In this excerpt imagineer Eddie Sotto, who was the designer for Main Street in Disneyland Paris, as well as the Indiana Jones Adventure ride and Adventureland re-vamp in Disneyland, among others, shares a wonderful story of how "dreams really do come true."
"When I was a young boy I fancied myself as a 'Disneytologist,' dreaming of one day becoming an Imagineer. It was January 1971, our family was vacationing in Florida and through a friend of the family we were introduced to Don Edgren, the project director of Walt Disney World. Although he didn't know us and was over-his-head busy, Don graciously gave us a VIP tour of what was taking shape.
I still remember gazing at the raw steel and white fibergass facades of Main Street through the rear window of his dusty Chevy Impala. We saw the whole park the way Walt saw it, in a state of becoming. To experience that at age twelve was extraordinary, never to be repeated.
Fast-forward to March of 1986 and my first week at WDI as an Imagineer. Everyone was piling out early to attend the retirement of a Disney Legend. I decided to tag along and see if I could meet this guy. When I got there a man took the stage that looked familiar. It was Don Edgren! They asked if anyone had any stories about Don. To his shock, a much older twelve-year-old stepped up to the mic. It was a short tory of inspiration and a man who didn't have time, but gave enough to inspire a young mind with a ride down Main Street, only to find that twenty years later that same kid would get hired as the show producer/designer for the next Main Street in Paris!
We had a great reunion, and years later, on that French construction site, I remember many happy times walking alone after the crews had gone, strolling through the steel framing of Main Street waiting for that familiar feeling to come over me. I was twelve again."
I have to admit, when I first read this my eyes welled up with tears. Mainly because of all the things I have read about Walt, and what he wanted his company to be. This is an example, of what I took Walt's dreams to mean.
It's incredible to me that one man's high standards for all of his employees remain true today. As I've blogged about before, the employment process is VERY difficult, and once you are hired, the "Disney Look" requires their employees to look a certain way (for women, almost no makeup, natural hair color, and for men no facial hair, and a short, well-maintained haircut - those are just a few.) All these elements help to make Disney stand apart as a very different type of theme park, it is so much more than that, still.
An element of training I am particularly excited about is Traditions, which I will blog more about at a later date, but for the purpose of this entry I will say that it is a course all employees must complete where we learn all of the history of the theme parks, and about Walt himself. From a business perspective, he is a genius.
Here is a picture of Sotto around age 12 with a aerial view of, I believe, Disneyland, next to him.
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