Leadership

Zoological Society of the Palm Beaches
Board of Directors 2007-2008

OFFICERS

Chairman: Luis J. Fernandez
Vice- Chairman: Kane K. Baker
Treasurer: James B. Meany
Secretary: Patricia Lebow, Esq.
Member at Large: Daniel J. Comerford, Ph.D.
Member at Large: Andrew M. Aiken
Member at Large: Gary E. Krieger
Member at Large: J.B. Murray, Esq.
Member at Large: Guillermo Perez-Vargas

DIRECTORS

Marilyn Beuttenmuller, Esq.
Whitney Wood Bylin
Kim K. Campbell
Kathie Comerford
Dale Coudert
Lewis S. W. Crampton
Clementina Santi Flaherty
Jane Grace
George Merck
Stephen Myers
William W. Powell
Tom Quick
Tiffany Raborn
Pamela M. Rauch
Sandra S. Rooney
Salvatore A. Tiano
Paul Van der Grift
William Williams, Esq.

BOARD MEMBERS EMERITUS

Alvin Brown
Peggy Brown
James Hancock
Ladona Hancock

IN MEMORIAM

George D. Cornell (1910-2003)
Harriet W. Cornell (1914-1999)
Rolla D. Campbell, Jr. (1920-2008)
Wynne S. Ballinger (1924-2008)

Boardmember Access

Executive Staff

Biography of Dr. Terry L. Maple -
President & CEO

Dr. Terry L. Maple is best known for his visionary leadership in revitalizing the Atlanta Zoo after mismanagement and neglect culminated in the most publicized scandal in the history of American zoos. Dr. Maple’s eighteen years of reform leadership re-branded Zoo Atlanta and restored its credibility. A prodigious scholar, Dr. Maple is also known for his scientific contributions to the disciplines of comparative and environmental psychology, animal welfare, and environmental leadership. With his colleague, Dr. Donald G. Lindburg, Dr. Maple recently co-edited "Empirical Zoo" a special issue of Zoo Biology devoted to exploring the scientific foundation of zoo management.

In 2003, Dr. Maple retired as the founding President and Chief Executive Officer of Zoo Atlanta, the nonprofit corporation that was formed to operate the zoo in 1985. He was first appointed Atlanta’s Zoo Director in 1984 by Mayor Andrew Young when the zoo was a unit of city government. For nearly two decades he directed all aspects of zoo management, including its transformation to non-profit governance, and the strategic planning, programming and design, funding, and implementation of Zoo Atlanta’s multi-million dollar revitalization. In addition to his executive duties at the zoo, he continued to supervise a graduate research program at Georgia Tech and taught an undergraduate course in environmental psychology, one of the longest running courses of its kind in the nation. He mentored and trained twenty-seven doctoral students at Georgia Tech, three of which were awarded prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowships, the only NSF Graduate Fellowships in the history of the Psychology Department. His well-published student collaborators have consistently won top jobs at universities, zoological parks, and primate centers throughout the nation and abroad.

During Dr. Maple's eighteen years of leadership and reform administration, Zoo Atlanta became recognized as one of the world's most innovative zoological parks. In 1987 and again in 2000, the zoo was honored by the Metropolitan Communities Foundation as Atlanta's "best-managed nonprofit corporation." During his tenure as Chief Executive Officer, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) presented five awards to Zoo Atlanta for excellence in exhibit design and conservation. Zoo Atlanta's partnership with local television resulted in six Emmy Awards for local programming, and in 1991, the Georgia Wildlife Federation honored Zoo Atlanta as "Conservation Organization of the Year." Once denigrated as one of America's worst zoos, Zoo Atlanta is now recognized as one of the world’s finest.

A native Californian, born in East Los Angeles and raised in San Diego, Dr. Maple received his bachelor’s degree from the University of the Pacific in 1968. He received his Master's (1971), and his Ph.D. (1974) in Psychobiology from the University of California at Davis. From 1971-1972, he studied political theory and sociology at the University of Stockholm as a Rotary Foundation International Graduate Fellow. After completing his Ph.D. requirements, he was awarded a prestigious Giannini Foundation Post-doctoral Fellowship for research in Biomedical Science at the UCD School of Medicine. He was recruited to Atlanta in 1975 to serve on the faculty of Emory University. In 1978 he was recruited to the Georgia Institute of Technology where he taught for thirty years. He retired from Georgia Tech in 2008 as the Elizabeth Smithgall Watts Emeritus Professor of Conservation and Behavior, an endowed chair he occupied for ten years.

An elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association of Psychological Science, and a former President of the AZA, Dr. Maple was named "Entrepreneur of the Year" in 1998 by the Atlanta Chapter of Stanford Business School Alumni. He received the 1999 "President’s Award" from the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau for his contributions to tourism in Georgia. He was elected to Fellow status in the Georgia Academy of Sciences in 2005. On May 17, 2008 he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from his alma mater, University of the Pacific.

