On the last night of filming, the actors were at a wrap party at a restaurant next door to the aquarium,” says Dame. As the Chief Operating Officer, I was like a deer in headlights trying to help the crowds.” Dolphin Tale II “In September of 2011, the movie became the number-one box-office hit in its second week, and attendance grew to about 740,000. In 2010, the year before the movie was released, we had built that attendance up to 220,000.

The future of CMA was assured.ĭame says: “We had been on the verge of bankruptcy in 2006, with an attendance of about 75,000 for a year.

In 2011, Winter starred in the blockbuster movie, Dolphin Tale, starring Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd and Harry Connick Jr., co-produced by Yates, and shot partially on location at the aquarium. Four years later we had a movie contract.” He started promoting it in the media, to shows like Good Morning America, The Today Show, Reader’s Digest and Oprah. “David saw an opportunity in Winter’s story. This was a project undertaken by prosthetist Kevin Carroll. As she continued to survive against all odds, a decision was made to fit her with a prosthetic. The dolphin lost her tail flukes and two of her vertebrae. “She had been tangled in a crab trap line, and her tail had been damaged.” In December 2005, Winter, a two-month-old Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, had been rescued on the East Coast of Florida near Cape Canaveral and brought to CMA. The business model we developed was to let gate revenues drive our coverage of operations, and let donations help us to expand.” Winter the dolphin To enhance the guest experience, start a good food service, and improve the gift shop. “Our approach has been to run CMA like a business, rather than a non-profit. “He and I shared a lot of the same sentiments,” says Dame. Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: This is #TeamCMA – Our Work Never Stops! ()ĭavid Yates, who was appointed as CEO at the beginning of 2006 while Dame was still on the board, had been CEO of Iron Man previously, so also had a strong financial background. CMA, like most non-profits, operated based on donations and so on.” Then, in 2008, he was named as the Chief Operating Officer of the Aquarium. So I started volunteering.” Change of directionįrank Dame became a board member of the aquarium in 2006 and was chairman of the board in 2007. Then one of the board members for Clearwater Marine Aquarium, who happened to be a neighbour of mine, contacted me to see if I’d like to be involved with the aquarium. I decided to retire at that point and started a boat brokerage and yacht service company. “Progress Telecom merged with Epic Communications in Orlando and then went bankrupt. In 2000, he joined Progress Telecom, a subsidiary of Progress Energy in North Carolina, working as vice president of sales and marketing, until the dotcom crash. “When Bell, Atlantic and GTE merged, I became the vice president-general manager of Verizon Credit.” “I worked for International Harvester, General Electric credit., and then GTE Leasing Corporation, where I started out as a salesman and worked my way up to be president of that company. “My career took me from running a sporting goods store to getting involved in the finance industry,” he tells blooloop. Previously, he had been Chief Operating Officer at the facility since 2008.ĭame, who grew up in the Winter Park area of Orlando, was a finance graduate of the University of Central Florida and initially followed a career in finance. It does not store any personal data.Frank Dame has been CEO of Florida’s Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA) since March 2020, when he took over from David Yates. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Performance'. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Necessary'. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Functional'. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Analytics'. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.

Florida marine aquarium