In my last article, I gave an overview of the first part of the Disney University & American Workplace, a theme park idea I created in the hopes of proving my creativity to the Disney University and getting a job at Disney. This article highlights the rest of the park, and how my efforts in using this enormous concept paid off in terms of getting a job.
This aerial sketch outlines a more 3D view of the entire Disney University & American Workplace. Drawing by J. Jeff Kober
Factoryville celebrates a world of machinery and iron–the hard work, the sweat, and the muscle that has forged our country. Businessburg commemorates the spirit of free enterprise, the excitement of corporate innovation, and the busy bee approach of downtown life. Both themes are magnets–repelled by its differences on the one hand, yet electrified by its ability to create a place unique among all others–The American Workplace.
Let’s look at the attractions that make up Factoryville. Within this section are smaller blue-collar themes. The military is one of those themes. Another is a train yard or gatehouse. Along one side is a wharf with ships and docks of varying sizes. But the crown center of Factoryville is Iron Works, a common man’s castle rising against the sky.
Closer view of the American Workplace portion of the park. Photo by J. Jeff Kober
B1 Candle on the Water. During excellent weather, guests are welcomed to small flatbed boats, where they are free to dine by candlelight on the water. Later meal reservations include selected docking during the Pageant of Life.
B2 Mess Hall. Located in Camp Courage, this counter-service eatery offers “chow time” favorites. The seating area extends throughout the barracks area and is overlooked by the battleship. From exterior decks, guests can view the musical, Shows Ahoy saluting the U.S. armed forces.
B3 Spy Watch. This is one of two pavilions in Camp Courage celebrating the contribution of the U.S. armed forces. This attraction is an elaborate laser gun playground that takes guests inside a top-secret military facility. Guests pass through a battleship, a submarine and an army depot warehouse.
B4 Swan Boats. These boats, once seen in the Magic Kingdom, have returned to a permanent home here. Though their function is utilitarian, taking guests from Disney’s Board & Breakfast, through the Disney Institute atrium, through the park and to the Disney Dorm, the voyage is serene and the scenery lovely.
B5 Building Improvement or How to Build a (Fun) House. Tim Allen acts as host throughout as the field of construction is highlighted in this dynamic fun house playground. Guests will slide down a cement chute, roll in barrels of cement piping, avoid sprays of water from leaking pipes, and enter a maze of two-by-four frame structures. Hard Hat Area is a small store offering hats of all kinds and sizes.
B6 The Great Candy Factory. This attraction is a walking tour of a candy factory. Hosted by Roger Rabbit, Guests will view chocolate melting pots, sugar loading docks, and taffy pulling machines. Confectionary Collaboration is a candy store sits modestly to meet eager appetites afterward.
B7-B8 Iron Works. This iron ride attraction is an “E” ticket for sure, but it is not a roller coaster. Located inside an iron works plant, guests are invited to an open house, a constant carnival of activity that surrounds the loading dock, which is acting as an outdoor stage. Management has thrown an open house in attempts to simmer feelings between union and management. The queue begins innocently as a tour. But, behind the scenes, we see union and management quarreling over the safety of the plant. As an effort to prove how safe the plant is, guests are loaded into empty vats, and hoisted through an unusual tour inside the plant. Lifted by chains on an overhead conveyor belt, guests are brought into the inner workings of the smelter. Chains snap, things go awry as guests plummet, twist, and turn over hot furnaces of iron steel, complete with steam, fire, heat and the smell of sulfur. Its message and finale points to how management and labor must work together for the common good. Union Shop offers merchandise celebrating the life of the blue-collar worker. The Loading Dock puts on a special show known as Whistleblow. On the hour, dancers take the stage, and to the tunes of Allentown and the Anvil Chorus, the Iron Works factory comes alive like the pipes of an organ with steam, smoke and a dousing of fireworks.
Daytime show underway on the docks of the Iron Works in Factoryville. Photo by J. Jeff Kober
B9 Bungee Yard. Playing off of the concept of bungee jumping, three construction cranes face each other, hosting brave souls in a vertical extreme experience. Meals Under Construction is a counter-service facility located in the shade of the Bungee Yard. Seating is shared with Hobo Works, next to the Loading Dock stage.
B10 Gatehouse Depot. Disneyland’s original design by Herb Ryman suggested an active gatehouse. Here guests will be able to view trains as they come on and off line. Disney’s own train history will be on active display here at the Rail Museum. Extending from the gatehouse is an abandoned train car. Known as Hobo Works, guests can step right up to it. Here local vagabonds have started their own entrepreneurial operation and the highlight of the menu is the Hobo Hoagie. The dining area is alongside the loading dock plaza. The Better Mouse Trap is a one-of-a-kind store celebrating the spirit of invention. Here small time inventors can try out their products on the open market. The products range from new-fangled can openers to car drink holders to nose hair removers. The setting is much like that of a general store.
