The difference between a collection of miscellaneous livestock and a world-class zoo is people like Barbara Carr. That’s the kind of difference she made at the Lincoln Park Zoo, according to those who worked with her there.
During her years as head of the Lincoln Park Zoological Society from 1975 to 1994, Carr, of Lake Forest, helped increase annual revenues from $100,000 to more than $9 million, twice initiated capital campaigns that raised more than $50 million for zoo renovations and construction projects and helped increase membership from 1,500 to 19,000.
But for Carr that was only the beginning. Now she is seeing what she can do with the plant world at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe.
In 1995 she moved to the garden, where she is president and chief executive officer. Since then, membership has more than doubled to 37,000, the largest of any botanic garden in the nation. She has overseen construction and renovation of five new gardens, created a $60 million capital development plan and launched the School of the Chicago Botanic Garden.
In either case, a zoo or a garden, the setting was natural for the 56-year-old Carr. She grew up in Bannockburn surrounded by dogs, cats, ponies and flower-covered fields. “I learned about nature as a child,” Carr said. “This upbringing made a tremendous impact on what I know about the outdoors and flowers and gardens.”
But her love of nature didn’t win out at first.
She graduated from Denison University in Granville, Ohio, with a bachelor’s degree in English, expecting to be a poet.
She was “a remarkable writer and poet. Barbara has a deep inner life. She’s contemplative and reflective,” said her sister, Pleasant Rowland of Middleton, Wis., founder of the American Girl Corp. doll company and vice chairman of Mattel. “There’s no one I admire more than my sister.”
The cadence of life at that time didn’t include any poetry, however. While her first husband was going to college in New York City, she took a job as a researcher in the Time-Life book division. Once her husband finished school, the couple returned to the Chicago area, and Carr managed a bookstore until the first of her three children, Brooks Whitney, was born in 1967. Edward and Amanda Whitney followed in 1968 and ’70, respectively.
She stayed home and took care of her children but managed to fill her time with volunteer work at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center and the Junior League. That work would help her in later endeavors.
“As a volunteer, I was getting to know a lot of people and learning how to raise money,” Carr said.
In 1971, Carr divorced. And if that weren’t enough of a change in life, soon after that she was struck by a car. Her leg was crushed, forcing her to struggle through rehabilitation while caring for her young children.
“I had the challenge of raising a family as a single parent, and suddenly I was contacted and asked to take a job as the executive director of the Lincoln Park Zoological Society,” Carr said. “I was thrilled.”
When Carr joined the zoo in 1975, Lester Fisher was the director. Fisher, known for his zoo segments on Ray Rayner’s morning children’s television show, found Carr delightful to work with.
“She was raising money, and I was spending it,” said the retired director. “Barbara was such a great team player. We all admired her. It came as no surprise when the people she brought to the zoo followed her to the garden.”
Fisher in turn taught Carr perseverance and patience. “He taught me to inch ahead day after day, and by the end of the year something big happened,” Carr said of her mentor at the zoo. “He always had great generosity of spirit.”
For Margo Morris, Carr’s vice president of development and external affairs for the zoological society, Carr was exciting to work with.
“Barbara managed the zoo through its biggest growth period,” Morris said. “I was in awe of her. Like her, I was raising children alone. She was inspirational to me. She has vision, and it’s exciting to work with people with vision. . . . When she came to the zoo, it was an old funky place. Barbara made it the place to be seen, the place to go and the place to be. She brought cachet to the zoo.”
Positioning the zoo as a world-class living museum dedicated to wildlife conservation, she increased revenues and membership, developed strong civic support and created the women’s board.
“When I became the commissioner of the Chicago Park District in 1980, my first challenge was to upgrade the Lincoln Park Zoo, to create a better atmosphere for visitors. Barbara was already on top of the situation,” said Bill Bartholomay, commissioner of the Chicago Park District and vice chairman of Turner Broadcasting. “Barbara took that sleepy old giant and created a state-of-the-art living institution. She’s infectious in a very positive way. She leaves her footprints all over everything she’s ever touched.”
Her influence at the zoo became even more obvious when she left. The park district had cut ties to the zoo, turning it over completely to the Lincoln Park Zoological Society, and Carr decided that the transition was a good time to move on. But she didn’t go alone; many members and supporters followed her to the garden.
Upon leaving the zoo in 1995, she was contacted by Peter Merlin, chairman of the board of the Chicago Botanic Garden, who quickly hired Carr. “Barbara has reorganized the staff and management systems, she holds fundraisers, she’s increased membership, and the garden is clicking,” Merlin said. “I hope she stays here forever, God willing and her wanting.”
In her four years at the garden, Carr has orchestrated an overhaul of the institution, its management and committees to create a team approach. But externally, Carr set out to create a new atmosphere for visitors.
“We want the garden to resonate with a sense of coming home,” Carr said. “Coming to the garden was emotional for me. I was so honored to be given another one of Chicago’s treasures to build.”
When asked what she is most proud of at the garden, Carr mentioned the master plan. “The plan is the product of a lot of people’s dreams. The vision synthesized from the garden’s professional staff, experts, gardeners and civic leaders. It is a 10-year, long-range development plan that includes a $60 million capital development plan,” Carr said. “Our dreams have been quite successful so far. . . . We now have 23 formal gardens, nine islands, 75 acres of lagoons, 100 acres of natural landscapes, wetlands and woods, and formal gardens.”
Those attractions drew more than 900,000 visitors in 1998, according to Carr, an increase of more than 30 percent from 1997.
Another addition is the School of the Botanic Garden. Carr launched the school, operated largely by experts from the staff, with an ornamental-plant certificate program in 1997, followed in 1998 with the Midwest gardening certificate program. In addition, the school offers horticultural classes at the garden in Glencoe, Roosevelt University’s Albert A. Robin Campus in Schaumburg, the Lincoln Park Cultural Center and at 24 Chicago Public Library branches.
The first catalog for the school was released last month, listing various continuing-education courses.
“Our aspiration for the garden is to make it the world’s finest public teaching garden,” Carr said. “We even have 60 community gardens in the Chicago area. We help plant the gardens, supervise their progress and eventually allow the communities to maintain them. Great ideas happen.”
Carr credits her late father, Edward M. Thiele, for her management style. “My father worked from the bottom to become the president of the Leo Burnett advertising agency. He would grow impatient with us if we seemed to lack purpose,” Carr said. “He would say, `Tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them.’ I find myself doing this daily. My father was bigger than life to me. I think he would be proud of all that I have achieved.”
“Barbara really did look up to her father,” said Robert Carr, her husband of 10 years, chairman and CEO of Fiduciary Management Associates of Chicago. “He instilled motivation. Barbara and her sister were old enough to see their father’s accomplishments. He was the driving force for them to be successful.”
Now, at the garden, Carr is known as the zoo lady. At the zoo, she is known as the garden lady.
Either way, she just seems to make things grow.
