Zoo Getting Idea Man, Plan For Future Consultant Takes On Walk In The Wild

The man who helped make opera profitable in Spokane is tackling a bigger project: Walk in the Wild zoo.

Management consultant Chuck Lund compares himself to “a corporate turn-around person” except that he normally works with arts organizations.

Zoo officials have hired him to spend a month writing a plan for the financially strapped zoo. He’ll become zoo director if they like his ideas and he likes the zoo board’s response to his plan.

But, Lund said, don’t expect him to stick around more than two or three years, particularly if Walk in the Wild starts prospering.

“I enjoy situations that are not in equilibrium,” said Lund, a 47-yearold violinist who has taken similar short-term positions at Uptown Opera, the Spokane Symphony, Connoisseur Concerts and Holy Names Music Center.

“I go a little crazy when things get stable.”

Interim zoo Director Hugh Imhof is out, whether or not Lund becomes director.

“I said when I started that I’d be here three to six months,” said Imhof, who took the position in March and has resigned effective Aug. 12.

Under Imhof’s leadership, volunteers spruced up the zoo and wired its exhibits for electricity. Imhof convinced keepers to feed the animals at mid-day, rather than in the morning, so the animals are active when visitors are around.

But this year, like most others, the zoo will have to borrow tens of thousands of dollars. Imhof said Walk in the Wild needs a steady source of money, rather than relying primarily on admissions, which vary with the weather.

It’s up to Lund to find that money, as he did for Uptown Opera. The fledgling opera company received 90 percent of its revenue from ticket sales when Lund became executive director in 1991.

Most of its income came from fund-raising when Lund left in January, looking for new challenges.

“Chuck has immense energy … he’s wonderful at a time of crisis,” said Marjory Halvorson, Uptown Opera’s artistic director. “He’s wonderful about assessing the right approach for an organization.”

Convincing Spokane to support a zoo with a bad reputation could be more difficult than turning the city onto opera.

“It’s almost criminal that the leaders in our community are willing to give millions of dollars to the Pacific Science Center and not give the zoo anything,” said Imhof, speaking of a recent decision to bring the science center to Riverfront Park.

Among Imhof’s accomplishments that could help Lund is an agreement making Spokane County the zoo’s landowner. Inland Empire Paper Co. agreed last month to give the rugged 80-acre site to the county.

The agreement, which is not quite final, does not commit the county to spending tax money but would allow the zoo to put a levy or other funding method on the ballot.