B11 Boogie Woogie Bakery Factory. Serving as a small transition from Camp Courage to Factoryville is a working bakery. Through windows on the sides guests can view tempting bakery delights popping fresh from the oven.
B12 Camp Courage Armed Services Center. All four armed services have a new home in Camp Courage for recruiting purposes. Each service will have their own multimedia presentations, and recruiters will be on hand to answer questions.
B13 A Day of Service. The entrance to this presentation is a formal military academy. As they queue, General Norman Schwartzkopf summons the troops and introduces them to this presentation. From there they will enter a circle-vision theater. To guests, the setting appears as a desert camp, as they walk onto the cool desert sand, one sees in this elaborate set a sunrise emerging into the horizon. The Circlevision film will feature a day of service across the four corners of the globe. From the depths of the ocean to the wild blue yonder, you’ll see Navy Seals training to a family shopping in a commissary, to men and woman flying over a desert, to a research officer at the South Pole. The show is narrated by a young enlisted soldier who appears from a tank down center of the audience. The effect is to pay recognition to those whose lives have been in service to their country. Camp Courage Supply House is located near the exit offering military-themed merchandise from posters to dog tags to books to GI Joes.
Businessburg
Businessburg is a salute to the white-collar worker. The architecture has a distinct 1930s and 1940s look, with most buildings only four or five stories, but with a greater forced perspective.
C1 Enterprise Plaza. All of the streets in this corner of the park funnel into Enterprise Plaza. This sunny, spacious area, looks out to the Fountains of Life and across a grassy stroll. Guests are treated to a variety of entertainment appearing on barges during the day. At night, the evening is climaxed by the Pageant of Life. The Pageant of Life is the park’s night time spectacular. The show, created by Andrew Lloyd Webber, speaks of the joy of living and the great potential of mankind. It traces the life of a person from birth to childhood to adulthood to family and then to death. Paralleling this are the four seasons of the year.
The Pageant of Life from the guest point of view. Illustration by J. Jeff Kober
C2 The Disney Institute. This facility holds two purposes: First, for conferences and seminars not held in other park facilities; second for ongoing cast member training. This facility is the crowning jewel in the number of facilities that exist as part of the Disney University. It feeds off of not only the three hotels nearby, but the resources of the park. In entering the facility, guests step into the large atrium with a river bisecting through the building. It’s located close to the Waltorf Hotel and Disney’s Board & Breakfast. A smaller park entrance and train station also accompany this facility.
C3 Suburb Station Stop. This is the stop for the railroad that encircles the entire park. Nearby, Dave’s Dogs vs. Pauline’s Pretzels focuses on a friendly competition where the two vendors entertain and get crowds to cheer them on.
C4 The IBM Pavilion. At the entrance to this attraction is a large 42-foot IBM monitor screen. From in front, guests can write messages, render graphics, and play computer games, while stepping on the various keys and pressing the oversized mouse. Inside Computer Wars carries guests into a high-speed simulation where they journey through the internet in an effort to stop a Michelangelo sized virus from breaking out. The IBM Lab greets guests with games much like those found in Innoventions. Bits and Bytes sits adjacent and offers wafer sandwiches along with a selection of chips.
C5 Red Tape. The expression “a maze of red tape” is given new meaning in this labyrinth of offices, board rooms, and cubicles, all in search of B-Z Company’s all important water cooler. Along the way they run into a menagerie of Audio-Animatronic and Streetmosphere characters typifying the office politics that many guests can relate to. Underlying this maze are subtle-yet-comical organizational behavior themes. Passing the Bar is a counter-service juice bar that offers a comical tribute to attorneys and lawyers. Legal props dress the facility, and a 1,001 lawyer jokes are inscribed on the walls. Late for Work is a store themed to a more 1990s style White Rabbit. This clock shop offers unusual clocks, alarms, watches, and specialty items.
C6 Waltorf Hotel Plaza. Forming a border on one side of Businessburg is the Waltorf Hotel. Towards the center of this hotel is where guests enter and depart the park when journeying to the hotel. Rising from the fountain in front is a re-creation of the Tower of Four Winds.
C7 Stocks. This is a musical comedy on how to understand the stock market. With hosts literally representing the Bear and Bull markets, and using polling technologies found in Epcot’s Electronic Forum, guests make collective choices as they invest in the market. The show progresses in several ways depending on the choices Guests make.
Bear and the Bull are the stars of Stocks. Illustration by J. Jeff Kober.
C8 Disney Department Store offers a thorough array of Disney merchandise, including new brands that can only be found here. The setting is reminiscent of great department stores in New York such as Macy’s or Gimbels. It’s an ideal shopping place for guests waiting for the Pageant of Life to occur. The Lillian Disney Gallery of Art offers fine art, with a wing devoted to cels and Imagineering works. Facilities on the upper floor accommodate auctions from time to time. The Diamond District is a reminiscent of New York’s famed jewelry shops; chandeliers and plush carpets grace this quiet, almost out of the way store. Chairman of the Board Games is a toy store with walls looking like a game board and over-scaled game pieces.
