Toledo Zoo announces 2 finalists for top job

Chris Andrews, left, and Jeffrey K. Sailer, right, are the top two choices to replace Anne Baker, Toledo Zoo's CEO and executive director.

The chosen candidates are Christopher Andrews and Jeffrey K. Sailer. Mr. Andrews was most recently the director of the Steinhart Aquarium, California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Mr. Sailer is currently director of city zoos with the Wildlife Conservation Society, New York City.

The Toledo Zoo’s board of directors is expected to make a decision by the end of the summer. The search committee consisted of community and business leaders, a veterinarian, a higher education representative, board members, and a zoo employee. Zac Isaac, president of the board, chaired the search committee.

“I am absolutely delighted to be one of the final two candidates for this prestigious position,” Mr. Andrews said. “Toledo Zoo is known as one of the top zoos in the country and for the phenomenal support it receives from the local community.”

Mr. Sailer shared similar sentiments.

“The Toledo Zoo has a wonderful reputation in the zoo field and I am excited to be considered for this great opportunity,” he said.

Mr. Sailer grew up in Indiana and has always had a love for zoos and wildlife. As a teenager, he kept pheasants in aviaries that he built with his father. This early interest in birds and zoology led him to attend Ball State University where he received a bachelor’s degree in biology. Afterwards, he pursued his master’s degree at the University of Florida.

Mr. Sailer was previously the curator of birds for the Miami Metrozoo and the curator of animals for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Central Park Zoo. He was promoted to director of the Central Park Zoo and later the director of City Zoos, a position overseeing the Central Park, Prospect Park, and Queens zoos.

Mr. Andrews was most recently the director of the Steinhart Aquarium, and the chief of public programs at the California Academy of Sciences. At the academy his responsibilities included developing exhibits, educational programs, and shows, and the institution’s sustainability initiative that was a part of the recent $500 million renovation of the 400,000-square-foot aquarium, indoor rain forest, museum, planetarium, and research facility in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

Prior to the academy, Mr. Andrews was the founding executive director at the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston, S.C. He has also held senior animal management positions at the National Aquarium in Baltimore and the London Zoo, and has worked as a biologist for a regional wildlife department in his native England.

Ms. Baker informed the Toledo Zoological Society board’s executive committee in February of her plans to leave her $177,735-a-year post. She will stay on until a successor is in place.

Contact Tanya Irwin at:

tirwin@theblade.com

or 419-724-6066.