2025 Conference Was a Success.. Let's  Make 2026 Even Better!

We're Headed to Cincinnati in 2026!

It looks like a plain white box, but if you click below a video should play 🙂

2026 Conference Planning

Call for Presentations

The AZFA Program & Education Committee is seeking presenters for this year’s conference hosted by the Cincinnati Zoo October 10^th – 15^th in Cincinnati, Ohio.

AZFA conferences typically have a mix of presentations, workshops, and panel discussions.  Our goal is to provide another diverse and engaging program in Cincinnati, with “tracks” covering various topics that our members encounter in the workplace.  These could include sustainability, professional development, safety and security, emergency planning and response, housekeeping, exhibit design and project management, accreditation, life support systems, and more.  The hands-on workshops are especially popular.

In order to offer the possible value for conference attendees, we need the help of AZFA’s greatest asset: our members!  If you’d like to present at the conference, teach a workshop, or host a roundtable—or if you have an idea or a speaker recommendation—please contact the AZFA Administrator.  Please respond by Friday, April 3, 2026 so we can finalize the agenda as soon as possible.

The participation and collaboration of our membership are what make the conference possible.  Thank you to everyone who volunteers their time and expertise, and to the facilities that support them, to help our program improve and grow each year.  See you in Cincinnati! 

Ramey Reads

Book Reviews by Fred Ramey

For anyone new to the idea of the Harvard Business Review, or “HBR” as you’ll often see them abbreviated, it’s primarily a management and leadership magazine that publishes articles about a wide variety of topics.  Where I most often find myself reading them, though later after many of these articles are grouped into books by specific topics. Each book will be divided into chapters and each of those chapters is a previously published article by a different writer.

Knowing that is the structure, you’ll likely find some articles easy reads and some more complex, some useful, and some you get part way through a skip when you’re picking up one of these books. It also means that there is bound to be something you can relate to and that you find valuable in them though.

This book, HBR Guide to Beating Burnout, is one that I think most people can relate to as something they’ve experienced and felt at some point in their life. Some of us are better at dealing with burnout than others. Some people have never experienced it, and to that I would offer congratulations, and encourage them to think about it still.

Once upon a time, I felt like I handled stress better than most people, and while that may be the case I eventually learned that I’m not immune to burnout. I’d been spoiled without realizing it for much of my career because I had a series of good bosses over the years. Bosses that would do things like walk into my office at 5pm on a Friday and tell me to shut off the computer right now and go home. For me, burnout hit about two years after I no longer had that. I found myself working sixty or seventy hours a week with no end in sight and eventually crashed.

What made my situation worse was perhaps that I’d never developed some tools to deal with that early in my career and when I finally hit a wall, I was well into my career and in a position of leadership. Because of that, I believe that even if you’re not feeling any effects of burnout, you should be actively monitoring it yourself and taking steps to ensure you’re taking care of yourself.

The HBR Guide to Beating Burnout is divided into four sections with between five and eight articles per section. Those sections are titled, “Protecting Yourself from Burnout,” “Bouncing Back from Burnout,” “Preventing Burnout on Your Team,” and “How Organizations Can Combat Burnout.”

By breaking it down into those sections it’s easier to go directly to what you need to address whether that is personal burnout and mental health, burnout you might be seeing in your team with a couple people, or a major issue within your whole organization that might indicate a larger problem with culture. This ability to quickly find information on it makes this a good book to keep on the shelf in your office.

The book itself is easy to read, but still capable of sparking some creative thoughts and getting you to look inward about the things in question and how you and your circle are dealing with burnout and the things that cause it.

One of the things I appreciate most about this book is that through the various writers and their topics they work their way around every angle of the issue whether that is looking at it from a personal perspective in Alice Boyes article “How to Get Through an Extremely Busy Time at Work,” or if you’re feeling like the issue is not you but the culture where you’re at in Eric Garton’s article titled "Employee Burnout Is a Leadership Problem.”

Most of these articles are relatively timeless in this book because even though some technology may change, whether you’re working late on a computer at home now or working late in the office thirty years ago, the symptoms long term are the same.

Fred Ramey is the Asset & Facilities Services Manager for Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium and Northwest Trek Wildlife Park within Parks Tacoma. With over 23 years of leadership experience in both the military and government and over a decade in zoos and aquariums.

Welcome New Members!

Since 7/1/2025

Aaron Cox Maintenance Tech, Mesker Park Zoo

Andrew Judson Exhibits Specialist, Maryland Zoo

Brian Timm Manager of Facilities Design and Construction, OPPD

Caitlin O'Donnell Exhibits Specialist, Maryland Zoo

Carter Carter Director Environmental Sustainable Operations, Woodland Park Zoo

Ceara Caffrey Sustainability Coord, Tennessee Aquarium

Chris Brown Director of Construction, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium

Clayton Anders Building / Equipment Maintenance Manager, Dallas Zoo Management

Cory Galego Custodial Manager, Oregon Zoo

Daniel Fowler Maintenance Tech I, Tennessee Aquarium

David Leathers Special Exhibits Manager, Topeka Zoo & Conservation Center

Eli Rieck , Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

Gregg Morris Maintenance Tech, Mesker Park Zoo

Guy Anderson Maintenance & Facilities Manager, Black Pine Animal Sanctuary

Jaeden Brasidio Building Maintenance, Buttonwood Park Zoo

Jennifer Dixon Facilities Worker, Elmwood Park Zoo

Jess Phillips Animal Facilities Director, Maryland Zoo

John Threlkeld Director of Life Support, Denver Zoo

Jon Spann Manager, The Bespoke Renewal DBA Sydney Flooring Solutions

Jonathan Hausmann Maintenance Tech, Mesker Park Zoo

Katy Runnells Life Support Operator and Water Quality Technician, Reid Park Zoo

Luke Robinson Maintenance Worker, Topeka Zoo & Conservation Center

Margaret Innes General Curator, Maryland Zoo

Matt Schindler Principal Architect, WDM Architects

Nathaniel Kessler Horticulture Technician, Topeka Zoo & Conservation Center

Reggie Eastwood Lead Maintenance Tech, Mesker Park Zoo

Seth Jones , Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

Travis Sodon , Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

Tristen Williams Maintenance Technician, Great Plains Zoo

Trystan Stanga Maintenance Tech II, Great Plains Zoo