Finalists list pared to 4 for Little Rock Zoo director job

The Little Rock Zoo will soon have a new director for the first time in 17 years.

Four candidates are being vetted for the position. Together, they have a combined 105 years of experience. They hail from Virginia, Florida, Indianapolis and Little Rock.

Interviews with the zoo board of governors will be scheduled in the coming weeks, with the hope of having a new director in place by Jan. 1, officials said.

The zoo board originally chose five finalists, but one -- Baird Fleming, the director of the Honolulu Zoo -- dropped out after realizing that his candidacy would be made public in the newspaper.

After interviews, the zoo board will pick three people to recommend to City Manager Bruce Moore, who will make the final selection.

The person selected will replace Mike Blakely, who retired in October after 17 years on the job. The salary range for the position is listed in the job posting as between $87,350 and $134,500. Blakely was making $115,000 when he left the position.

The finalists are:

Susan Altrui

Susan Altrui has been the Little Rock Zoo's acting director since Blakely's departure. She was promoted last year to assistant zoo director after being the zoo's director of marketing and development since 2005.

She was executive director of the Arkansas Zoological Foundation for a decade and took the organization from barely fundraising at all to raising millions of dollars in private donations for the zoo.

"I have dedicated the greater part of my professional career to making this zoo a better place, and I want to continue to do that," she said. "To me, this is not a stair step up in my career. This is not a retirement plan. This is my passion ... and I want to do everything I can to make this zoo better."

Altrui was involved in the development of the Zoo Master Plan and the strategic plan, and she's aware of the next steps the zoo needs to take, she said.

"We still have work to be done, which is why I want to be the director. We have work to do in conservation education. We need to work on collaborating with community partners, being more innovative and communicating to the community what we need to get them invested in the zoo," Altrui said.

She submitted 26 letters of reference from people, including Arkansas Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin; Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge; leaders in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums; and representatives from law firms, banks, cultural institutions, Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field, and a university.

Blakely also recommended Altrui as his successor. He said she built morale when she decided to work as a zookeeper in several departments last year to gain hands-on knowledge.

"I can say that the zoo is stronger today because of it," Blakely wrote.

Norah Fletchall

At the beginning of this year, Norah Fletchall was promoted to chief operating officer and senior vice president of the Indianapolis Zoological Society. It's the largest zoo in the U.S. that doesn't receive public funding.

Previously she worked as the assistant zoo director at the John Ball Zoological Garden in Grand Rapids, Mich., from 1987 to 2009.

Fletchall has been at the Indianapolis Zoo since 2009, working her way up the administrative ladder.

One of her biggest accomplishments there, she said, was leading a team to implement a dynamic pricing model, which creates different entry prices for different times of the day and week. Indianapolis was the first zoo in the nation to do this, and it's created steady revenue growth, Fletchall said.

Fletchall said she has enjoyed Indianapolis, but in her "heart of hearts" she's meant to be at a smaller facility like the one in Little Rock. If selected as director, this is somewhere she sees herself staying, she said.

"I've always been attracted to facilities that are part of the fabric of the community. I've visited the [Little Rock] zoo, and I'm a little familiar with the city of Little Rock. Based on my 30 years in the zoo business, I really am looking for a long-term position as director of a facility the size of Little Rock," Fletchall said.

"And I'm really pleased with the community support in Little Rock. I think it's a thriving community, it's a great size, and an absolutely beautiful area. I think I can bring a very strong skill set to the position and help continue to facilitate growth with the zoo and interface with the community," she said.

Fletchall has been involved with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums for years and currently serves on its ethics commission.

Roger Sweeney

Roger Sweeney has been the assistant director of the Virginia Zoo for the past five years and said he's progressed to a point in his career where he's ready to "be able to practice what I've been sort of developing over the years."

His zoo experience dates back 30 years, working as a consultant or keeper at various wildlife preservation programs all over the world, including in the U.K. -- where he's from -- and the Philippines, Spain, Qatar and Barbados.

Sweeney also has managed an animal division in Miami and worked as a curator in Utah.

In Virginia, he's overseen that zoo's growth in conservation programs. The zoo has progressed from raising money for conservation programs elsewhere to developing its own in-house programs, for which it receives grants from other zoos.

Sweeney would like to finish out his career in Little Rock, he said.

"I feel I've progressed throughout the conservation and zoological industry, from being an animal care zookeeper to managing living collections, through being involved in field work and restoration and conservation work," he said.

"I've had the experience working at a local government facility as well as a nonprofit, and I feel I've learned a lot and have a lot of ideas about really where zoos are and where they should be in the next few years and how they are going to keep their relevance in the changing landscape," he said.

David Tetzlaff

David Tetzlaff has more zoo experience than the other finalists.

His parents started the Jungle Larry's African Safari in Florida in 1969. The facility has since become the accredited Naples Zoo.

Tetzlaff began working there, officially, as the director of shows in 1981, going on to become the general curator and then the executive director from 2002-12.

For the next three years Tetzlaff worked as chief operating officer at the Central Florida Zoo. He said attendance rose above 300,000 all three years for the first time in the zoo's history, which he attributed to his team's efforts.

He dealt with a small controversy there in 2013 when the University of Florida's veterinary program stopped its contract on the care of the animals. A school official said at the time that he was pessimistic that the school could work with the zoo while Tetzlaff was in charge, according to a Sun Sentinel article.

Tetzlaff said this week that the problem was a personality conflict. He said there was an issue with the order of command, with the school veterinarians not wanting to respect decisions made by head animal staff members. Under Tetzlaff's leadership, the zoo hired a full-time veterinarian.

Most recently, Tetzlaff was chief operations officer for the Virginia Safari Park and the Gulf Breeze Zoo in Pensacola for about three months this year. During that time he created a work plan for the two facilities. He said the company wasn't ready for that position and he was let go, but he left amicably.

Little Rock would be the largest organization he's worked for in terms of zoo size and budget.

"I believe the Little Rock Zoo is poised for what I would consider the next step in its evolution. The community support is there, the donor support is there. It's got a great animal collection -- I was very impressed," he said.

Metro on 11/17/2016

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