Meet The Zoo Director - October - Rick Schwartz, Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

Name: Rick Schwartz 

Actual title: President, Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

Name of your zoo: Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

URL for your facility: www.nashvillezoo.org

Number of species at your facility: More than 160

Your favorite critter at the facility: Clouded Leopards

Total number of animals or fish at your facility: More than 1,600

Number of visitors annually: 546,429 in 2007

Number of employees: 156

Number of volunteers: 1100

Annual budget: $7.7 million

Degree(s): None

Experience prior to this position: I’ve been involved with the care of exotic animals since the age of 14 when I owned my first cougar (much to the dismay of my parents).

Favorite part of your job: Walking around our park and listening to the general public enjoying the staff’s creativity and hard work.

One dream wish for your facility: A state of the art gorilla facility.

Family: Married for seventeen years to my wife Catherine. We have a fifteen year old daughter followed by three sons who are 13, 11, and 8 years old.

Pets at home: Varies on any particular day, but our house is filled with snakes, lizards, frogs, fish, two dogs, and a cat.

When you retire, you plan to: Go back to my real passion of breeding endangered species. As our facility continues to grow I unfortunately spend less time working directly with animals.