Wrylie Guffey | 20 Under 40

Wrylie Guffey
Animal Care Director
Topeka Zoo & Conservation Center

Wrylie Guffey has dedicated her career to caring for animals and supporting conservation efforts. As the Animal Care Director at the Topeka Zoo & Conservation Center, she leads a department of over 20 people to ensure animal welfare is constantly improving and our community is learning more about animals and the natrual world. 

When she is not working, she and her wife, Amanda, enjoy spending time with their dogs, being outdoors, and giving back to the community. Wrylie loves setting up and taking down the temporary exhibits at Kansas Children's Discovery Center and volunteering as a "fixer" at Full Circle Sustainability's multiple community fix it clinics throughout the year. 

What’s a lesson you’ve carried with you throughout your life? How has it shaped you? 

Do what you can with what you know. This hung on the walls of my high school shop classroom and I may have taken it to heart a little too much. You won't always have all of the information, tools, or resources that you need, but you can still move forward and contribute in whatever way you can. This has always led me to continue learning so that I am hopefully able to do more. 

What values guide the decisions you make? Why are those values important to you? 

Balance, Honesty, and Clarity. We need to be honest with ourselves and others. We need to seek clarity through all the noise. And we need to find balance because if you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. 

What led you to your career? 

My softball coach asked if I'd be interested in participating in an internship program with the City of Topeka and I said yes. 20 years, a lot of hard work, and plenty of lessons later, I'm still here and have had some incredible experiences along the way. 

What impact do you hope to make through your work? 

I hope that every single day, I'm able to make a positive impact on someone or something. Whether it's improving something to make a team member's job easier, creating something to improve an animal's life, taking time to connect with a guest, or developing a new process to push us foward in overall strategy, I want to leave things better than I found them. 

What’s a hobby you wish you had more time for? What do you enjoy about it? 

Creating/tinkering. I love coming up with an idea and seeing what I can do to design and build something from scratch or to improve upon something. 

What’s something you could talk about for hours? What makes it so interesting to you? 

Animals - there are so many different ones and we continue to discover new things about them each day. 

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