“We worked through the issues, reassuring donors and staff and figuring out how we could solve the zoo’s problems.”īorin, his predecessor, Hanna, and former Columbus Recreation and Parks leader Mel Dodge are generally considered the three major figures in the transformation of the Columbus Zoo. “I was glad to step in and be a familiar name to reassure everyone,” says Borin, who served as interim zoo director last year until Schmid took over. With its top two executives gone, the zoo’s board convinced former director Jerry Borin to come out of retirement to calm the waters while a search firm hunted for a new director. Three of the four employees have repaid nearly $550,000 to the zoo the zoo continues talks to regain nearly $57,000 from Pete Fingerhut, former vice president of marketing and sales. A forensic audit released in August found misspending and questionable business practices by Stalf, Bell and two other employees led to a$631,651 loss for the zoo amid what was described as an “overall culture of entitlement” among its executives. Stalf’s tenure ended abruptly in March 2021 when he and former CFO Greg Bell were forced to resign after a Columbus Dispatch investigation revealed they had improperly used zoo properties and other resources. Some recent Columbus Zoo officials wouldn’t have passed that test. “It’s not fun, but that’s the litmus test.” “We told our managers that we’re not willing to do anything that we don’t want to put on the front page of the newspaper,” says Gilbert, who is now the aquarium CEO.
The decision to go public, says Jesse Gilbert, who was chief operating officer at the aquarium under Schmid, reflects his leadership style.
“That was a case study in communicating, moving quickly and being transparent,” Schmid says. He notified the media and other aquariums and learned two things: Some aquariums had previously used the mislabeled chemical but hadn’t revealed their losses, while others still had the mislabeled containers on their shelves. “It was a catastrophic loss,” says Schmid. An investigation quickly revealed that the drug’s container had been mislabeled, and it actually contained a poisonous chemical, hydroquinone. In 2015, hundreds of fish at the Corpus Christi aquarium died suddenly when staff poured what they thought was an anti-parasite drug into aquarium tanks. To understand Warmolts’ enthusiasm, it helps to consider another controversy Schmid navigated while leading the Texas State Aquarium, where he served as president for more than two decades. New Columbus Zoo CEO has a history of restoring reputations
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