when you are running a conservation group. He does a very good job in public education.” Mies never envisioned himself as a media star capable


of holding an audience’s attention, let alone getting a crowd rippling with laughter. “I never thought I was that type of person,” he says,


sounding bemused at his fame. “I remember in my first couple of programs, I wrote stuff down on index cards. It was terrible. So I set the index cards down.” He gradually grew comfortable simply winging it


onstage, conveying startling facts about bats and outlining what is still unknown. “That is what is cool about science,” he says. “We don’t


know everything.” Mies calls himself a “bat expert,” but he also could be


labeled a wildlife ambassador, a conservation educator or a wildlife biologist. To that list you could also add the title non-profit


entrepreneur; unlike many researchers or teachers, Mies has reached out over the last 21 years and formed partnerships with organizations and businesses such as Chrysler, DTE Energy and Waste Management.


“I


could not originally find a job in bats,” Mies says. “But I made it. It was hard in the beginning, but I am extremely happy now. We’ve been through some difficult economic times, but I’ve formed a lot of partnerships.


It saves money and it’s great brand recognition.” A prime example of partnership is the Cranbrook


Institute of Science, which houses the Organization for Bat Conservation (OBC), a non-profit dedicated to protecting bats and educating the public about them. Through OBC, Mies, his program staff and animal keepers present more than 1,500 programs yearly to nearly 250,000 people. A building called The Bat Zone at Cranbrook houses


some 200 animals, including owls, sloths and 12 different species of bats. Most of the animals have been hurt or disabled in some way and will remain in the staff ’s care. Mies has also participated in The Michigan Bat


Working Group for 15 years, serving as chair for a dozen. “He does all of that voluntarily,” Scullon says. “He’s the


guy that keeps it going.” The choice to attend EMU in the late 1980s came easily


for Mies, who already had three older sisters at Eastern. Once he started, he noticed how regularly students could interact with faculty.


26 Eastern | SUMMER 2013


“You could just walk down the hall, and the door is


open; it’s open access,” Mies says. “I remember playing racquetball with my professors and going canoeing with them.” Mies entered school aiming to take pre-law courses


and become an environmental lawyer; he emerged with a political science major and a focus on conservation and protecting nature. “I got really lucky,” Mies says. “I got hooked up with


graduate students studying bats with Professor Kurta. People weren’t doing that anywhere else. EMU was the best school to study bats.” At Eastern, Mies met a graduate student of Kurta’s,


Kim Williams, who later became his first wife. They met in Costa Rica during an EMU course in tropical ecology. They later founded the OBC together, with Williams eventually serving as co-director with Mies before leaving last year to pursue her interest in clinical psychology. As the OBC grew, so did Mies’s fame, with his TV


appearances producing a wealth of lively YouTube moments. Among the funniest came on an Ellen DeGeneres


Halloween show. Preceding Mies as a guest was actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, who expressed a fear of bats when Ellen noted who was coming up next. Hewitt laughed nervously as Ellen talked, and you


could sense her uneasiness. When Mies brought out his show stopper, a large Malayan Flying Fox with a wing span of some six feet, Hewitt climbed out of her chair and took a seat in the front row as the audience laughed. After the show, she stopped Mies in the hall. “I’m so


sorry,” she said, or words to that effect. “It was great to learn about that stuff.” “That made it real,” Mies says of Hewitt’s anxious exit.


“Bats do strike fear in people. I want to address that.” The Malayan Flying Fox also kindled fear in Conan


O’Brien, a city guy whose unscripted show format played to Mies’s improvisational style. Conan did a doubletake when Mies brought out the spectacular flying fox. Mies has appeared on Martha Stewart’s show four


times. One time Stewart, who apparently loves bats, became engrossed in getting a bat to pay attention to some fruit in a bowl, just as a producer warned it was time to move on to another segment. “Listen,” Stewart said sternly. “I am trying to get this


fruit bat to eat. “ Just another day out of the office for Mies. It’s been a fun journey, with plenty more turns in store.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44