The path to a dream is rarely a straight line. For Dr. Jeff Hess, an exotic animal veterinarian whose passion was ignited by the infectious enthusiasm of Steve Irwin, it was a journey that included a turbulent detour through the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lonely nights of emergency medicine—all before he could truly take flight.
Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, Dr. Hess’s childhood ambition wasn’t to wield a stethoscope but a joystick. “I always wanted to be an Air Force pilot,” he admits. “If they didn’t let me fly, I probably would have been a carpenter. I like working with my hands, building things.” That practical, hands-on creativity would later become the bedrock of his veterinary practice, where he builds solutions for the most unusual of patients.
His true calling, however, was for the weird and the wonderful—the scaly, the feathered, and the slimy. He carried a fascination for exotic animals from Buffalo to the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine and straight into an elite internship at the Center for Bird and Exotic Animal Medicine in Bothell, Washington. It was there, doing high-quality exotic medicine, that he landed his dream job…