In time for the summer season kicking off at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium, guests will spend money in a new way.
Forty-seven self-service kiosks have been installed in several areas with concentrated pedestrian traffic, including at the main entrance and concession areas.
Each touch-screen kiosk is programmed to handle different tasks depending on where the kiosk is located. The kiosks accept credit cards and gift cards as forms of payment. Guests with memberships can either scan their membership cards or enter their number and last name to receive discounts on eligible tickets and food.
Cash sales will continue on a limited basis. No zoo staff members have been displaced by the kiosks.
Jeremy Eddie, senior vice president of finance and administration and chief financial officer, said the zoo installed the kiosks in light of the ongoing hiring struggles affecting Nebraska and the U.S.
One of the improvements to the renovated Howard and Rhonda Hawks Plaza at the Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium is a new stucco façade for the Lozier Giant Screen Theater.
Dan Crisler
The installation of the kiosks was, Eddie said, “really driven by the fact that we simply didn’t have enough staff members” to handle ticket sales and take orders at the concession stands. He said the zoo spent roughly $1.5 million to install the kiosks.
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“Typically, in the summer, we can have upwards of 500 part-time staff members,” he said, adding that the zoo is looking to fill more than 150 positions in guest service operations this summer. He added the typical starting wage for those positions is $13 per hour.
As of April, Nebraska was tied with Utah for a record-low unemployment rate of 1.9%, according to preliminary seasonally adjusted data. But the state has about 55,000 job openings, according to the state website NEworks. Calling the reasons behind the state’s labor shortage “really perplexing,” Eddie said the zoo has changed its marketing strategy in an attempt to attract more employees.
“I think everyone is doing everything they can in that realm and also approaching it from the other side into looking at alternatives in the event that the staffing issue doesn’t (resolve) itself soon,” he said.
Zoo officials also unveiled the renovated Howard and Rhonda Hawks Plaza next to the Desert Dome.
Zach Mellender, business systems and analytics manager at the Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium, uses one of the kiosks recently installed at the zoo’s main entrance.
Dan Crisler
“The Desert Dome is one of the iconic features of our zoo that really makes us very different from a lot of other zoos. The front door to that we felt was really in need of a face-lift,” said Dennis Pate, the zoo’s president and CEO.
Some of the plaza upgrades highlighted by Pate include new pavement, landscaping and seating that should give guests more relief from the summer heat. Other features of the renovated plaza include a stucco façade to the Lozier Giant Screen Theater.
Overall, Pate said the plaza renovation cost about $5.3 million. The project was financed by donations from four foundations.
Pate also highlighted changes near the zoo’s north entrance that include a refurbished and relocated carousel. The carousel is part of $12.5 million in upgrades to the area, which include more seating, more stroller parking space and the installation of large umbrellas to provide more shade. A small gift shop that sells necessities such as sunscreen, swim diapers and sunglasses was also added.
With the completion of those projects, there is no longer any active construction occurring at the zoo for the first time in 12 years.
“It’s fantastic not to see yellow barricades, construction fencing, detours (and) dead ends. All of the things that we may have faced in the past are gone,” Pate said. “It’s great to have the zoo in one piece.”
Photos: The Henry Doorly Zoo through the years
Then-zoo Director Dr. Warren Thomas with Tiny the rhino in 1968.
Tiny the rhino in 1969.
Tiny, shown here in 1970, was the zoo’s only Indian rhino.
In this February 1975 photo, zookeeper Mark Gordon holds Tiny still as food is administered. Since Tiny had been unable to eat, zoo workers had to feed him intravenously and pump fluids into him to keep him from dehydrating.
Harry Doorly Koch, 3, is the chief groundbreaker at the ceremony for the first construction phase at the zoo on May 25, 1965. Family members in the background are (left to right) his sister Katherine, his mother, Mrs. Harry A. Koch Jr., and his grandmother, Mrs. W. Dale Clark.
At the petting zoo, a visitor appears unaware of the goat nibbling at her coat on May 6, 1968.
