And I'm Madeline Walden and this is Aquarium of the Podcific, a podcast brought to you by Aquarium of the Podcific. Southern California's largest aquarium. Join
us as we learn alongside the experts in animal care, conservation and more.
Welcome back to Aquarium of the Podcific. I'm Madeline Walden, D Aquarians, digital content and community manager.
And I'm Erin Lundy, the conservation coordinator for mammals and birds. I'm really
excited about today's episode, we have one of my favorite people at the aquarium, Keisha Leonard, she is a supervisor in our environmental services department. And you might be wondering, what is the Environmental Services Department, the Environmental Services Department is responsible for the care and keeping around the aquarium. Um, so it was formerly housekeeping. Now its environmental services because they do so much more. Actually. It's it's inside and outside that they are constantly maintaining and cleaning and keeping the space beautiful and also safe for our guests, which we'll talk more about in today's episode. Yeah, it's
been really wonderful to work so closely with this department that does so much. And I think that they are sometimes the unsung heroes of the aquarium in general percent. They do so much everything is so pristinely kept. And every time I know that something is slightly amiss, they are immediately there.
Oh, yeah. If there is something smudge on one of the exhibits, that team is on it in minutes. It's like they're they're just hovering, they're ready to strike. Superheroes,
honestly, really, every little thing. They're like, I actually know exactly how to clean this. I don't know. So as much as they have a lot of different things to work on. We were so fortunate to have Keisha on and get to talk to her about sort of what her job looks like and some of the more fun aspects of what she does. So it's a pretty, it's a great episode. I
think it's a really fun look inside of working at the aquarium and what it's like to be on her staff. So I'm really excited for everybody out here. It's on an animal focus episode, but it's a really cool inside look into aquarium operations. And Keisha is just wonderful. I'm really excited for everybody to get to know her too. And with that, we'll get right everybody I want to welcome Keisha Leonard, our environmental services supervisor onto the podcast today. Hi, Keisha. Hi. Hello, can you tell us a little bit about your job here at the Aquarium? Yes,
you want to start from the beginning? Yeah, please. Okay, so I started working here start like, yeah, I started working here in April of oh, five, April 13. Oh, five. And when I started, I was just a regular housekeeper. It wasn't environmental services. And it was called housekeeping.
And after two months of working here, they asked me to be an alternate lead. Oh, wow. Because you're that good. And I was shocked. I was literally shocked. At that time, they would call that leads housekeeping one. One day I came in, and my name was up there on the
they didn't charge me. They didn't tell me. I was like, you're gonna be asking me when I saw it. And my manager. I know, my supervisor at that time I called her and especially wasn't there. And I was like, I think you made a mistake on this schedule. Like, no, I are in charge. Yeah. That was how long that was in. Oh, 505. That was an O five. Within a couple months. You were already Yeah. After two months, after two months of working here. Yeah. She saw something in me that I didn't see what oh, I don't regret it. That's awesome. So then what? And then afterwards, two years of working here. I became a full time lead. And so and I work swing, a swing shift. I worked 311 30 And I did all the events. The parties. I was here when we did the first night dive. Oh, yeah. It was so cool.
Yeah, that's the first night I like it was
unexpected, because they didn't expect as many people to show it. Oh, wow. I think they only had like two one or two bars. And they were lines.
Yeah, so for people who don't know what night dive is. It's our it's my favorite event. It's so good. It's a party. So it's adults only it's 18. And over we have bars, we have a live band. We have DJs in the galleries, there's usually an art component. It's just a really fun night at the aquarium. We have a couple coming up there's about six a year. So whenever you're listening to this, there's likely one right around the corner, but it is a really cool event and I'm super jealous that I missed the very first one. I don't know if I was 18 Yet
this one happened but yeah, my favorite one is New Year's Eve one that's Yeah favorite. I love this demon. I'm working I'm still here. It's I love it.
You get to shoot one of the cannons right? Yeah, and yeah,
I didn't know. I've never been here for New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve
you have is nice.
Well, no Keisha does.