Dr. Maple is the author and editor of more than 200 scientific publications, including Captivity & Behavior (1979), Gorilla Behavior (1982), Zoo Man (1993), Ethics on the Ark (1995), and Saving the Giant Panda (2000). He is the Founding Editor of the journal Zoo Biology published by Wiley/Blackwell in association with AZA, and a founding member of the American Society of Primatologists. His tenth book A Contract with the Earth (co-authored with former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich) was published by Johns Hopkins University Press In October 2007. It quickly became a best seller on the Amazon.com list. The Penguin Plume paperback edition was published in November 2008.

An internationally recognized expert on the behavior, welfare, and conservation of great apes, Dr. Maple’s ideas provided the programming for Zoo Atlanta’s innovative lowland gorilla exhibit, acknowledged as one of the most important gorilla facilities in the world. Sponsored by Ford Motor Company and branded as the Ford African Rain Forest, it is the first exhibit designed for a population of gorillas distributed in four contiguous groups. During Dr. Maple’s tenure, Zoo Atlanta produced more publications on gorilla behavior than any other world zoo.

Dr. Maple’s expertise in primate behavior and environmental design provided the context for re-socializing two socially deprived male lowland gorillas. "Willie B.", isolated in a cage for twenty-seven years, responded to social opportunities by producing seven offspring by the time he was forty-one. When he died in 2000, Willie B. was the oldest gorilla to have sired offspring in a zoo. Eight thousand people attended a celebration of his life shortly after his death, one of the most remarkable events in the history of the zoo. Dr. Maple is also recognized for his leadership in negotiating the delicate legal agreement that freed the isolated gorilla "Ivan" from a decrepit shopping mall in Tacoma, Washington so he could lead a social life at Zoo Atlanta. The unprecedented behavioral transformation of these two gorillas was documented in the pages of National Geographic Magazine.

As President of the AZA (1998-1999), Dr. Maple established the association’s first diversity initiative, worked to differentiate AZA institutions from roadside attractions, and strengthened the association’s scientific foundation. His diplomacy on giant panda conservation resulted in a new partnership with China’s Ministry of Construction, the governmental agency responsible for China’s zoological gardens, and Zoo Atlanta’s successful exhibition of giant pandas after ten years of complex negotiations. Zoo Atlanta was the second zoo in the nation (after San Diego) to acquire giant pandas under the new, stringent regulations of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Dr. Maple also served as the mediator who brought prominent American biologists, including Harvard Professor E.O. Wilson, to provide Congress with a timely and effective defense of the Endangered Species Act in 1995. His personal testimony in Congress and his working relationship with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich contributed to the successful continuation of the ESA. For many years, Dr. Maple served as Vice-Chair of AZA’s Field Conservation Committee. He has visited Africa twenty-five times, and traveled extensively in Europe, Asia, and South America. He has been an advisor and consultant to the World Wildlife Fund, the African Wildlife Foundation, the Wildlife Society, the Walt Disney Company, the National Institutes of Health, and Chairman of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International.

He has served on dozens of governmental and non-governmental committees including a Presidential appointment as a member of the National Museum Services Board. He has a national reputation as a charismatic public speaker who delivers keynote talks and public lectures, including recent speeches to Republicans for Environmental Protection, the American Institute of Biological Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, and the 151st Commencement Address at the University of the Pacific. As an experienced and successful fund-raising executive, he consults regularly with aspiring non-profits in the museum industry. He is well-known as an expert in crisis management.

Dr. Maple was named President/CEO of the Palm Beach Zoo in 2005. He quickly established a working partnership in conservation, education, and science with Florida Atlantic University where he was appointed Research Professor of Biology. On Earth day 2009, the Palm Beach Zoo opened the innovative Melvin J. and Claire Levine Animal Care Complex, including a state-of-the-art animal hospital and the Center for Conservation Medicine. Equipped with solar power provided by a grant from the Florida Power & Light Foundation, the facilities are expected to be certified LEED Gold, the first LEED certified zoo veterinary hospital in the nation. Confirming the zoo’s leadership role in sustainability, the Community Foundation of Palm Beach and Martin County recently named the Palm Beach Zoo as its "Sustainability Leader" among 59 competing non-profits in the region. In addition to its partnership with FAU, the Palm Beach Zoo Center for Conservation Medicine will work closely with the field medicine program of the Bronx Zoo/Wildlife Conservation Society and Scripps Florida. In 2009, a challenging economic climate, Dr. Maple and his team raised more than $1 million for conservation.

Dr. Maple recently accepted a second term as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palm Beach County Cultural Council, and participates as an advisor to Mayor Lois Frankel’s City of West Palm Beach Sustainability Committee.

(5-09)