Between 1,500 and 1,800 people took rides on the Omaha Zoo Railroad on the first day of public operation on July 28, 1968. The train is a model of a Union Pacific engine built in 1867 and scrapped in the early 1900s.
Dr. Lee Simmons with a cheetah in 1970, the year he was named zoo director. Simmons started at the zoo as a vet on Dec. 1, 1966.
Lee Simmons III, 9, and an unnamed baby gorilla console each other during a bout of chicken pox in 1971. The baby gorilla was kept at zoo Director Lee Simmons’ home after coming down with the childhood disease. Simmons’ children both had it, too.
A wet roar is all 7-year-old Tanya Armstrong got from this lion on Oct. 28, 1972. The lion is a drinking fountain donated to the zoo by the Mutual of Omaha Jaycees. Helping Tanya and her classmates from Fort Crook Elementary School is Rep. John Y. McCollister. At left is zoo Director Lee Simmons.
Dr. Lee Simmons shows the new camera system to Bellevue students on May 4, 1973. The system, donated by Lew Bailen of Riteway Television, enables zoo personal to monitor newborns and allows the public to view them.
Casey the gorilla, the patriarch at the Henry Doorly Zoo, studies the sitcoms and soap operas airing on a TV outside his cage on Feb. 22, 1980.
Dr. Lee Simmons’ gamble with a poker-playing circus trainer paid off with the birth of two tigers, one a rare white tiger valued at approximately $60,000, in 1980.
Zookeeper Sarah Davis Junior, left, Dr. Lee Simmons and Dr. Douglas Armstrong examine a California sea lion in the hospital at the Henry Doorly Zoo on Dec. 7, 1987.
Dr. Lee Simmons shows off one of the zoo’s new flamingos on March 26, 1981.
It was an exchange of sorts on March 24, 1982, as hundreds of Brownies received a tour of the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo and the zoo received a Stanley crane. Brownies from the Great Plains Girl Scout Council donated to the Brownie Zoo Fund to help the zoo buy the South African crane. Zoo Director Dr. Lee Simmons shows members of the Offutt Air Force Base Brownie troop a similar crane already at the zoo. The Offutt troop submitted the winning name, “Choo Choo Crane.” It was the fifth year that the Brownies donated an animal.
Zookeeper Marty Stumbaugh applies paint to an elephant on Aug. 20, 1975. Keepers Randy Rockwell, left, and Johnny Martinez, right, watch. The painting technique used by the pachyderm is firm, but not too forceful.
Dr. Lee Simmons at the Henry Doorly Zoo with a 3-year-old camel wearing an orthopedic brace made of plywood, carpeting and bolts on Dec. 16, 1975. Simmons devised the brace to help the camel heal from torn ligaments between two vertebrae, an injury probably suffered by the camel stumbling and landing on her nose.
Guests were picked up in the parking lot and transported to the Zoofari VII Fundraiser at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo on Sept. 11, 1989.
A giant sea fan and coral for the zoo aquarium capture the attention of membership chairmen, from left, John Gottschalk, Mrs. James Quinlan, Mrs. Gary Thompson and Lee Simmons on Feb. 16, 1984.
Onlookers watch as penguins walk off the truck to a red carpet welcome at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo on Feb. 17, 1995. Zoo employees herd penguins to the enclosure.
The Henry Doorly Zoo’s Lied Jungle and Desert Dome are seen from above with Rosenblatt Stadium nearby on Nov. 27, 2000.
Jennifer Giessinger hand-feeds treats to a silvery-cheeked hornbill in 2008. The bird was losing its eyesight and had to be hand-fed.
Eugene Mahoney and Dr. Lee Simmons at the Lied Jungle at the Henry Doorly Zoo in 1992.
Dr. Lee Simmons and workers unload a crate holding one of the new tigers brought into the Omaha zoo for the white tiger breeding program in August 1978.
Zoo visitors look on and take photographs as three elephants roam around their outdoor living area in the African Grasslands exhibit at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium on May 18, 2016.
Elephants make their public debut at the Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium on April 6, 2016.
Elephants make their public debut at the Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium on April 6, 2016.