There's more than one. There are several
staff that are working that night. Get Do the candidates
except me because I gotta record you guys doing it but it's still fun. Yeah, even from my angle court
it from your perspective of shooting
POV you're shooting a confetti cannon at New Year's Eve at the Aquarium of the Pacific. Hey, like, so Okay, so you did the first night dive. That's so cool. Yeah.
So I worked nights for six years. And then the leader daytime, she retired. And so I went the day shift. And I don't know if it was like, after eight, nine years working here, I was promoted to a supervisor. And so that's where I've been ever since. You're almost coming up on your 20th Yeah, no. 19 I'm comfortable. 90. Yeah. And April and April. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So cool. How was the transition from working nights today's Do you have a preference? Do you kind of like well, now I mean, I'm sure there's pros and cons to both, you know,
well, I've been working days longer than I did nights. So I like days more now. I'm better. Yeah. Some people they would ask me because for a while, I would work nights once a month. And so I worked days and then we were switched me in the supervisor. Well, there was a late at night. We will switch and some of the staff which one you like better? Which one you like better? I'm like, I like my check better. That's what I like.
Do you have any, any spooky stories that happened to my favorite time to be here is that night, I think it can be a little spooky sometimes. But it's really beautiful at night to at least all the lights are still on? Yeah, but the lights are it's weird or scary. It's pretty scary. Because
in the galleries, it gets pitch dark in there, really. And sometimes we have to go through Tropical to go to the laundry room. And if you're in the midst of walking and the lights go out, sometimes I will like stop in mid range like oh my gosh, because you can't see you can't see in front of you. But one story I have. It was before they remodeled the gift store Pacific collections. And we have to go in there and clean their events sometimes. So I'm up on a ladder on the far side of the store closest to the gate in the walkway. And I'm up on the ladder and all of a sudden, a book from the far side by the Great Hall comes off the shelf. Just one book just one book.
What was the book?
You know what? I don't even think I went over there. But that was the only one that you know, crazy story for me like scary.
That is scary. Why is it just one book? What happened
there's a couple of ghost stories or
stories aquarium ghost episode on it. No.
That's so funny. I think something that would surprise me about the aquarium was that we do have a laundry room. Yeah, like that's just something that I wouldn't even think about. There's actually several laundering areas.
There is yeah,
a lot of stuff we gotta wash. No, no.
I also think it's really funny that the majority like I feel like the majority of the items that you clean with are actually baby diapers, right? Yeah,
we do use baby diapers. They, you'd be surprised how good they clean the acrylic. And they clean glass. And they just they dry up spills quicker. You know, when they absorb the babies.
And they're reusable, that we're not talking we're not using, you know, diaper diapers. But it's so funny because sometimes we'll be walking around just to hear someone like, Oh, can you grab me a diaper? And it's just like one of those things. I have to remind myself like, no, that's normal here, but
that's normal. And so we probably say that in front of guests all the time.
Hey, can you go grab me a diaper real quick?
We mean, we're a big family. Yeah. Whatever you need to you know, you can ask anyone in a blue shirt.
A diaper, please. I guess I never really appreciate it. So I just know the most like, you know, they're like white rags that we used to clean and I know we call them diapers, but I don't think I made the leap in my head that they are actually used typically as like cloth diapers and yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It's never
easy for your time.
I think I was a disposables baby, which is probably not great for the environment. But hey, now wasn't
your choice.
You don't know. You don't know how old I was. Baby was last year. That is your choice. Yeah, that's my job. That's interesting. I just I Yeah. Can you grab me a diaper? Never thought that phrase.
I hear that 17 times a day. Maybe you should do something
for you to know how many times a day to work on that.
Island. I don't know what I'm figuring things out. 17
Well back to Keisha. What do you think are some things about your job? that would surprise our listeners. Oh
my gosh. That we also do like gardening around here. We, when they say environmental services, we do a lot of full environment. Yeah, the inside and out. I'm responsible to water the plants in the front, really. And then we go through and we like, we cut the weeds and Shark Lagoon we cut branches that are overgrown sometimes we cut the weeds around the front Plaza. So yeah, I think that would be surprised because we, you know, housekeeping, but we also go out and do gardening as well.
