Seaway Serpentarium: About the Staff

About Our Staff

The Seaway Serpentarium has a broad circle of its friends and supporters and we are proud to say that a great number of them proved very helpful over the years. Be it for the businesses and companies that provided materials and services at either a great discount or completely gratis (some did it despite ill concealed doubts about our sanity). Be it for the long or short term volunteers in maintenance, construction and other aspects of our operation. And finally, be it for our visitors for the most part; those who opened their hearts (and wallets) to the realm of reptiles and appreciated what our work has accomplished.

At the center of it all stand 3 people without whom our operation would collapse:

Kyle O'Grady

The first person you are likely to see is Kyle O'Grady. The youngest staffer is the spirit of our public relations during the openings. Kyle's history with the Serpentarium reaches way back when a 4-year-old kid, ushered by his dad, pranced into the main snake room and completely stupefied all present by correctly identifying many of our species - by their scientific names! After this initial performance he only got better and, owing to his excellent theoretical base along with very good practical skills, was given the key to the Serpentarium for his 18th birthday. By no means a symbolical gift. Kyle's reptile skills are matched at par with superior discipline and people's skills - as you will undoubtedly find out during your visit.

Karel Fortyn

Good luck understanding something that Karel Fortyn may want to tell you in his trademark accent.Please bear with him, his mumbling is not designed to offend you but to communicate something in his 4th language (if English). (One close friend of his never fails to point out that Karel is not understood in 5 languages.) Other than this handicap he is responsible for the entire show of operations of a Collection that he started in 1980 after his escape to West Germany from communist Czechoslovakia; his animals up to that date all lost in that political turmoil. To create what you see took him years of time combined in the USA, Mexico, Central America, South America, Africa, Australia - just spin the globe. Among his many obstacles were finances, governments, civil wars, natural disasters, diseases, general stupidity and more law suits than Pinochet. Since his life's history (still in the making) reads like a critic-reviled protest movie script you are invited to follow a chapter by chapter series to start appearing on this website; the beginning of his prepared autobiography aptly named "Out of Order." (Readers' discretion advised. Animals aplenty.) Sincere hopes you won't be too offended by the deeds of someone whose life's motto says that ships are safe in harbour. But its not what ships are built for.