Kenneth Hutchinson: Architect (New York State License#26292)
Kenneth holds a Masters of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, having received his undergraduate degree in Fine Arts from New York University. He is bilingual in both English and Japanese.
Over the last eight years the projects he has captained range from the Butterfly Garden exhibit, to Madagascar, probably the singularly most popular international museum exhibit on the north east coast of the United States. He also managed the historic restoration of the Elephant House at the Bronx Zoo and most recently, Kenneth has closed out on the LEED Gold certified Center for Global Conservation.
Other projects include Tiger Mountain, an exhibit displaying the now close to extinct Siberian Tiger, African Wild Dogs, The restoration of Astor Court, The Restoration of the historic Italian Fountain, The Dancing Crane Pavilion.
Kenneth came to WCS from Barney Skanska Construction Company www.Skanska.com where he served as a Project Manager.
Sara Tsiropinas: Architect LEED AP
Sara holds her Masters of Architecture from the City of New York, she also holds an ssociates degree in Interior Design from the acclaimed Fashion Institute of Technology,
as well as a joint Bachelors of Art in Sculpture and Psychology from SUNY Binghampton University.
Sara worked with Hellmuth, Obata, & Kassabaum www.hok.com as a Project Designer where she managed Capital projects for the New York City Departments of Parks and Recreation and Transportation. She was responsible for the design and implementation of The Street Tree Program in New York City.
Prior to this, Sara spent six years as a designer with the Wildlife Conservation Society were she worked on a myriad of projects ranging from the acclaimed Butterfly Garden, Glovers Reef at the New York City Aquarium in Coney Island, to Tiger Mountain and Madagascar.
Ray Oladapo-Johnson: Park Administrator & Horticulturist
Ray holds a Bachelors of Science in Botany and Microbiology from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. His graduate work at Pratt Institute New York, focused on Urban Design, with an emphasis on open space management. He is Bilingual in English, French and Yoruba.
Ray served as the Curator of Horticulture at WCS for almost a decade. He oversaw park administration for all the urban wildlife parks and was responsible for all capital landscape projects and exhibit work related to horticulture.
Examples of Rays work can be seen in New York City urban wildlife parks that fall under the WCS umbrella. Some of these projects include Tiger Mountain, The Butterfly Garden, African Wild Dogs, Astor Court and the Italian Garden, Rainey Gate, River walk, Madagascar and the sustainable landscape that accompanies the Center for Global Conservation, a LEED Gold Certified building.
Prior to working at WCS, Ray worked as an Associate Project Manager with O'Brien Krietzberg (URS Corporation) www.urscorp.com He was responsible for the management of capital projects for the contractual planting of New York City street trees, Greenstreet projects, and the greening of major roadways, highways, medians, and urban parks.
Justice Freeman Leppanen: Interior Architect
Justice holds a Masters in Fine Art in Interior Architecture from Columbia College. He also holds a Bachelors of Art in Liberal arts, also from Columbia College. Currently Justice serves as a Project Manager with Bohn Associates where his work covers the management of new residential construction projects in New York City and New Jersey.
As an exhibit designer, Justice worked for WCS as an Exhibit Architect, he was responsible for the design and upgrade of exhibits at all the Urban Wildlife Parks that are under the WCS umbrella, namely the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Brooklyn Zoo, Queens Zoo, and the New York City Aquarium. The Projects he worked on range from Tiger Mountain, to the Alien Stingers Exhibit at the Coney Island Aquarium.
Prior to this Justice worked at The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum www.naturemuseum.org in Chicago, where he managed the programmatic design of permanent exhibits, and the layout of temporary exhibits, and where he was responsible for the composition of construction documents.