I external keeping outside the house, it's your Well, yeah, I mean, on top of that, I've seen your team on the boom, lift the boom, lift. Yeah. I'm cleaning the glass blue glass. Yeah. Yeah, making it very beautiful.
And I cleaned the one inside the blue glass inside. On that scissor. Oh, yeah. I personally clean that one myself.
Is it nice? Like the view from up there though? Like if you look down? Or is it more scary? Because it's so high?
Depends on how high you are? Because the view can look nice. When you're at a certain level. Yeah, when you get I'm not trying to look down. Come down.
I'm not trying to be fair. I just always see all out there. And I'm just like, wow, that is such a crazy component of your job to be like 50 feet in the air. Yeah. The glass outside really often, too. Yeah. How often does the PV Glascott? Clean?
We don't have a set schedule. I would say as needed. Okay. Yeah, I would say as needed. They're
kind of like a typical day in your role, or is it really different every single time you walk in here?
No, I would say it's about the same for the most part. There are times when it changes. But for the most part, it's the same. And I think because I've been doing it for so long. It's like second nature. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. So anything that takes us out of the ordinary, it does not surprise me. Because my it is the juggling. Well,
yeah. Yeah, another day. Well, okay. Well, speaking of things that were not in your nature, and not in anyone's nature, as during the pandemic, when we were closed and preparing to reopen your team was crucial to not only keeping our staff safe, but to keeping our guests safe. Safe, too. What was that like for you and your team? Yeah. Yeah, maybe from just the beginning of closing? And how did how was that? It
was it was challenging. Because I think the there was a lot of parts that was like, so heart wrenching. And there were a lot of times when it's like, are we ever going to open back up? But from the beginning, it was unbelievable. First of all, it was unbelievable that the world was shutting down. Yeah, you know. And then you hear all these stories, you're hearing all that news, and you're hearing all these stories, and you don't know what actually is going to happen. But I remember the day we actually had to send all of our staff. It was sad, because there was guys that we had hired like, oh my gosh, no, there were guys that we had just hired, like, super recently. And he was like, Am I losing my job? And I was like, Oh, my gosh, and I had to be the one to sit there until, you know, that's that was really hard. And I it really, I don't, it really didn't hit me too. Right now. I'm about a dozen like, Yeah, well,
because I think we are all in such a just go forward. Yeah, just like you can't really stop to think about it because we this is something that's never happened before. Yeah, no. And so it's just immediately adapting to the situation. Yeah. And when you review it, you're like, I How, how did we go?
Traumatic forever. You know, I think we had to block a lot of it out for sure.
Yeah, sure. And so me and Alfie we were here like full time we weren't seven to four every day. And because me and Alfie started where we started out we can go in the restrooms and clean them with no problem, you know, so we were responsible to take care of the restrooms, but we it was a time where we had to dust all the galleries. So we dusted everywhere we got in here, the crew that we did have everybody just you know, we just into every nook and cranny, then it was like, it was like a desert in here. You know, I remember walking through shark lagoon one day and it was a windstorm. And literally we had like tumbleweeds everything had accumulated into a big ol ball was like we are deserted. Yeah, this place is deserted. So it was scary not knowing if we were going to have a backup. Yeah, you know, it
was one of my favorite but also weirdest things during COVID is just like, when we were fully closed, the animals noticed. And anytime any person would walk by they were so interested in what we were doing because like how human you know, the penguins would chase you back and it was so weird to see these animals like genuinely they Notice the difference and their behavior changed as a result of it. And it's just not something I ever think about of how enriching it must be for some of these animals to see people every day interact with them. And then just immediately that was gone. And so I think the penguins were one of the happiest that people came back, and then chase one of our sea lions in the tunnel, right? So he's playing with people, time anyone walks through the tunnel, Chase would just line up and be ready to go.
