Cedar Point VP moving to Dorney Park

Wow, lots of great people got promotions that they certainly deserved. There are some good people going to Geauga Lake which is reassuring. Congrats to everyone and keep my dividends coming!!!!

Does anyone know who is Geauga Lake's Operations VP or Director?

This is something I posted over at GTTP on the same topic...

I figured that some big wigs would be moving to Geauga Lake, but I found it more interesting that Hilderbrandt has been promoted to VP and General Manager of Dorney.

He was only previously in the marketing department of Cedar Point, and now he gets the huge promotion to manage Dorney. But he has been around for quite a while and seemed pretty integral in the development of the Dragster project.

It almost seems like this distribution of managers may have happened anyway, independent of the acquisition of Geauga Lake...the shuffle would just have happened without one more park to send them to. If I were Kinzel, I'm sure I would do something very similar to this.

By sending very qualified individuals who started out at Cedar Point to sister parks, he is solidifying that the Kinzel mentality of operations remains strong throughout the Cedar Fair properties after he retires. And by sending the parks these employees now, there is ample time to groom their replacements to perform just as well while holding their positions at Cedar Point.

CP is getting a somewhat younger crop of managers now. They've been working in the trenches, and now they're empowered to make changes based on their experience. Of those that I know or have met, none strike me as real ego types, and they love their jobs. I think it'll be good for CP.

Hildebrandt might have been marketing all of his career, but he knows the business after being in it that many years. (I'd also mention that all of the senior managers at the park rotate through a duty schedule running the park throughout the season.) It sounds like there's a great team in place at Dorney and I have no doubt he'll be successful there. He's a great guy, and was always the first to encourage me personally over the years when I'd start networking after a layoff. He's world class.

I think Geauga Lake is getting a lot of bright talent as well, and I think the turn around there will be swift and dramatic.

Volcano,

The Geauga Lake Director of Operations is a nice lady from Worlds of Fun.

Her name is Bridget Collins and she has vast waterpark and hard ride experience at Worlds and Oceans....and yes, she is very nice!*** This post was edited by hangingandbanging 4/27/2004 10:14:10 PM ***