Kansas City, Mo ? Randy Wisthoff, associate director of Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo since 1987, has been named to head the Kansas City Zoo.

Wisthoff, 54, was selected Wednesday by the board of the Kansas City Friends of the Zoo, the private organization that manages the publicly owned zoo. He was picked from among six candidates and will start work Nov. 17 at a zoo that has seen its attendance drop recently despite heavy investment in improvements during the 1990s.

Wisthoff will succeed Mark Wourms, who resigned in April after heading the zoo since 1992.

“The most valuable thing Randy brings is an individual who is experienced, over his 26 years, from picking up garbage to watching multimillion-dollar facilities get built,” said James Stowers III, president of the zoo’s board. “It’s fabulous for us to find someone with his degree of enthusiasm and a desire to move to Kansas City. It just seems like such a natural fit.”

During Wisthoff’s time as associate director of the Omaha zoo, the privately owned facility has developed what is billed as the world’s largest indoor rain forest exhibit and largest desert dome exhibit, a 400-acre drive-through native wildlife park, a 1-million gallon saltwater aquarium and a $14 million gorilla exhibit due to open next spring.

“What the Omaha zoo did in a city of that size should be doable in a city like this,” Wisthoff said. “I firmly believe this city feels ready to take the next step.”

“I wanted my own place, a zoo of my own,” he said, “a zoo I thought had the potential to be much better.”

Wisthoff started at the Omaha zoo as an animal keeper in 1977, later becoming curator of education and then associate director.

The Kansas City Zoo, which dates to 1909, had a $71 million makeover in the 1990s that was fueled by a voter-approved bond issue. It roughly doubled in size, adding an Australian exhibit and crossing over the Blue River to create a 96-acre African exhibit.

The guiding concept at the time was realism, with animals in naturalistic settings and a minimum of cages. Visitors praised the beauty of the animal park, and attendance soared before beginning a decline in more recent years. Many visitors complained of having to walk long distances and of too few animals that were too hard to find or too far away to see clearly.

“I know this zoo has taken its hits,” Wisthoff said. “I’m hoping we will be able to get animals closer and create more fun things for young people to do.”

Wisthoff will help guide development of a new master plan for the zoo.