Getting to know: Michael Clifford, curator of innovation and partnership at GLMV Architecture

Clifford admits his title is a little unusual. But so is his background – zoo science – for an employee of an architecture firm.

“Around the office, people jokingly call me the zoo philosopher,” he said.

Cliffford, 27, grew up in Cleveland, working for the Cleveland Metro Park Zoo while still in high school. He came to Wichita to attend Friends University, which he said offers one of the few zoo science degrees in the nation.

He had summer jobs working for a conservation center in Florida and a wild animal transport operation in Africa, a job he said was portrayed in the old John Wayne movie “Hatari.”

“We’d go into large reserves that had become overpopulated,” he said. “We’d use helicopters and trucks to corral” hundreds of animals. While primarily catching and moving gazelles, antelopes and other smaller animals, they also moved lions, giraffes and even elephants.

“Friends was great,” he said. “They let me crunch academics in as small a time as I could so I could take long extended summers to do these things.”

Clifford earned his master’s degree in organizational development from Friends while working as coordinator of its Apprentice Institute, which was created in 2010 to educate Christian leaders.

In January, he moved to GLMV, which has a studio devoted to zoo design. Clifford works with that studio, recently helping to coordinate a symposium in Wichita for 35 “leading zoo thinkers” from across the country.

But he’s also charged with helping GLMV hone its own “ecosystem” to produce the best work possible for clients.

“Weirdly enough, they’re kind of similar,” he said of working on habitats for animals and people.

Clifford enjoys playing music with friends, playing with his dog, hiking, kayaking and “pretty much anything outside.”

Joe Stumpe

This story was originally published October 11, 2016 at 5:41 PM with the headline "Getting to know: Michael Clifford, curator of innovation and partnership at GLMV Architecture."