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New Lowry Park Zoo director is a business animal

Lured away from San Diego's zoo, he knows budgets, people and creatures.

By CHRISTINA REXRODE
Published July 14, 2007

	Larry Killmar is the new Director of Collections at Lowry Park Zoo. Killmar formerly worked at the world famous San Diego zoo, where he was deputy director of collections.
[Carrie Pratt | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Handout photo] A Gharial, a crocodile-like reptile distinguished by its long, pointy jaw. [Handout photo] An Indian Rhino from the Lowery Park Zoo. [Handout photo] Baby elephant Tamani and his mother Ellie from the Lowery Park Zoo.

Larry Killmar isn't exactly king of the jungle. He's more like the CEO.

Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo recently recruited him from the world-famous Zoological Society of San Diego to be its first director of collections. Killmar, 55, talked to the St. Petersburg Times about what's coming to Lowry Park, and why a Ph.D. in business administration is useful even when you're working with wallabies. Here are some excerpts:

So, what is a director of collections?

I manage the entire collection (of animals) out three to five years, so I'm always looking in the collection, saying, "What do we need to acquire? What do we need to change?"

And there are daily issues I have to deal with as well. For example, when do we put the Indian rhinos together? (Lowry Park's two Indian rhinos, a male and a female, were living separately before Killmar came here.) It's a little tricky -- they all have very distinct behaviors and personalities.

The white rhinos are really laid back: You can put them together and it's no big deal. Black rhinos, they're the hair trigger. Indian rhinos are somewhere in the middle. ... But this is going to put Tampa on the list as a zoo that produces baby rhinos.

Your undergrad, graduate and doctoral degrees are all in business. Why should a business person have this job instead of, say, a veterinarian?

There's a lot of business in what I do. There are budgets and people management, and all that stuff. When the president comes in and he's talking per capita income and revenue, it's not like I have to go look those words up. What he's trying to do is keep up this huge operation and animal preservation, and make money. That doesn't always happen in this business.

So what do you know about animals?

Thirty-plus years of managing the world's largest collection has put me in a pretty good position. We were essentially managing a collection of 8,000 animals (in San Diego), everything from rhinos to gorillas to hornbills to iguanas. (Lowry Park, by comparison, has a collection of about 2,000 animals.) I also was a keeper for 10 years. My philosophy is, I can't be a successful director if I've never been in the trenches.

No disrespect to CPAs and things like that -- I'm sure they have exciting things in their lives. But I've got a pretty cool job.

What did Tampa do to lure you here, after 37 years at a world-famous zoo like San Diego's?

Institutions, like all businesses, go through an evolution, and this one is in the growing phase. I felt that I had the skills to help them, not only to mentor the staff, but to also help develop this collection.

Now that you're here, what does that mean for Lowry Park's average visitor?

It's a good collection now, but (the zoo) wants more depth in the collection, more involvement internationally. All of that is right down my alley. So the average zoo visitor, they're going to see changes that excite them. They'll say, 'Wow, that's cool, I didn't know that existed.' That's what I mean by adding depth.

There's a gharial crocodilian -- we're now on a list of a consortium that's going to help the Indian government with some conservation dollars and eventually in the next year or so bring some of those animals out into the zoo community. We can reproduce them in the zoo community -- this community here is ideal, with the climate -- and that is going to put Lowry Park on the map.

You're well-known throughout this industry. What do you do as vice chair of the Board of Regents for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums?

The Board of Regents oversees different classes that the AZA offers to members. ... The real important one, which was started probably 12 or 15 years ago, is elephant management. The industry took that on as a huge responsibility, to teach the standards on how to manage elephants properly, since that's a hot issue in our business. The animal-rights community took this on as their campaign -- elephants in captivity -- and rightfully so. The industry needed some changes.

The new way is, you train elephants like you train killer whales. It's called protected contact, where you stay outside the animal's area and you ask the animal to do something, and if it doesn't, there's no consequence. And with that, the whole management system for elephants has changed in the last 10 years, changed for the better.

FAST FACTS: Larry Killmar

Background: He spent 37 years with the Zoological Society of San Diego. He planned to be an accountant until he started working part-time at a zoo after high school.

Education: Undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees -- all in business.

[Last modified July 14, 2007, 00:01:02]