 ‘Everyone here respects and listens to Jim,’ founder says
Des Moines, Iowa – July 30, 2007 – Jim Aipperspach’s “aha! moment” came over a period of several weeks in the summer of 2005.
Until he was recruited by Great Ape Trust of Iowa founder Ted Townsend to become the operations director for the world-class scientific research facility in southeast Des Moines, the 59-year-old Des Moines business leader hadn’t given too much thought to great apes or the various issues surrounding their intelligence, survival and well-being. Townsend and Aipperspach knew each other professionally through the Iowa Association of Business Industry, which Aipperspach led for just under a decade. He’d even traveled to Boston with Townsend and several others on a fact-finding mission when what evolved into Great Ape Trust was a component in the Iowa Child Project, a predecessor to Townsend’s Earthpark project.
But as great apes and great ape-welfare issues go, “I was quite uninformed,” Aipperspach said. “I had other interests, and literally it was out of the blue that Ted would inquire if I had any interest in being involved in the organization.”
That was in July 2005, and Aipperspach was about a month into his retirement. He was reveling in the chance to spend more time on the golf course (though Rosie, his wife of 36 years, had suggested that he’d need to do something besides play golf year-round to occupy his time and his mind). Then, in a chance encounter that summer at a Des Moines restaurant, Townsend asked Aipperspach if he’d be interested in resuming his professional career at Great Ape Trust.
Aipperspach was intrigued. He visited The Trust’s 230-acre campus several times. Frequently, he was in the apes’ presence, which lent a surprising perspective to the normal deliberations that go into making a career change. The Trust’s mission and the scientific research conducted there, as well as Townsend’s big-picture thinking, “became quite interesting and meaningful,” Aipperspach said.
So he said “yes” to Townsend and became Great Ape Trust’s operations director on Oct. 10, 2005.
Aipperspach was immediately struck by the cognitive abilities of The Trust’s resident bonobos and orangutans and the similarities shared by great apes and human beings. As a youth growing up in Bismarck, N.D., he had worked around animals – typical farm animals, but also some exotic species, such as elk and bison – during a summer job rebuilding a town in the Badlands where Teddy Roosevelt lived as a rancher for a period. But this was a new experience for the business leader whose career had included 20 years in the telecommunications industry and one and one-half years as leader of the charity United Way of Central Iowa before he began his 10-year association with ABI.
“When I started to work at The Trust and be in the apes’ presence more frequently, and especially as I got to know our scientists and they began to put things in context, the ‘aha!’ became apparent,” Aipperspach said.
As the operations director, he works with virtually every department at Great Ape Trust, whether security, buildings and grounds, communications or those associated with scientific research. The challenges – and the opportunities that come with the non-profit organization’s growth – are many.
“It’s a challenge, especially when you consider the organization is essentially brand new,” Aipperspach said.
Among his top priorities as The Trust matures as an organization is broadening its base of financial support. Townsend has invested about $23 million in the development and operation of Great Ape Trust over its five-year history, and for it to operate as a public, not-for-profit, scientific research organization, it needs to go beyond the generosity of one individual for financial support.
“The greatest challenge I have is moving from such a dependency on Ted’s limited financial resources,” Aipperspach said. “The Trust wouldn’t exist without his vision, but it creates a dependency on him for capital that can’t continue.”
Aipperspach believes the development work that occupies so much of his time potentially increases Great Ape Trust’s financial as well as intellectual capital.
“The work we are doing in creating educational partnerships around the world and in collaboration with other institutions to seek funding is fundamentally important and a big challenge, and I think it will pay back big dividends,” he said. “It’s also important to seek success in finding large chunks of private money from companies interested in the mission and individuals who have the kind of interest Ted has in this important work.
“It creates more credibility in the organization when other public and private donors are interested in the work and anxious to commit their financial resources.”
Equally important is the day-to-day operation of The Trust, which Aipperspach oversees. He said his goal is to create a harmonious work environment among 42 employees with backgrounds as vastly different as, for example, scientific research and law enforcement, and unite them around common goals.