Play with them. So a lot of time, I'm sure. I'm sure he was very happy with all of the staff, you know, we were definitely a smaller crew. But you know, there was there was people around and so it was weird. It was a weird time. It was really weird. But yeah, that is a joyful spot for me to and during that time as like, those interactions with the animals and seeing the aquarium empty and kind of having it to yourself in a way to Yeah, it was odd. Yeah. So while we're while we were close, you and Alfie were mainly on site keeping up because we started people here, you know, and there's upkeep to do externally too, and all the things that you guys do. So how was the transition once we open to the public?
So then we started using like, these were they called?
I was hoping to talk.
I can't remember the actual name we had for it. But we had these Miss guns, we would go in there and disinfect the restaurants. And then we also made bleach water for the acrylic, we wipe that down every hour. Or every hour, every hour. And every hour, we would go out and disinfect the the sides of the shark tanks. Did you guys ever see us with the generators? Yes, steamer? Yeah. Yeah. That was that was challenging, very challenging, because we'd have to move everybody back. Yeah, you know, we would do shark lagoon and the race. So that was yeah, that was really
challenging is are such an important department really keeping us safe, especially during it's such a scary time where you know, like surfaces are scary. touching anything is scary. But you know, we it's so wonderful that we were able to reopen and have our you know, our visitors back on site, and also be able to keep them safe at the same time. So we have your team to thank for that.
Yeah, I really do appreciate so much.
I was hoping you were going to talk about those Mr. Guns because they look, I still use them at all, or
no, we haven't used them in a while. Yeah, no. We use them up we use. They've gone.
So funny. I think people would be really surprised to learn about all of the ways your department has to adapt to the strange surfaces. We do have here. Because we have acrylic, which can't be scrubbed or right, it can't have abrasive. Right, right. So that's something you have to be really mindful of. And then of course, on top of that you have the health and safety of our animals to consider right. So what are some things and what are some precautions you guys have to take for those oh, what other people wouldn't do with their normal job.
So like in Shark shark lagoon, we do the glass out there, there's different glass like at the Animal Care Center, and then the the jellyfish, so we use water, we have to use water because we can't cross contaminate, especially like overwater viewing where the sharks are, we have to use water because if if you use the 543 the glass cleaner, it would get in the tank and cross contaminate. So we use the water the squeegee, and we just we do it about 17 times a day.
Now with the acrylic, we use diapers, because towels will scratch it. You know
that's why we use it. It's not necessarily like they're just absorbent, it's softer
that we cannot use towels on the acrylic we have to use diapers, we don't use squeegees on the acrylic because that can scratch it as well. We're very, you know, mindful of what we use on the acrylic and we put a wet diaper wet diaper on there. And then you go over it with a driveway. And it gets the fingerprints and everything. Yeah.
Okay, well speaking of animals, do you get to interact with animals a lot in your position? Or do you have any fun animal stories? Um, do you have a favorite and love?
I love the sea otters? They are so cute. But they don't interact with me that much unless I'm walking through early in the morning. Like
they do do the first thing in the morning that's my favorite time to see them because they're just like, hey, yeah
but I do have a favorite animal. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm sorry Michael I'm sorry my god Michael is a parrot fish. His name is Michael I named him Michael accidentally. You guys
I hadn't heard about you accidentally days that the big the big. The Big Fish.
Fish. Oh my gosh. Can
you please tell me how you accidentally?
I'm gonna tell you. It was during COVID Yeah. Okay, so I had read up on him to see you know, I liked that he his defense mechanism. He covers himself in a like, what is it? A mask like a Joe he like a mucus mucus. Yeah. And he eats coral and his teeth are in the back of his neck.
So he can like to kind of thing.
So Nate was coming through Nate from husbandry, he's coming through. We're right there. And I can't remember exactly what words we exchanged but I thought he said his name was Michael
Senior Director of Husbandry be like, yeah, it's Michael.
But like I said, I can't remember the conversation we were having, but I heard my
therefore. And so.
