HM: What is your background and how did you get to where you are currently in the industry?
RM: I’ve always loved reptiles and even through college kept them as a hobby. I worked at a pet store while attending the Milwaukee School of Engineering, and that’s where I really found the rest of the industry. After graduating with my Masters, I moved to Madison, WI for a new job and shortly after started the Madison Area Herpetological Society (MAHS). My work to build that group and dealing with local legislation got me involved with USARK and many other organizations and people across the U.S. In 2014 I got a message from a friend that worked for Central Aquatics and she told me that Zilla was looking for someone. They reached out to me and after a quick interview I took the job as the Marketing Brand Manager.
Over the next six years I worked to improve husbandry using Zilla to help spread better information and create better products for reptile keepers. In the Fall of 2020, I was speaking with Erica about all the ideas I had for husbandry products that would be great, but just didn’t fit what Zilla did. With the success of MAHS and Zilla, we decided to take the dive and I left my position with Zilla in January of this year and started working on VivTech in order to bring those ideas and products to life.
EM: My first job was at a historic landmark that had a natural history museum attached to it and a living animal collection that was focused on native reptiles, amphibians, and fish primarily. It served to really nurture my love of these animals! While I worked here I became involved in wildlife rehabilitation. I became enamored with the medical side of things and understanding disease processes, parasites, and how normal physiological needs can be overlooked with minimal immediate impact but profound long term impact.
It was here that I discovered the opportunity of becoming a certified veterinary technician. My Assistant Director at the time called me up to her desk and showed me how I could enroll. From there it was a whirl wind adventure of working at Chicago Exotics Animal Hospital for a decade (an incredible experience!) where I worked with only exotic animals; a short time at Brookfield Zoo in their veterinary department to fill in for a few team members; creation of a reptile rescue; and involving myself in every opportunity that became available for lecturing on reptile medicine, reptile care, and advancing awareness.
HM: What was the motivation to start VivTech?
RM: Over the past 15 years, we’ve watched the hobby and industry from many different viewpoints. We have had incredible opportunities to see nearly all aspects of the lives and work of people who love reptiles from zoo keepers to veterinarians, biologists and herpetologists to kids with one corn snake. These people all have one thing in common, a deep love for these animals.
There are some major weaknesses and opportunities within our hobby though that our combined 30 years of experience has highlighted. One of them being the need for better husbandry products for the intermediate to expert keeper. Once keepers have outgrown the big box store and are attending reptile shows not to look around but to network about advanced husbandry, you begin to run out of products that will allow you to achieve those husbandry goals without some SERIOUS engineering and a little bit of luck. Occasionally, a fire extinguisher. This is where VivTech Products can be a driver for change.
Aside from the product aspect, VivTech is dedicated to being a beacon of positivity and refreshed communal information sharing by reaching across all aspects of reptile keeping, not just the hobby keepers but also zoos, museums, conservation facilities, and so much more. To put our pledge of positivity into action, a percentage of all purchases is donated to USARK and USARK FL as well as multiple wildlife conservation organizations specializing in herptile conservation.
Overall, we just saw many ways our hobby and industry could be better and do better. We decided to be the change we wanted to see and make those goals the foundation of VivTech.
HM: What is the goal behind the brand and what sets it apart from other brands in the same market?
RM: The goal of VivTech is simple. Create innovative and advanced husbandry products that are designed by knowledgeable experts but low enough cost and simple enough for beginners to use and be successful. Beyond that we’re hoping to bring scientific research to people in a digestible format so keepers have the best and most up to date knowledge and can better their husbandry, break down the barriers of information created by gatekeeping and herper lore, promote equality within the hobby, and end the incredible misogyny we see all while bringing the industry together on a path for a better future for us, the animals, and the wild ancestors of the pets we keep at home.
What will distinguish VivTech right off the bat is the incredible team of people supporting and working with us along with a deep passion for knowledge and education. We want to create real change for our pets, our lives, and the lives of the animals in the wild that we love. That drive has been seen from us both throughout our careers and time in this hobby but now we have a platform to do it the way we know it needs to be done. VivTech won’t launch the same thing a competitor launches in a different colored box. We aren’t looking to compete against the other brands selling the same bulb Thomas Edison invented over 150 years ago. We’re looking to bring the hobby forward into the future and hopefully help improve husbandry and support the organizations fighting for our ability to keep these pets so we have a future to fight for.
