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“It’s my happy place.”

Anna Grob, Hickory Hills, Docent

Volunteering at Brookfield Zoo also led Anna Grob in a
new career direction. She has been a docent at Brookfield
Zoo since 2002. “It’s my happy place,” she said. “Getting
into the volunteer program was the best choice of my life.”
Grob has extensive knowledge of animals after working
as a veterinary assistant at an animal hospital for 25 years.
She’s worked as a dog groomer. Her teaching and storytelling
skills also make her an especially effective docent. “When you
talk to guests, you want passion to show in your body and
voice,” said Grob. “I want to get people excited to learn
about animals.”
Impressed by Grob’s knowledge and talents, other
docents encouraged her to write a children’s book. She wrote
her first book and illustrated it after studying the anatomy
and behavior of dogs and wolves. A Coyote Who Wished
He Lived in a Zoo was published in 2012; the first in Grob’s
Wild Animal Survival Series about endangered animals.
It was followed by children’s books about an African painted
dog, an elephant, and a gibbon. Her latest, Snow and Amur
Leopards, will be published in early 2021.
The books educate children about the challenges faced
“I became more interested in by animals in the wild and the role of zoos in caring for
conservation and biology.” and conserving species. Grob donates a portion of the
proceeds from her book sales to charities that benefit
Helen Lee Reid, Glenview, Docent children and animals.

In 1997, journalist Helen Lee Reid was 25 years old and worked
on a video game magazine. Needing a break from her job, she
asked herself: “What is the opposite of hanging out on a computer
with 20-year-old boys all day?’ . . . Ah, the zoo!”
Reid entered the docent training program. For several months,
she took classes every Tuesday evening and all day Saturday.
“Experts would come in and cover science and customer service
topics,” she said. This training was followed by time spent with
a docent mentor out in the zoo. “Docents become well versed in
all the different places where we would be stationed . . . Sometimes
I’d just stand next to the gorillas and talk to guests about the
gorillas’ family group. When I was at THE SWAMP, about
50 percent of the questions I got were, ‘Is that crocodile alive?’
“It wasn’t until I started volunteering at the zoo that I became
more interested in conservation and biology,” said Reid. She
enrolled in the Advanced Inquiry Program (AIP), a conservation-
focused program that combines field study at Brookfield Zoo
with web-based graduate courses at Miami University in Ohio.
An article she wrote about the palm oil industry for a class
assignment was published by Asparagus magazine. “I want to
continue creating content that helps zoos and aquariums get
out their message about the work they do to save species.”

BROOKFIELD ZOO | SPRING 2021 21