Interview with Gary

Gary is the director of the museum and farm country. (Costs, budgets, hiring, direction, animal health, proper care and feeding, maintain exhibits, some changes, etc.) 6 1/2 years as director.

Striving to become a single property instead of three separate.

He heads both museum and farm country so there are opportunities for combined activities, but nothing significant.

Working towards self-sustaining the museum/farm country, just to maintain the facilities. Replacing carpet, roofs, etc.

Wish list: Enhance the outside of the buildings (new dino sculptures around the building). Building a place for more variety of animals.

Selling annual memberships is much easier when the salesperson (frontline) knows about all the of the attractions at Thanksgiving Point. There are too many managers and directors to coordinate activities between areas and there is a big issue related to transfer costing and revenue sharing.

No full-time docents and no one is scheduled for a docent role. One person will roam the museum to 1) clean-up and then 2) interact, if needed. It is usually a ticket salesperson that roams for about 15 minutes and then comes back to the ticket booth.

Guest experience is the highest priority and second is revenue.

A good guest experience is something that the guests enjoy. When a child cries when they leave. When they leave, they think I am coming back. A welcome, clean, inviting environment. Educational and entertaining. Family interactions.

Training for the 15 minute roam includes a scheduling manager speading time training them. The training is for the props, exhibits, and interaction as well as how to sell tickets, use the cash register, etc. New employees get a tour with the full-time paleotologist (exhibit maintenance, no research), eventually. People can watch him working on the bone preping.

Guests should learn that learning is fun. Learning isn't what you do in school. He wants to change the perception that learning is tedious. He wants it to spark interests. He doesn't care if they know about dinosaurs and he wants them to grow together as a family.

Find the gnomes game in the museum help create a family interaction. There are Monday night activities (skavenger hunts, costumes, hand-outs, etc.). It is an opportunity.

Personal thought: What about the high score list in a video game?

He thinks the volunteer program could be enhanced. Most volunteer tasks are tedious because they require little training/cost. (Stamp hands, clean-up, etc.) He would love to have volunteer docents in the museum. There may be opportunity could earn stripes about each part of the museum.

He is not sure guests need to think the properties are connected. He wants them to attend all three, but not see them as one.

The real benefit to internally making the properties connect is cross-promoting and using expertise across properties. The problem he sees is transfer pricing.

Volunteer docent program: get the quantity and quality and then training them. Volunteers are hard to count on and if they are late then you might ruin the experience. No opportunity for paid docent program because of budget.