So, some of the staff from husbandry they you know, like, Okay, well, we'll call Michael. Every time someone who doesn't know Michael comes through there I introduced him to Michael
Okay, well, if you come visit the Aquarium of the Pacific, and you go into our tropical gallery, Michael is located inside of our coral predators habitat, so it's the biggest one. He's the big beautiful Yes, you can't miss him. He's
y'all know Mike.
He looks like a Michael.
Michael and
Michael Michaels out there. You're beautiful, right? You
look like you've got a lot of fish covered in you. Like you have teeth in your throat. Every Michael out there. Congratulations on pooping.
Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Yeah,
that's a good story that So Michael is your favorite. Michael
is my favorite.
I guess that he's so beautiful. He might be my favorite.
I think so. I
think when you leave here you need to go up to checkout.
You're gonna go to Michael field trip we should talk about Michael. We really? Now that we know
you're right. Right. I learned so much of this podcast, including about my
right and she
said that's all animals with human names and be like, who's Michael? Zoom in on the fish? Who's Parker and then a lion?
Like was so funny. Like Parker, I don't know why that makes more sense to me. i We have I think they call the balloon fish. Fred. I've heard to the fish and tropical. Mr. Mu Mr. MooMoo. Mr. MooMoo?
Oh, I'm sorry. There's two moves. I did not know.
Have you gotten to meet any animals have close before?
I'm one of the sea lions. He was Miller. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah.
Miller was our big dominant male before Parker. I never met him. But I've seen a lot of pictures. There's, I guess, Linda, who's one of our longtime volunteers was telling me this story about how Miller used to sleep in front of the door to so that people would come in and feed them. And he would just go take a nap in front of the door. No, and so no one could get out. So he was like, you gotta feed me forever. Yeah, and he would just go to sleep. That's actually a great idea. I think some good ideas.
I think the number one question we got for you is people want to know all about cleaning the blue whale. And by the blue whale, I mean, our blue whale model that hangs in our Great Hall. It was placed there in 1998. I think when right before we opened, and it doesn't come down. It is up there. So it's life size. And its life size, like
accurate to a blue whale, the largest mammal on the planet is hanging from the ceiling, oils actually dating to
Wales. And so just like everywhere else in the aquarium that, you know, can get maybe dusty time to time or you know, no one's up there touching it at least. But how do we clean something that's hanging from the ceiling? It's in the middle of the ceiling, right? Yeah.
Right. So
we have to get on the scissor lift. And there's usually two people I've been up there numerous times. Me and Alfie Alfie has been up there with Nicole, we've been up there with other staff members. And it's, it seems it's easy for us. But it might seem hard when I you know, we use dusters. And we just tediously go in sections, until we get the desk off that you know, section and we move on to the next.
You start from the head and the tail or we start at
the tail. And we do one side. And we go on all the way over. And then we come on the other side and do the whole side. I
haven't found anything up there before that means playing
airplane.
I was gonna say
I wonder where those came from
tomorrow. Yeah,
we have a paper airplane contest in the morning sometime here before we open so I've seen several paper airplanes. And how often do we clean the blue whale once a year? Usually, here's a couple times now I will say a couple times a year four times. So yeah, sometimes you know it'll happen because you guys are about to are you about to clean it or do you just finish
now they're doing it. They're like, painting it.
Oh, wow. Oh yeah,
you're painting. Last night
news drop on Aquarium of the Podcific the whale is getting a makeover. Yeah, that's exciting. So okay, so then we're gonna do Okay, so then that'll at least align with the cleaning of it and our paper airplane contest does end up there on the dome. So you guys get up there and you dust it. Meticulously excited to see what it'll look like painted. Is that the first time we paint since
I've been here? Wow. almost 19 years I've been here. Never been at it.
How are they painting? Are they gonna take it down? No, they're gonna go up and like,
that's great. Thank you.
I could probably spray it.
Yeah. Oh, that makes way more sense. It's like a little brighter. When
you go out there. If you look on the far side, you can see where they actually started doing some sanding. I
love this. Yeah, just getting good to eat like I didn't know. That's cool. It's gonna be pink changes. It's not a blue whale anymore.
