Sedgwick County Zoo president resigns after nearly five years to take a new job
The Sedgwick County Zoo is in need of a zoo director.
On Wednesday, the zoo announced that Jeff Ettling — only the third director in the organization’s 50-year history — had turned in his resignation to take a job as the new president and CEO of The Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida.
Ettling has held the top job at the zoo since May 2017, when he was chosen to replace retiring director Mark Reed. But Ettling — who left a 20-year job as curator of herpetology and aquatics at the St. Louis Zoo to come to Wichita — wasn’t new to the Sedgwick County Zoo. He’d worked as its herpetology curator from 1991 to 1996.
The Sedgwick County Zoological Society and Sedgwick County will soon launch a search for a new president and CEO, according to a news release. Deputy County Manager Tim Kaufman will oversee the zoo in the interim.
Under Ettling’s leadership, the zoo opened its new entry complex and expanded its Slawson Family Asian Big Cat Trek, which just reopened in September.
The zoo, which first opened in August 1971, turned 50 over the summer and has had only three directors during that time: Ron Blakely led it from its opening until 1991, when Reed took over. He served until 2016, and Ettling took over as president and CEO the following year.
