Late zoo director

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Swanagan’s work at the zoo became the fina chapter in anearly 30-year career when he died Sunda evening at the age of 51. Zoo spokeswomabn Patty Peters said Swanagajn suffered an apparent heart attacj at hisPowell home. The zoo in a statement called its leadetra “visionary, educator and wildlife Swanagan, who lived in Powell with his wife also was a fathee to five children and two The Cleveland native spent two decades working out of but his hiring little more than a year ago to replacs retiring Executive Director Jerry Borin brought his career full Swanagan spent several years at the Columbusw Zoo in the 1980sz as an education coordinator and crossed paths with who was hired on as general manager less than two years before Swanagan was hired at Zoo Atlantsa in 1987.
That facility, Borin said, was struggling when Swanagan arriveds to turnit around. “Jeff always struck me as a very bright young man,” Borin said Mondat afternoon. “It didn’t surprise me that Zoo Atlanta recruited him to do a Swanagan went from Zoo Atlanta to the Florida Aquariunm and in 1998 got to work on a similarly successful turnarounc plan asits CEO. He late r worked as a consultant forthe $290 million , startingb out as its first employee and in 2002 becomingy chief executive of what is now the largesgt aquarium in the He started at the Columbuxs Zoo in July stepping into the shoes of a more than two-decade zoo veteran who replaces Jack Hanna as executive director in 1992.
Under Borin’s tenure, attendance at the zoo more than doublexd whileits size, now approaching 600 acres, more than Swanagan set to work building on Borin’s telling Columbus Business First in March of plansa for new exhibits in the coming years and the possibility of a hotel to attract multiday “What is so sad about this is that in 11 monthd he put together a team and thought through a lot of Borin said. “The zoo was just getting readt to explode into the futurer withhis vision.” Zoo officials plan to give detailss at a 3 p.m.
press conference Mondayu on how they’re planning to fulfill Swanagan’x vision, which he summed up with a mantra: “Touch the hearft to teach the mind.”