That's amazing. Well, I
have can I please ask
Ben Brown dying to ask about. So earlier we asked Keisha. Hey, do you have any stories that are funny about your time here and Keisha said that one time, something really funny happened. And I have been just dying all day to hear the story. So Keisha, will you please tell us a story. And I'm so excited. You're shaking, I know vibrating. Like, this is gonna be good.
I was thinking about that. And when you guys like stories, I'm like, I only have one. And this was like the funniest dishes, the one. So I was working swing shift. And a lot of times I'm swing shift, we do a lot of testing in the galleries as well. Before COVID After COVID and our changing Gallery, which is now art gallery. It was our changing gallery. I forgot what it was called then, but it had raised round raising it. The small ones. Remember they have the touch tank and familiar with the touch number. And the door to get into the back of the round raise was locked. And I'm like, I need to get in this over here. I could have called Security I can just climb over. So they will put these plastic covers on it at night. And I took initiative to climb over the plastic covers. And right when I got in the middle, they broke and I weighed not to mention Alfie was with me. And he was laughing like crazy. He made me feel so bad. I was Oh my gosh. My phone was in my pocket everything. So I was so I had to go home and change.
The fact that I waited till you were in bed could have broken right away and I would not have been soaked but so
I can say I swam with the race.
And my goodness, actually that is a better story than I was like we're possibly falling in all the context was. I fell into it. Yeah, I'll
tell you about it later. You okay with the race? Okay, yeah, we were all Okay, good.
You had a heart to heart while you're down there. How you guys are good. I'm gonna go home and Michael while you're done
that's incredible. That's so much
that's a really good.
Have you ever fallen into it? Um,
I? I've slowly
Yeah, well, it's always the worst. If you fall and you're like, Well, I slipped in then you're like, cool. I just You just see Yeah, but there's been a time so on our sea lion. pinnipeds exhibit we have alleged that we cleaned the acrylic from the inside. And we use diapers and water. But it's slippery. And so it's an uneven surface because it's like a rock surface. And so I was walking on it in waders which are also like, not very like grip friendly. And I think I just stepped on a rock that was round and covered and algae. And I fell so slowly. Like it wasn't even like, oh, I fell in the exam. I just like slowly sat down
to the point where I don't remember who was with me, but they asked me if it was intentional. They're like, are you are good. Like I just my waiters filled up with water. Because they're waterproof both ways. And then I had to like hike out of the exhibit was my pants full of water. So I have sat down in an exhibit. slowly, very slowly. I've almost fallen into otters more times than I can count but thank goodness I haven't. I would not be fun. They probably would be scared. But we can't take that chance. No, no.
Well, thank you so much Keisha for coming on today. I love hearing about your role here at the Aquarium and we're so thankful to you and your team for doing everything that you do keeping us safe and keeping our animals safe too. And hopefully, you'll come back on the podcast in the future and tell us more fun stories. Yeah. What'd you forward to
it? Because I was nervous in the beginning, but it was perfect. It was fine. You just taught
I told you it's just talking.
Yeah. Telling us funny stories making us laugh falling into naming the fish Michael. I gotta go see
ya see Michael Michael be the cover photo.
What's your last name? Does he have a last name?
No, but I would think of it okay. Yeah, for next month
or for next up.
Teeth in the throat
that's all one word.
Thank you so much for coming on today. Aquarium of the Podcific is brought to you by Aquarium of the Podcific a 501 C three nonprofit organization in 2023. The aquarium celebrates 25 years of connecting millions of people worldwide to the beauty and wonder of our ocean planet. Head to aquarium of pacific.org to learn more about our 25th anniversary celebration. Keep up with the aquarium on social media at aquarium Pacific on Tiktok Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
This podcast is produced by Erin Lundy, Madeline Walden and Scott Shaw. Our music is by Andrew Wright's MA and our podcast art is by Brandy Kenny, special thanks to Cecile Fisher and Isa vias and our audio visual and education departments and to all of our amazing podcast guests for taking time out of their day to talk about the important work that they do. Pod cific wouldn't be possible without the support of the aquarium stoners, members, guests and supporters. Thanks for listening
