The State of the Industry

I was at Disney for 28 years and I’ve been at Universal for six. In college I was a Jungle Cruise Skipper at Disneyland; in grad school, I worked at Universal Studios as a tour guide. Professionally, it’s practically all I’ve known. And now, thanks to circumstances none of us could have foreseen just a year ago, the business that I love, that I dreamed about being a part of when I was a kid, that has taken care of me and my family all these years, has shaped my life and friendships and given me immense creative fulfillment, has vanished. All the amazing colleagues I have worked should-to-shoulder with making dreams come true for millions of happy kids and “kids at heart” all over the world find ourselves at a loss. We know we will soon be engaged in brilliant and clever projects in brighter days ahead but there’s the sticky question of “now.” Here’s what I plan to do in the days and months immediately ahead on this rocky path: I want to take all my personal passion, inspiration and penchant for magic-making and share it with the people both in and not in our business. Imagine infusing audiences with the possibility of magic and the magic of possibility, exposing companies to new ways of seeing old problems, and inspiring people to create in ways they never dreamed possible. This website describes how I’m going to tackle this exciting ambition. So, while this is my first week on my own after 34 straight years working for these two great companies, I look forward to taking on this new and scary challenge. Because making something new that never existed before is, after all, what we do.