Artesian Alliance’s Leslie Stout building from the ground up

ALBANY – When she picked up the reins at the Artesian Alliance, Leslie Stout brought a balance of administrative experience and training and love of water and animals to the role.

The alliance is the umbrella organization under which the Flint RiverQuarium and Thronateeska Heritage Center operate, and Stout, who took over the duties as executive director on May 4, is looking at building from the ground up.

Splashy new additions at the aquarium will come later, she said, but for now the focus is on putting the organizations on an even keel and achieving accreditation at the RiverQuarium. Stout replaced former Executive Director Tommy Gregors, who served as director of Thronateeska beginning in 2002 and later took on head roles at the RiverQuarium and Chehaw Park & Zoo before being named to lead the Artesian Alliance when it was formed in 2020.

The Chehaw Park Authority split from the Artesian Alliance in February 2026.

Stout brings a degree in urban and regional planning from Florida State University to the role, but she also has experience at attractions in Florida. That experience includes time at Everglades Wonder Gardens in Bonita Springs, where she served as a curator and later became assistant director, a private sanctuary and Zoo World in Panama City Beach.

She arrived in Albany in December 2023 to take on a dual role at the Artesian Alliance and Chehaw Park & Zoo.

“I was really interested in the fact that both organizations were pursuing accreditation,” she said. “We’re currently working on it now for the RiverQuarium. It’s just a preference I have to work somewhere that’s accredited.”

Prior to assuming the role as executive director, Stout said she took on additional responsibilities.

“They said, ‘You want to learn budgeting? Here you go,’” she said. “I’ve done payrolls, all those things. It’s always been a goal. Tommy (Gregors) knew I always wanted to move into that role.”

For now, the new executive director is looking at the building blocks of the organizations.

“I’m just deep in assessment mode … assessing staff, funding sources, which is a huge hurdle for us,” she said. “That’s fine. I’m not about to announce a brand new exhibit.”

Another focus is maintenance and repairs. Currently, the former train depot at Thronateeska is out of commission due to the need to replace the heating and cooling system. The planetarium and science museum remain in operation at Thronateeska.

There are also repair and maintenance needs at the RiverQuarium.

“We want the flashy things, but we need the HVAC unit,” she said. “We don’t want to put a new exhibit at Thronateeska if we don’t have the building ready, so it’s not the glamorous things right now. There’s a lot of different maintenance.”

That takes a lot of planning, breaking down the work into what to do within the next three months, the next six months and the next year, and finding the resources to pay for it.

The alliance has about 22 employees, and Stout is looking to fill some positions, including at the science museum and with facilities and maintenance. In time, Stout says she wants to grow visitorship and increase the attractions’ presence within the community.

The RiverQuarium’s visitorship is driven largely by school groups, so the organization needs to keep an emphasis on that as well.

“It’s really my job to re-energize, re-engage with the public,” Stout said. “I know I can’t do that unless you re-engage with the public. That is what I do.”

The RiverQuarium is also working to collaborate with the Dougherty County government to enhance the Flint River experience at Radium Springs.

“We want to tie in more because it ties into our education,” Stout said. “They want to use our education staff. It just makes sense that we’re involved and can help interpret that space. We’re excited about Radium Springs.”

One recent development that Stout said she is excited about is the arrival of two male striped newts from the Atlanta Biological Garden with the hope of producing more newts with the RiverQuarium’s pair of females. The effort will promote conservation and biological diversity with the newts who hail from a different environment than the Sandhills of southwest Georgia.

“We definitely want to do more of these conservation events,” she said.

At the RiverQuatrium, the Saturday Experience SCUBA is a popular event in which visitors can watch divers clean inside the aquarium and even participate in dives.

“It’s one of my favorite personal things,” Stout said. “It’s something unique that we can share with visitors.

“We are downtown. We want to take that anchor role seriously. There are not zoos and aquariums on every corner. The fact that Albany has this is fantastic.”