“The Save Our Hides Kelp Contest”

The employees at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium were having their monthly executive meeting. Their head aquarist, Jeff Minnow had just resigned and defected to the Scripps Institute located in San Diego, California. The employees had just received word that the Chief Supervisor of the aquarium had received a letter indicating that the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium would close down if it didn’t start bringing in a profit. The Executive Board, author of the letter, had recommended that the aquarium establish a kelp exhibit so that it could compete with Scripps Institute and the Monterey Bay Aquarium and increase its revenue. “But we have a kelp exhibit!” one of the workers exclaimed. “Yes, that’s true, but we’ve been criticized for using fake kelp,” explained supervisor Phil Chloro. “Jeff, who is an expert on kelp forests, was planning to create a kelp exhibit using real kelp, but he has defected to our competitor. Scripps won’t allow him to reveal their process, Monterey is just as uncooperative, and nobody here is sure where to begin.”

Gabby Tat, the head of the education division at Cabrillo offered a possible solution. “Jeff taught many of the LAUSD teachers in the kelp forest classes. We have their names and numbers on file. Why don’t we call them and tell them that we are holding “The Design a Kelp Forest” contest with the first prize going to the group of five teachers who design the best live kelp exhibit?” “That sounds like a great idea, Gabby, but what will be the prize?” queried Phil. “I would suggest one year of free participation in any of the workshops we offer for them, and two years of on-campus instruction at their school sites for their students,” responded Gabby. Phil noticed much grumbling in the room and immediately pointed out that working hard for two years was a lot better than not working at all.

Acquiescing, the employees voted to use Gabby’s contest idea and within five days they had contacted and informed all of the expert teachers about the contest. Now all they could do is wait and hope for some ingenious plans for creating a live kelp exhibit.

La Nelle Harvey, USC CSP Leadership Cohort – Summer 1998