special needs. We have an adult changing table that is on a electric up and down for lack of
a better word. But that was one piece. We were like, we want to make sure that this is included
because we want to make sure that all of our guests have that opportunity to have those accommodations
because that could be the end of the day for somebody if there’s a problem. For them to have
that resource instead of having to leave and go home, you know, it’s really important to do that.
We have guests with special needs that are in their adult ages and so they have elderly parents
taking care of them. So we want to make sure that those guys can come here and not have to worry
about that type of thing. And then it kind of just, you know, runs the gamut from there in terms of
wanting to make sure that everybody has what they need as best as we can. Yeah. Like you guys are
taking these, I mean, I love that philosophy, right? A zoo is a place for everybody, but then you’re
mixing that with like innovative, innovative ideas and then actual execution, you know, I mean,
you said this dog program took a couple of years to get it from an idea to, oh my gosh, we’re
actually selling dog tickets right now. You know, so it’s the coming from a good place, the
innovative idea, gosh, I can’t say that word, an innovative idea and then the actual execution of it.
I mean, that’s probably why this zoo looks dramatically different than it did 10, 12, 14 years ago.
Yeah, it’s pretty wild and it’s just a testament to the team that we have here and they’re
willing this to continue to adapt and be flexible and be open to new ideas because without them,
we can’t, we can’t push that, roll that ball up the hill, push forward, move forward, you know,
and it’s also again, a testament to them in the sense that they also are on the front lines
and they’re providing the feedback about what these guests need, you know, so it’s a great
all-around team effort for us in terms of just constantly trying to find ways to take those barriers
away. Eric, I can see why you’re in that role. You’re a team player. All right.
Um, here it comes, our famous last question. Jenny, you want to do the honors for this one?
All right, Eric. You guys do so much on what zoo?
Help our listeners out with what do you think other zoos and cultural attractions should be doing
more of or perhaps even less of when it comes to marketing their attraction?
I would say that all institutions, not just zoos, not just aquariums, we don’t have to put ourselves
in boxes all the time. Um, and that’s why I would say open this up to anybody, right?
Never think that there’s something that you should stay within just because you’re a zoo,
just because you’re an aquarium. At the end of the day, we’re all here for the same mission,
which is to support the animals at our institution and to support species arrival and conservation.
So I don’t think that any kind of idea is a crazy idea. It’s any, all ideas are worth exploring,
um, you know, two degree. Like I said, kick those tires, ask the impossible question, um,
and see where it gets you, um, because sometimes it’s going to get you pretty far and it might turn
into something really amazing. So, you know, from a marketing standpoint, don’t, don’t be afraid of the,
of so many of the what ifs. Uh, how about the like the what kind of bees instead or something
like that, I guess? Um, so yeah, always, always keep pushing, don’t ever keep yourself limited
in what you think you can do as a zoo or as an institution, because there’s always going to be a
solution. That’s what I do every day is figure out solutions for the craziest thing. So nothing
seems crazy to me anymore. Um, maybe that’s a problem. But in aeratology, a solution.
Well, it’s funny because it’s like the 14 or 15 year old,
I saw when you’re kind of talking about your journey and getting into this into the zoo. You said,
I actually wrote this down on my notes. Yeah, I’ll do that. So it’s kind of carrying over to now.
It’s, yeah, let’s, let’s give it a shot. Let’s explore it. It’s like the classic improver will yes
end. Yeah, it’s like going right? Love that. All right, Eric Donovan, the COO of the Elwyn Park Zoo,
Eric, thank you so much for your time. Good stuff, man. Thank you so much.
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