HM: What aspects of husbandry and hardware have been missing before you decided to bring VivTech to the hobby?
RM: Our hobby has spent so much time selling reptiles as “easy” to keep pets. While reptiles are in some cases less daily work than a dog, they do have a substantial amount of species specific information that a new owner needs to know. Without it, they won’t have a good experience, the animal will perish and they will leave the hobby. Unfortunately, in an attempt to promote the low maintenance aspect of keeping reptiles, we made it seem so simple that all you need is a kit from a big box store and some crickets and you can keep anything, including herbivores that don’t even eat crickets!
Now we’re fighting to improve husbandry and get people to learn more and research more. It’s an uphill battle. One of the major things missing is clear and digestible information that is written in a way that allows the keeper to feel like they have a good grasp on husbandry without overwhelming them and products that can perform to our needs when trying to replicate natural environments. When the standard for keeping a popular burrowing arid lizard is to put it on tile its whole life to avoid impaction, there is a palpable gap in the knowledge and understanding of those animals and their biology.
HM: Are there plans or ideas for advancing husbandry in rack systems?
RM: Rack systems are imperative to large commercial breeding operations. They are also important to many rescue operations for quarantine. While they do remove some of the natural behaviors available to the animals, racks also have positives to them in their ability to create manageable and secure housing for many animals. One thing all racks are missing though is UV lighting without some creative engineering or sacrificing usable housing space. All living creatures should have access to UVA and UVB lighting. End of story. UVA and UVB affects the immune system strength, circadian rhythm, eating habits, breeding habits, calcium synthesis, and even serotonin production. UVA is a needed light spectrum for so many natural behaviors in animals, including humans. We are working on some potential lighting options for rack systems and other enclosed habitats, but that will all come in the future as we grow.
HM: Without unveiling too much, what else can we expect to see from the brand in terms of offerings? ideas for advancing husbandry in rack systems?
RM: VivTech will continue to bring innovation to the equipment we use. If we launch a product that exists already in the market, then it will either be improved or substantially more cost effective, but most products will be new and invoke new ways of thinking about how we keep these animals. Our goal is to catch husbandry practices and knowledge up to the same level we see the rest of our world advancing and improve the experiences for the animal and the keepers. Our next big launch will all be around wifi connectivity and controls to help monitor your animals and get notified when any parameters are out of range. Hopefully this will help to reduce deaths from equipment failures and allow for more precise habitat controls. Beyond that, you’ll have to wait and see but I promise it’s going to be worth the wait.
HM: Will the brand encompass more than just caging and husbandry products?
RM: Starting out, VivTech Products is focusing on husbandry products and creating better environments or at least the tools to create them. However, our passion for education and conservation is HUGE and we also plan on creating some great content to help people understand their pets on a deeper level and hopefully build a great resource of information for keepers. We are also working with 10-15 conservation organizations and are excited to be able to help fund some of their initiatives to save the wild counterparts of the incredible animals we keep as we continue to grow. When it comes to enclosures, that isn’t really our focus.
HM: The slogan of the brand is Innovation. Husbandry. Conservation, how will conservation be tied into the company?
RM: Conservation as a pillar is cyclic, there is no beginning or end. The conservation of our hobby through legislation and supporting USARK allows us to continue keeping and even importing these amazing animals we love responsibly and ethically. This feeds into the conservation of those in the wild through awareness, creation of better husbandry products to mimic natural environments for propagation endeavors, and in the case of VivTech, funding wild conservation.
As a hobby we’ve gotten so much from these animals and as a hobby, we have the opportunity to enjoy them in our daily lives. It only makes sense that we help keep them around in the wild too. While pet reptiles are amazing and incredible to keep, if you love reptiles you have to love the wild ones too and many of them need help. This is one pillar we’re incredibly excited for as we grow and increase the funds for these endeavors.
Brought to you by Toad Ranch Reptile Habitats
