Swanagan, Jeffrey S.

This is a Living History interview with Jeffrey Swanagan class of 1993, conducted by Marilyn Somers on April 14, 2008 at the GTRI 14th Street Building in Atlanta, Georgia The subject is the interviewee’s life, and experiences at Georgia Tech. Jeffrey Swanagan was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1957. Mr. Swanagan’s family lived in Bedford, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, until he was about eleven years old, at which point they moved to a dairy farm in Footville, Ohio, forty miles east of Cleveland, in Ashtabula County where neighbors were unable to witness his father’s drinking problem. Mr. Swanagan sought school and nature as his refuges and loved to track and watch animals while his father hunted. He played football every year of his combined junior high and high school and was recruited to play by a local college but chose to attend Ohio State University on a Basic Educational Opportunity Grant. He worked as a lifeguard on Lake Eerie to help pay for college until his third year in college when he accepted a position at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Following his desire to become a zoo director, Mr. Swanagan went to work with Terry Maple at Zoo Atlanta in 1987 after it had been named one of the ten worst zoos in the country. Mr. Swanagan began as the education director but was promoted to deputy zoo director by Dr. Maple, in whom he found a great mentor. Mr. Swanagan completed his master’s thesis under the advisement of Bryan Norton at Georgia Tech over the span of ten years on how much visitors learn about elephants at the zoo. Mr. Swanagan is very proud of Zoo Atlanta, which was named one of the ten best zoos in the country in the early 1990s, and is pleased that Dennis Kelly, the current director, is a Tech graduate. Mr. Swanagan agreed to an interview at the financially mismanaged Florida Aquarium as an excuse to view the new manatee exhibit at the Lowry Park Zoo but was pleasantly surprised by the aquarium. Mr. Swanagan worked at the Florida Aquarium for four years, and it has been operating smoothly since he ...