Despite encouragement from a friend, Adele Absi Dodge waited a year before applying for a summer position at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.   "I spent that summer working in my parents' engineering office", says Dodge. "When the next summer rolled around, I knew I didn't want an office job so I applied at the zoo and was hired."        

She began her career in the Children's Zoo area for two summers, with 9 months studying in Australia in between, and after earning her B.S. degree in Biology in 1987 from Lake Erie College, became a keeper in the gorillas area. Seven years later she became Head Keeper in "Australasia." She spends her days caring for a variety of animals, from komodo dragons to

feather-tail gliders to koalas.

Her work has also taken her to Australia several times to participate in Tasmanian Devil husbandry management courses and koala field research, as well as a keeper exchange with the Melbourne Zoo. She also spent 9 months residing and working with two members of the Australian Olympic equestrian team (1984) on their horse farm.

Dodge and her husband, Ron, reside in Columbus and have one son, Benjamin, 8.