Pete Dybdahl | The Roanoke Times

Sean Greene, Mill Mountain Zoo's executive director, announces his resignation outside the zoo gates Monday.

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Sean Greene's time at the Mill Mountain Zoo

• March 2006: Greene joins the zoo as executive director.
• July 2006: Oops, a Japanese macaque, escapes from the zoo but is recaptured after a week.
• September 2006: The Association of Zoos and Aquariums tables its decision to accredit the zoo for a year, asking to see some improvements first.
• December: Ruby, a beloved tiger and zoo icon, dies.
• March:The zoo has a pair of financial scores: A fundraiser with celebrity animal handler Jack Hanna brings in $250,000 and the city of Roanoke gives the zoo a three-year $500,000 challenge grant
• May/June: A new barnyard exhibit and playground are built
• September: The AZA accredits the zoo through 2011.
• November Greene departs for the Dallas Zoological Society.

Video

• Sean Greene and Mill Mountain Zoo
• The zoo man
• Animals keep their cool at the zoo
• Kangaroos arrive at the zoo

Sean Greene, Mill Mountain Zoo's executive director and its popular face for the past 20 months, announced his resignation Monday to take a job with a larger zoo in Dallas.

Greene leaves the mountain Nov. 2 as the zoo upgrades its facilities, arranges for a new Zoo Choo train and enjoys recent success on its national accreditation review.

The director also leaves behind a renewed vigor to make the mountaintop zoo a more modern, relevant feature of Roanoke.

"Sean has revitalized the zoo to the community," said Sara Brooks, president of the Mill Mountain Zoological Society, which operates the zoo. "We've got five years of work out of him in 20 months."

Greene, 36, will become director of community relations for the Dallas Zoological Society, a nonprofit support organization for the Dallas Zoo, where he'll handle public relations and generate revenue.

He started in March 2006 at a zoo weighed down by years of debt and facing a review for national accreditation. In the months that followed, a monkey escaped and Ruby, the popular tiger, died.

Harried but energetic, the new director buoyed zoo finances with a sellout fundraiser with celebrity animal handler Jack Hanna, and with a $500,000 challenge grant from the city of Roanoke in March.

Efforts to prepare the zoo for this summer's review by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums paid off. The zoo group accredited the zoo in September -- when warm weather brought more visitors than any September in recent memory.

Now the zoo is building a quarantine center, and will unveil a memorial sculpture of Ruby later this month.

"The zoo's in a great place and that's what made it an easy decision," Greene said. "A zoo will always be bigger than one person."

Dave Orndorff, the zoo's general curator, was named interim director. The zoo veteran and bird specialist came to Mill Mountain in July from the San Diego Zoo.

The zoo's board will meet Thursday to make a decision about its leadership, Brooks said.

The move to Dallas sends Greene back to Texas, where he spent 10 years working at the Fort Worth Zoo before coming to Virginia -- and where he met his wife, Tracy.

Greene spoke broadly about his decision to leave, saying the new job was a good opportunity that put the couple closer to friends and family.

"Sean's one of those guys who is a rising star in the zoo business," said Gregg Hudson, the executive director of the Dallas Zoo and Aquarium, who worked with Greene in Fort Worth.

Covering 75 acres, the Dallas Zoo is the largest in Texas and received nearly 600,000 visitors in 2006, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Mill Mountain Zoo has 8 acres, with an attendance last year of 67,500.

Monday afternoon, Eleanor Wandelt left the zoo after her first tour of the park. The Smith Mountain Lake resident was drawn to the menagerie, she said, having heard about the new director.

"He's leaving?" she asked on her way out. "Shucks."