C9 First Class. Billed as “Dinner and a Hijack,” this unusual lunch/dinner theater combines the technology of a flight simulation with the type of musical humor found in the Diamond Horseshoe Jamboree. Guests will board a 240-seat airliner where they are served a snack or meal. During which singing and dancing, pilots and flight attendants lead us through a musical “who’s hijacking the plane?” mystery. Actors are seated among the guests, each being accused through the flight. As a climax to the show, guests are led through an emergency landing. Adjacent is Celeport, which is Walt Disney World’s heliport that provides first-class access for guests and executives between Orlando International and the Disney University. Plane Old News is a small newsstand complementing the airport surroundings of Celeport.
D4 Disney’s Board & Breakfast Sitting to the north of the park is a hotel built as a cluster of homes akin to San Francisco’s Lombard Street. They serve as a board and breakfast style inn. Dinners, breakfasts, and even late-night snacks are served right inside these Victorian three-story homes that circle a lake. From the lake, the Swan boats can take you to various points throughout. Rates are more expensive than the Disney Dorm, but less expensive than the Waltorf.
D5 Waltorf. This hotel is of a caliber as Disney’s Grand Floridian. In the same theme as fine hotels of New York City, this plush hotel acts as a backdrop to Businessburg. It is ideal for guests attending activities at the Disney Institute. One floor of the building is for guests preferring concierge services. Restaurants, shops, and other hotel amenities complete the services of this hotel.
So as you can see when you add up all the attractions, shops, and restaurants of this park, it was a fairly grand and elaborate design. But I put my soul and heart into it because I saw this as a way of introducing myself to management at the Disney University, and, ultimately getting a job, much like Tony Baxter designed Big Thunder Mountain in hopes of getting a job at WED Enterprises.
So how did it go? Well, a friend of mine was administrative assistant to the vice president of the Disney University at that time. She asked as a favor that she meet me. But the day of the interview, an emergency came up, and she asked someone else to meet with me. That substitute manager wasn’t sure why I was even interviewing. I don’t believe an actual position was open. But I came dressed up and ready to make a presentation. After some introductions and history, I got ready to open the package I was carrying with all of my matted drawings and ideas in it. She stopped me. She said, “If that’s an idea for a new attraction, I am not allowed by policy to look at it.” I told her it wasn’t a new attraction, but rather an idea for an entire park based on the Disney University that I had concocted as evidence of my creativity. She again stated I could not show her, that Disney legal did not allow me to show her such. She then went on to say that she couldn’t understand why Disney University would hire me. I tried to explain that I had a strong background in training, but she said that they usually promote from within, not from outside the organization. I told her I knew more about Disney than anyone outside the company. That didn’t satisfy her. She said they would keep my resume on file, but they had no immediate plans.
I cannot tell you how low I felt that day. My dreams of working at Walt Disney World were shattered. I felt dejected and sad. But by the time I got back to my car I knew I had to approach this some other way.
Somehow I was introduced to a man who worked for Disney Multimedia Group. You may have heard of a plan once to build a road with wires stretched on it that would play “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” as cars passed along the road. This was the person. After meeting him for sushi one day, he introduced me to his manager, who in turn introduced me to an executive in Disney Sales & Marketing. Group Sales was looking for an interactive presentation that would be used by potential clients to see what their group event might be like. Working above Italy at Epcot, I designed the first interactive Walt Disney World presentation where you would click on a park or resort and it would expand and provide you other maps and information you would click on.
For the mid 1990s this was new stuff to Disney. In time, my administrative assistant friend saw what I was working on and, in lieu of having her VP direct report take her to lunch for Secretary’s Day, she asked that she go to Italy and see what I was working on. And that’s what happened on Secretary’s Day that year. Valerie Oberle, who was then over Disney Professional Development Programs (later to be retitled as the Disney Institute), came to my office and saw my work. Within a few hours, one of her managers came to visit me as well…and as they say…the rest is history.
So even though I thought that creating this huge park would be the tool to get me a job, it was really networking and relationships. And it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t live here and knew someone. I’m grateful forever grateful for Diann Rowland, Valerie’s administrative assistant, who has been a great friend, and who helped pave the way for me getting that job.
I wrote an article a month ago about how to get a job at Walt Disney World. My message was centered on the importance of doing what you do well, of being the best at what you do, and being well networked. I don’t know of any other recipe for getting a job. But if you do those things, “Fate is kind” as the song says, and you have a good sporting chance. It happened to me. I was capable. I was expert. But most of all, I was blessed to know people like Diann. And that’s how the magic can happen for you.
P.S. Was building the Disney University & American Workplace worth it? Hmmm. I spent a lot of time on it. It wasn’t what got me the job. But it did keep my hopes alive. I look back on that work and think I should have followed promptings to approach it differently. But in the end, “Fate is kind…” as the song goes.
See you in the parks!
