Robin Sheets
Back to Basics
July 17, 2007 | by noah | Permalink
One might expect the head killer whale trainer at Sea World SeaWorld San Diego to have, well, a killer whale size ego; that could not be further away from the truth. Although Robin held an almost prenatal love for the ocean and its inhabitants, having been raised around a SCUBA air station owned by his father, Robin found himself at 27 working in sales. An ad in the paper for SeaWorld caught his eye one day, and his inner child took control.
Yet through all of his successes, he remains humble, approachable, and as inspired as ever. These are the footprints of passion. Robin, who has led countless Shamu performances during his tenure at SeaWorld, still speaks with a charming reverence for his craft, and for the animals he so dearly respects and admires. Robin calls himself a behaviorist, but any similarities with Pavlov’s bell end there. To see Robin and the other trainers interact with the whales is to see a microcosm of a better world, where diverse inhabitants embrace their differences on the way to understanding their similarities.
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