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36 BCBUSINESS DECEMBER/JANUARY 2017 COURTESY OCEANOGRAFIC DeJong picked up one of the crea- tures between his fingers and thumbs and carried it among the crowds, letting the visitors admire the delicate mosaic pattern on its shell and front flippers. Over and over, people said they had no idea that these turtles lived in the Medi- terranean. "It was amazing to see how animal interactions transcend language," he recalls. "I was an English-speaking person in Spain, but people fundamen- tally understood, OK, these turtles nest here, and they lay eggs, and we need to make sure it keeps happening for future generations. Those aren't abstract con- cepts when you have a real turtle right in front of you." How one of Vancouver Aquarium's leaders came to share a loggerhead tur- tle with Spanish beachgoers is a story that speaks to the venerable institu- tion's growing international influence and its ambitious mission. In 2012, the Vancouver Aquarium was invited to join a partnership bidding on a contract to manage Ocean- ogràfic, a stunning archi- tectural complex and one of Spain's most popular tourist destinations. The partner- ship won, and now Ocean- ogràfic is being remade using the Vancouver model— turning it from a theme park into a respected organization promoting ocean research and conservation. "The question now is, what's the next generation of aquariums?" says John Nightingale, the 69-year-old CEO of Vancouver Aquarium, as we chat in the lunchroom at its Marine Mammal Rescue Centre in September (see sidebar "To the Rescue"). "I think that's where Vancouver is at the forefront. It's not so much about the animals you keep; it's about the public engagement and inter- est and curiosity and awareness that you can stimulate." Nightingale, who has led the aquarium since 1993, has had a lifelong interest and curiosity with the natural world. Born in rural Oregon, he grew up on a small farm with cows, chickens, geese and sheep, and ultimately pursued a PhD in salmon physiology at the University of Washington. Following graduation in 1974, he worked for three years at a big engineering firm that designed most of the fish hatcheries in North America as well as the Seattle Aquarium. Working in the fish hatcheries, he introduced more science-based methods of determining the food, oxy- gen and environmental needs of the fish. The aquarium, he felt, was also operating on a guesswork basis, not even keeping records of how much animals were eating and therefore unable to use appetite as a diagnostic tool. "I was rather less diplomatic as a younger person than I am now," he says. "I was pretty critical of aquarium prac- tices. It was more like farming than any science-based care. So the director said, 'You're a real wise-ass—why don't you come down here and practise what you preach.' So I became the first curator of the Seattle Aquarium." A f ter a few years at Seat tle, Nightingale co-founded a design firm focusing on aquariums, zoos and muse- ums. One of his clients gave the firm a $25-million budget to build the Maui DeJong, general manager of the Vancouver Aquarium, was on his way to work at Oceanogràfic, Europe's largest aquarium. He was at the beginning of an eight-month secondment, helping a new team take over management of the aquarium in nearby Valencia—and on this day felt overdressed in his white collared shirt and trousers. But the fish-out-of-water feeling disappeared as he joined the staff of Ocean- ogràfic in a tent set up on the sand and listened as they explained to visi- tors how turtle eggs were rescued from these beaches, rife with hazards of dogs and oblivious humans, and taken to the aquarium where they were incubated and hatched. The turtles learned to swim and feed, and were now ready to fend for themselves. INTO THE WILD (From left) Dolf DeJong holds a loggerhead turtle on a Spanish beach, another one heads out to the Mediterranean, and John Nightingale walks through the underwater tunnel at Oceanogràfic