$10 million gift puts John H. McConnell II at the Center of Zoo’s next chapter
The $10 million gift now propelling the Columbus Zoo, The Wilds, and the future John F. Wolfe Aquarium carries the names of two philanthropic institutions—the McConnell Foundation and The Worthington Companies Foundation.
But behind it is a more personal Central Ohio story: John H. McConnell II, the third-generation heir to a manufacturing legacy built by his grandfather and a longtime zoo leader, is helping turn an inherited commitment into a new chapter for one of the region’s most important public institutions.
McConnell II, vice chair of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium Board of Directors and a director of both Worthington Enterprises and Worthington Steel, stands at the convergence of the family business, the family philanthropy, and the zoo’s future.
The commitment is formally a joint gift from the McConnell Foundation and the Worthington Companies Foundation, but its meaning reaches back nearly five decades to an earlier generation of McConnell support that helped change the zoo’s physical and philosophical character.
In 1979, John H. McConnell—founder of Worthington Steel Company and grandfather of the current zoo board leader—became the first donor to help finance an outdoor gorilla habitat at the Columbus Zoo. At a time when American zoos were beginning to rethink how animals should live in human care, the project helped move Columbus toward a more naturalistic approach to habitat design and animal well-being. It was an early expression of a family belief that business success carried with it an obligation to improve the community around it.
John P. McConnell, the founder’s son, carried forward that principle, and John H. McConnell II is now advancing it.
The latest $10 million investment—the second-largest gift in the Columbus Zoo’s history—will support the planned John F. Wolfe Aquarium, The Wilds in southeastern Ohio, and conservation programs locally and around the world. The aquarium is expected to open in 2029 as a more than 100,000-square-foot destination with over 10,000 animals representing roughly 300 species and more than 1 million gallons of freshwater and saltwater exhibits.
For McConnell II, the gift is not simply an extension of a corporate charitable program.
It is a continuation of a family relationship with the zoo that began before he held board titles or corporate directorships—a relationship shaped by a founder who believed institutions such as the zoo could become tools for both public education and long-term stewardship of wildlife.
“My grandfather believed deeply in giving back to the community, and his early support of the Zoo reflected that belief,” McConnell said in announcing the gift. “My father, John P. McConnell, carried that relationship forward, and I’m proud to continue it today alongside the hardworking employees of Worthington Enterprises and Worthington Steel.”
That last point is central to the way the McConnell family and Worthington frame the contribution. Worthington’s philanthropy is not presented solely as the generosity of a prominent family; it is tied to the people who work in the companies’ Central Ohio operations.
Worthington Enterprises and Worthington Steel together employ more than 1,800 people in the region, and the foundations describe the gift as an outgrowth of a broader corporate culture in which a locally rooted workforce helps make major community investment possible.
Still, McConnell II gives the donation its human center.
He represents the visible continuity between a grandfather who built a steel company in 1955, a father who sustained the family’s civic commitments, and a new generation confronting a different set of questions: how a major zoo remains relevant, how it teaches the public about biodiversity loss, and how it can pair visitor experiences with authentic conservation work.
The aquarium project’s scale makes the timing especially important. The Columbus Zoo has described the John F. Wolfe Aquarium as its largest capital initiative to date, with a projected cost of $175 million.
Earlier, the Robert Wolfe and Edgar T. Wolfe Foundation committed $50 million to the project, the largest gift in the zoo’s history. The new McConnell-Worthington commitment adds another $10 million and expands the scope beyond the aquarium itself to include The Wilds and conservation programs.
For Tom Schmid, president and CEO of the Columbus Zoo and The Wilds, that broader commitment is what makes the gift transformative.
It will help bring the aquarium to life, he said, while strengthening the zoo’s conservation work in Ohio and globally and creating new ways for families to encounter, understand, and care about wildlife.
The story, then, is not only about a large donation or a future building. It is about John H. McConnell II taking up a family responsibility that has become part of Columbus’s civic landscape. His grandfather’s gift helped create a new kind of gorilla habitat.
His family’s latest contribution will help create an aquarium designed for a public more aware of ecological fragility, species loss and the need for conservation action.
Nearly half a century separates those two moments. What connects them is a family’s enduring belief that a company built in Central Ohio should keep investing in the institutions that help define Central Ohio—and that protecting animals and inspiring future generations is worthy of a long-term, deeply personal commitment.