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| From left, Jim Aipperspach; Lynda Chase, a Great Ape Trust board member and volunteer coordinator of The Trust's wildflower plantings; Buildings and Grounds Superintendent Brian Eldridge and founder Ted Townsend consult about additional landscaping ideas on the 230-acre photos. |
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“For this organization to thrive requires a blending together of the scientific work and the work of others to support it, and a professional appreciation for how important one is to the other,” Aipperspach said. “We’ve made significant progress in that regard. There’s a high degree of respect for the work done in public safety, marketing and communications, finance, and buildings and grounds, and how integrally entwined it all is.”
Townsend said that in less than two years, Aipperspach has earned great respect from his colleagues and has elevated the organization’s standing.
“Jim Aipperspach has brought experienced, professional management to our rapidly growing institution,” Townsend said. “His thoughtful, seasoned approach to interpersonal relationships, financial discipline and organizational excellence has built a solid platform for longitudinal scientific research.
“Everyone here respects and listens to Jim,” he said.
Aipperspach’s current career is a perfect balance for another passion, community service, and he believes one strengthens the other. Remaining professionally involved gives him the standing to contribute to his community in more meaningful ways, and the volunteer work also gives him a bully pulpit to talk about Great Ape Trust and related issues.
“I hardly ever need to initiate a conversation about great apes,” Aipperspach said. “Whether in volunteer work, with friends or playing golf, people are always curious. There is just no other place like it. People obviously take interest that we have such an organization right here in Des Moines, and as people begin to see this vision and strategy, they become more and more intrigued.”
The Trust also reflects positively on Iowa, a state the native North Dakotan and his family – Rosie and their sons, David, 19, and Ryan, 25, both students at the University of California at Berkeley – have adopted.
“Great apes don’t live in the wild in Iowa, and it brings a unique distinction to the state that’s unexpected,” Aipperspach said. “The science at Great Ape Trust is important worldwide with regard to conservation, education and understanding the life form most like us. If we work with educators and scientists throughout Iowa and, of course, well beyond, this distinction then creates a reputation for Iowa.
“The fact that Great Ape Trust’s work is going on here among the cornfields and the cattle adds relevance to what’s important,” he said. “It’s also good for we Iowans, who are humble almost to a fault, to look at an institution like Great Ape Trust, which you wouldn’t expect here. We Iowans can do almost anything we want. This project has global reach, and it helps Iowans take pride in the work going on here.”
Initiatives such as the pilot education project known as Great Ape Academy build The Trust’s reputation in Iowa and beyond, Aipperspach said. The Academy, which begins this year with Des Moines Middle School students, seeks among other goals to engage students in science and other related fields.
“The fact that we are pursuing these important endeavors is a really effective way to help people understand the importance of science, math and discovery,” he said. “What a complement to what we Iowans have traditionally taken pride in – our education. People are beginning to have a genuine appreciation for what’s going on here and a growing confidence that this work is really important.”
With his outreach work and that of others, Aipperspach is confident that the public will begin to have their own seminal moments when the relevance on their own lives of the science of Great Ape Trust becomes apparent, whether they visit at one of The Trust’s regular tours, frequent its award-winning Web site or learn about its work in school.
“When they visit, people tend to have their own ‘aha’s’ and develop their own appreciation – one by one, two by two – as they realize it all has an impact on their lives,” he said.
Great Ape Trust Background
Great Ape Trust of Iowa is a scientific research facility in southeast Des Moines dedicated to understanding the origins and future of culture, language, tools and intelligence. When completed, Great Ape Trust will be the largest great ape facility in North America and one of the first worldwide to include all four types of great ape – bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans – for noninvasive interdisciplinary studies of their cognitive and communicative capabilities.
Great Ape Trust is dedicated to providing sanctuary and an honorable life for great apes, studying the intelligence of great apes, advancing conservation of great apes and providing unique educational experiences about great apes. Great Ape Trust of Iowa is a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit organization and is certified by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). |
Great Ape Trust is certified by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums
