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.
MEMBERS
Andrew M. Aiken
Marilyn Beuttenmuller, Esq.
Whitney Wood Bylin
Kim K. Campbell
Kathie Comerford
Dale Coudert
Clementina Santi Flaherty
Gary E. Krieger
George Merck
J.B. Murray, Esq.
Stephen Myers
Guillermo Perez-Vargas
William W. Powell
Tom Quick
Tiffany Raborn
Jorge Rodriguez-Lugo
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)
Executive Staff
Terry L. Maple, PhD - President/CEO
W. Garrett Hambuechen - Senior Vice President/COO
Soteros G. Maniatty - Vice President/CFO
Glenn Ekey - Chief Development Officer
Keith Lovett - Director of Living Collections
Kristen Cytacki - Director of Education
Salvatore M. Zeitlin, DVM - Senior Veterinarian
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 direction 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 wildlife conservation.
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, Dr. Maple directed all aspects of zoo management, including its transformation to non-profit governance, the programming and design, funding, and implementation of Zoo Atlanta’s multi-million dollar revitalization. His careful oversight resulted in three stellar accreditation evaluations by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. He is widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and tested non-profit leaders in America.
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 its chief executive, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) presented five awards to the zoo for excellence in exhibit design and conservation. Zoo Atlanta's partnership with local television produced 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 worlds finest.
A native Californian, 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 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 moved 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. As Co-captain of the 1968 varsity baseball team, he and his team-mates were inducted into the Pacific Athletic Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2003, he received the Amos Alonzo Stagg Award for meritorious career achievements by former varsity athletes.
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. He has mentored and trained 25 doctoral students who now occupy important positions in universities, primate research centers, and zoological parks throughout the nation. 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 will be published in November 2008. Gingrich and Maple will also co-edit Environmental Entrepreneurs, scheduled for publication by Johns Hopkins in October 2009.
Dr. Maple is internationally recognized as an expert on the behavior, welfare, and conservation of great apes. His exhibit ideas are the foundation of Zoo Atlanta’s innovative gorilla exhibit which opened in 1988 and acknowledged as one of the most important gorilla facilities in the world. Zoo Atlanta’s gorilla exhibit (the Ford African Rain Forest exhibit) was the first of its kind designed for a population of gorillas, and no world zoo has demonstrated greater productivity in gorilla research.
Dr. Maple’s expertise in primate behavior and environmental design provided the context for re-socializing two socially deprived male gorillas. The lowland gorilla “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, he 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 mall in Tacoma, Washington so he could lead a social life at Zoo Atlanta. The 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 served as the mediator who brought prominent American biologists, including Harvard Professor E.O. Wilson, to provide timely support for the Endangered Species Act in 1995. 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 to the World Wildlife Fund, the African Wildlife Foundation, the Wildlife Society, and the Walt Disney Company.
He has served on dozens of government 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.
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. Under his direction, the Palm Beach Zoo is building an innovative Animal Care Complex, including a state-of-the-art animal hospital and a Center for Conservation Medicine, scheduled to open in March, 2009. 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. Dr. Maple currently serves as President of the Executive Committee of the Palm Beach County Cultural Council.
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