ERIE, Pa. \u2014 Wrapped in a sheet, Dasa \u2014 the Erie Zoo\u2019s 33-year-old orangutan matriarch \u2014 lounged high in her exhibit. The moment she spotted Melissa \u201cRoo\u201d Kojancie, she swung down to greet her.<\/p>\n
Dasa\u2019s son, Otis, followed. He stood behind his mother, peeking over her shoulder and pestering her like any rambunctious 7-year-old might. Dasa pressed her hand against the window.<\/p>\n
Kojancie, a former zookeeper and now the president and CEO of the Erie Zoo, smiled wide and returned the gesture. They had done this before.<\/p>\n
Though it\u2019s been several years since Kojancie, a 2000 graduate of the biology program at Penn State Behrend, has worked directly with Dasa, the connection between them \u2014 built over quiet mornings, shared routines and earned trust \u2014 has never faded.<\/p>\n
Finding her place among the animals<\/p>\n
As a teen, Kojancie considered a career as a veterinarian, but, she said, she quickly realized that the profession wouldn\u2019t allow her to form the deep, personal bonds with animals that she craved. She didn\u2019t want to treat animals, she said. She wanted to connect with them.<\/p>\n
When she learned about an animal-care internship at the Erie Zoo in the summer of her junior year, Kojancie jumped at the opportunity. The Franklin-area native faced one big obstacle, however \u2014 summer housing. There are no residence halls at the zoo.<\/p>\n
A summer undergraduate research grant solved that problem. Kojancie was selected for a project that studied the rate of metamorphosis in salamanders. The grant covered housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I didn\u2019t get that grant, I wouldn\u2019t be here today, because I couldn\u2019t have taken the zoo internship that summer,\u201d she said. \u201cWithin a week, I fell in love with working at the zoo.\u201d<\/p>\n
That passion set her on a path that would take her from intern to full-time zookeeper to internship coordinator to animal-care staff supervisor to chief operations officer and eventually to the top: president and CEO of the Erie Zoo.<\/p>\n
That career trajectory resulted in the rarest form of CEO, one with such a breadth of experience that she can jump into nearly any role in the organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can drive the train, feed the lions, clean the llama yard, teach a class, or build a scarecrow,\u201d Kojancie said. \u201cI\u2019ve done it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
From the llama yard to the boardroom<\/p>\n
Kojancie\u2019s deep knowledge of the zoo\u2019s day-to-day operations shapes her view of its future. She said she envisions innovative, state-of-the-art exhibits that give animals enrichment opportunities and control over their environment, like whether to go outdoors or stay indoors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to keep the intimate, small-zoo feel and experience but expand over time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Growth and exhibit improvements are something Kojancie said she now sees as possible with the unanimous vote by Erie City Council to transfer ownership of the zoo from the city to Erie Events, which will provide $500,000 in annual operating funds.<\/p>\n
It was a move Kojancie and the zoo\u2019s board wanted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe zoo was generating 95% of our operating income,\u201d she said. \u201cA rainy weekend impacted our bottom line. Erie Events will provide a secure source of operational support.\u201d<\/p>\n
A bigger role in a changing animal world<\/p>\n
For Kojancie, plans for growth aren\u2019t just about new exhibits, she said \u2014 they\u2019re about strengthening the zoo\u2019s role in the larger conservation landscape.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are here to do something for the greater good,\u201d she said. \u201cZoos today are committed to animal conservation and species survival. In many cases, they are leading the way in reintroducing species back into the wild.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s proud of the conservation work that Erie Zoo staff members do, Kojancie said. It\u2019s not limited to global conservation efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur staff make time to do boots-on-the-ground conservation work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her team recently created the \u201cLast Change Lagoon,\u201d a place where people can donate unwanted goldfish, rather than releasing them into Lake Erie, where they are an invasive species. The team has helped the Erie Bird Observatory tag birds, and they participate in a variety of initiatives, like a monarch butterfly watch, that track or support native species. The zoo also partners with other zoos in managed-breeding programs that are designed to save endangered species.<\/p>\n
While Kojancie now spends most of her days in the zoo administration building, she is never far from the animal-human connections she thrives on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I walk through the zoo or stop in to see Dasa, it centers me,\u201d she said. \u201cProtecting endangered species is my \u2018why\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ERIE, Pa. \u2014 Wrapped in a sheet, Dasa \u2014 the Erie Zoo\u2019s 33-year-old orangutan matriarch \u2014 lounged high…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":{"0":"post-85911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-erie","9":"tag-erie-headlines","10":"tag-erie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}