A past president of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, Ron Forman began his tenure with Audubon Park and Zoological Garden in 1972 as City Hall liaison.
Plans were made, with overwhelming voter support, for a downtown park and aquarium.
The Freeport-McMoRan Audubon Species Survival Center on the West Bank of the Mississippi River opened late in 1993.
A past member of the Board of Directors of the American Association of Museums, he is also on the Advisory Committee of Chimp Haven.
Forman became president and CEO of the Audubon Nature Institute 1977, a role he has continued until going on unpaid leave to run for mayor in 2006.
He was widely perceived as the favored candidate of much of the city's old money white elite, although Forman himself is the son of working class Jewish parents.