Kellie VandenBerge

I feel that I am highly skilled in a variety of fields that would make me a great addition to your team. I am an extremely hard worker, very dependable and am always willing to do anything to get a job done well. I feel I go above and beyond everything I do. Currently I am the Warehouse Supervisor at John Ball Zoo. I am a working supervisor so i over see and take part in everything that comes and goes from the zoo. From managing incoming deliveries to creating working ordering systems throughout the departments that keep the zoo operational. These systems include daily animal diet deliveries to all animal buildings, animal orders (twice a week for hay/straw/frozen/grains and warehouse supplies), grounds janitorial supplies stocking in all of their cleaning closets, food and beverage daily deliveries, gift shop restocking deliveries, general supplies throughout the zoo, daily internal mail runs and all shipping and receiving. I volunteer in the animal care department on my days off, I have experience in the Aquarium, North America, South America, Chimps, Herps and Red Barn. By volunteering in the animal care department, I believe this gave me a better understanding on how to better assist or service the animal care department. I believe by gaining the knowledge of the needs for the internal departments I will Directly impact our exterior customers/guests to fulfill the zoos mission. Throughout my years at the zoo I believe I have grown my passion for animal care, education and conservation. Last season, I helped out in the field with our spotted and wood turtle conservation projects. I would love to start a marbled salamander conservation project and bring this population back to michigan. I am also of John Ball Zoo's Emergency response team for Disaster Response, Rescue, and Recovery (ZDR3) Network. This team is deployed based on our skills and the needs of the disaster. I do assist with animal transports, loading and unloading of live animals including large carnivores. I pride myself in my work and knowledge of all things zoo. I am a quick learner and willing to learn anything! I do have some management experience at Fruit Basket Flowerland. I was the Guest Services/Cashier Manager. I was responsible in all the training, scheduling, banking/accounting, hiring, delegating tasks and responsibilities for my guest services team. Throughout my life I have always pushed myself into leadership roles with every job I have worked. I feel that I am a very strong leader and am able to support my team well. With my time at John Ball Zoo in the Facilities department, I am very familiar with a zoos flow day to day chores, scheduling, warehouse, inspections, parking, events, general animal care tasks, building and ground related tasks, safety regulations and a general zoo knowledge. I believe that I would be a great candidate to join your team.

• John Whitehead (616)490-4878 Previous Building and Grounds Manager at John Ball Zoo (now retired). Worked under John in a variety of roles, assistant grounds manager and warehouse coordinator for over 5 years.
• Loren Peterson (616)862-5755 John Ball Zoo project Manager, Also the former Maintenance Manager. Worked with Loren for over 7 years, as part of the facilities/operations team.
• Erica Kamm (269)830-5645 Previous Assistant checkout manager (Flowerland) Coworker and my assistant for 3 years at the Kentwood Location.

John Ball Zoo Animal Care Volunteer

I have spent 4 year as an animal care volunteer at John Ball Zoo on my days off. This opportunity has given me so much knowledge, passion and skills working with the animals in our collection. I not only got the opportunity to work with some of the animals but discovered how amazing the animal care staff was to work with. I truly believe the animals under our care and given the best quality of life we can give them. I am grateful for this program and have recommended volunteering to fellow staff members, friends and family. My goal by volunteering was to gain knowledge to better service the animal care departments needs to better do my job. I also wanted to gain knowledge of the animals in our collection to better assist guests with fun facts, questions or anything I could share to give our guests a great moment during there visit. Below are the areas I have volunteered and skills described.

