Mark Reed announces retirement from Sedgwick County Zoo

Sedgwick County Zoo’s executive director Mark Reed is retiring.

His announcement came Tuesday in a news release issued by the zoo’s Zoological Society Board of Trustees. Reed, 66, has served as the zoo’s director since 1991; he came to the zoo in 1979.

Reed’s retirement is expected to begin Dec. 31.

“For some time now I have been contemplating when to move on to the next chapter,” Reed said in a statement. “With the safe arrival of our six new elephants and the opening of the Reed Family Elephants of the Zambezi River Valley, it became clear that I have reached the pinnacle of my time here at the Zoo.

“My love of this community will travel with me on my next adventure.”

During his time at the Sedgwick County Zoo, there have been 10 new exhibits or facilities constructed, four additions or renovations of exhibits, and the development of a master plan to take the zoo into the future.

A national search will begin shortly to find the next executive director, according to Mark DeVries, president of the Sedgwick County Zoological Society Board of Trustees.

Reed has been involved with zoos and animal conservation efforts all his life.

His father, Theodore, was director of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and, before that, the chief veterinarian at the Portland (Ore.) Zoo.

Every Saturday, Reed would accompany his father to the zoo. That was the day they did necropsies, examining animals that had died, to determine a cause of death.

Although he did not grow up in Kansas, Reed spent summers at his grandparents’ farms. He learned to drive a pickup in Kansas and buck hay bales and do field work.

He is the third generation of his family to graduate from Kansas State University.

He received a master’s degree in park administration from Texas Tech University in Lubbock and got a job as an animal keeper at the San Antonio Zoological Gardens and Aquarium.

In 1979, he came to the Sedgwick County Zoo as an assistant director under R.L. Blakely, the zoo’s original director.

In 1991, Reed was chosen from 25 candidates to replace Blakely.

This story was originally published August 23, 2016 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Mark Reed announces retirement from Sedgwick County Zoo."