• Aquarium In my time in the Aquarium I assisted, keeper David, In a variety of daily tasks. Cleaning and providing food and water to the residents in the lower bird holding, these included budgies, partridges and Van Den Decken Hornbills. I was also able to provide enrichment for the hornbills, mostly giving them challenging items to feed there favorite bugs. I cleaned the penguin exhibit cave and viewing glass. I assisted David in preparing penguin diets, penguin vitamins in fish and feedings. David also showed me a great deal changing out and cleaning filters to maintain the many filters and pumps. This was extremely important to maintain water quality which will directly effect the lives of the residents in the aquarium. I learned how to properly siphon tanks, clean and maintain a few of the quarantine tanks. I learned to feed out several of the tanks (kelp, pantogonian, 6 pack/touch tank/ quarantine tanks) and how to prepare some of there diets.
• North America I assisted a variety of keepers in this area. At Bears, I assisted with cleaning and maintaining the outside exhibit. This included filling in massive holes and cleaning glass. Scattering foraging food in challenging places for them to find and providing them daily enrichment. Weighed out daily bear biscuits and scattered around exhibit. Cleaned holdings once bears were shifted. At otters, cleaned pools and outdoor exhibit. Scattered foraging foods an provided aily enrichment. Once otter were shifted, cleaned indoor holdings and pools. assisted with cleaning filter baskets. I prepared all the feline diets for the otters, lynx, snow leopard and mountain lions. I pulled training fish for the otters. occasionally. I assisted with preparing enrichment for north american cats and helping clean snow leopard and mountain lion exhibits. I did learn how to foam/virex disinfect otter and bear holdings. I was also able to work with our cape porcupines while they were being housed in the primate building. I learned there very unique personalities and observed there training. I cleaned, scattered foraging diets and helped with enrichment for the porcupines.
• South America/Chimps In South America, I was able to assist Keeper Kim/Sarah in a variety of tasks. As animals were shifted I was able to clean and maintain Maned Wolf exhibit, Saki exhibit and south america yard. Some of these tasks included weeding, leaf clean up and exhibit glass. I learned how to clean, scrub and maintain indoor holdings and pools. I assisted in preparing a variety of different diets, bugs, pulling mice and ways to feed those diets. I observed many trainings and ways to shift the residents to the exhibit yard, some of the animals i observed include, giant anteater, tapir, capybaras and screamers. I did observe a few kinkajou and lemur trainings. I also was given the opportunity to observe an animal care emergency surgery for one of our Saki monkeys (Yaki). At chimps, I worked with Sarah and Bonnie. They taught me a lot about our chimp troop and their variety of needs. I learned about there daily routine starting with shifting them to holdings to feed out morning diets/meds, juice. I learned how to clean the day room and out door exhibit. Clean/bleach the several drinkers around there exhibits. refill drinkers and distribute there foraging diets and biscuits. I observed training and snack time. I also learned how to clean and virex foam the indoor holdings. Sarah and Bonnie also taught me a little about perching for primates. We were given the task to perch at the hospital for spider monkeys temporary holdings while there day room was being updated. Was a really great learning experience.
• Red Barn Lower Red Barn, I assisted in shifting animals, cleaning out stalls, cleaning drinkers, refilling drinkers and hosing the barn. In upper barn, I assisted with a variety of cleaning tasks. Some of the animals i worked with, fed and learned to prepare diets, gave enrichments and cleaned enclosures include: Chinchillas, rabbit, tenrecs, hedgehog, rats, Mexican porcupine, possum, turtles, tortoise, bearded dragon, African grey parrot, cockatoo, ducks and owls. It was extremely educational learning about each of our ambassador animals care and unique personalities. i observed many different trainings including kestrels, owls, cockatoo, skunk, possum and African Grey.
• Enrichment For 2 years I worked with Keeper/Enrichment Coordinator Shannon on creating paper enrichment for our entire animal collection. This was an amazing experience. My family and I were given permission to create some pretty amazing enrichment following a variety of guidelines. The goal was not only to give enrichment to the animals but to educate and give the guests an experience as well. It all started with our zoo goes boo event. We created a variety of paper chains, paper spiders, "monster" boxes and other Halloween themed paper items. We received amazing feedbacks and videos of animals interacting with these from both keepers and guests! From there we went above and beyond. We did themed event items for princess day, penguin day, endangered animal day, super hero day, wizarding weekends, star wars, thanksgiving, 4th of July, christmas with the animals, animals birthdays or celebrations. It was so rewarding watching the animals shred, play with or interact with our creations. We learned so much by creating these and ended up custom designing to certain animals that filled that animals needs. Unfortunately this program was cancelled but was still an amazing educational experience about the use of enrichments.

Personal Animal Experience

In my life time I have owned or cared for a variety of animals. Animals have always been a huge part of my life. I have always done the research, prep and gone above and beyond to give any animal under my care the best quality of life I can provide. In my childhood, I had a variety of pets from fish to small animals. My siblings pets always ended up being cared by me as well. These included hamsters, guinea pig, gerbils, rabbit, hermit crabs, anole, fresh water fish. We also fostered a duckling found abandoned until we found a wildlife sanctuary to take it. A baby squirrel pushed out of its nest. We weaned back to health an eventually released it back into our backyard. It survived many years and even raised a family! Later in life, I became fascinated with chameleons and geckos. I started out with a veiled chameleon and a crocodile gecko. I created realistic exhibits for them figuring out the perfect settings for them to live in. From there I got married and my husband had a love for reptiles as well. I ended up adopting several more reptiles including a pair of crested geckos, uromastyx, bearded dragons, assorted chameleons, red eared sliders, mississippi map turtles. We created he ideal environment for each of these animals. For some we even hand built there tanks. We also expanded to a salt water fish tank, adopted some cats and a dog. We did a few reptile shows for some of our animals, sharing our passion with others. Our geckos even mated (surprise!) and we ended up with with 18 healthy hatchlings, hatched in there enclosure! During this time my husband was diagnosed with brain cancer. Unfortunately I had to make the right choice for the animals under my care, I ended up finding great homes for each and everyone of our pets except the cats and dog (we kept them). I could not physically raise my 2 daughters, take care of all the animals in the house and be able to care and support my husband, while working a full time job. That was one of the hardest choices but the best choice i could make with our challenging life journey. After my husband passed away and we created a new life for ourselves, my youngest daughter decided we needed a hedgehog. We fell in love with hedgehogs and ended up with 3 hedgehogs. Such amazing little creatures! we rescued a few more cats and adopted a sulcata tortoise. I feel that I have had an amazing life and wouldn't change anything. I feel I have a variety of personal animal experience that would help guide me with an animal care career.

• Forklift Train the Trainer Certified- certifyme.net
• Servesafe Certified
• FEMA certified
• First Aid and Cpr Certified