Matt Ouimet departs Cedar Fair board

Well look no further than what happened at Kings Island in its first year on the roster. Kinzel arbitrarily applied all of the CP paradigms to the park and it was a disaster. Internally they hemorrhaged leadership talent. Sales were a disaster because you could not expect to get the same pass-ticket pricing mix given the close proximity to the city. Food quality went down (people gotta eat!). I will concede that Paramount Parks were not the most efficient, and the mandate from the corporate parent was mostly "don't lose money," so it makes sense. But there was still a lot to learn from them, starting with their embrace of technology and software.

Funny you mention this... I was just talking to a friend who worked at KI under Viacom. He was a (midway) games manager, and as such he could set game prices, payouts, what the prizes were, etc. Management was pretty much as you describe: as long as money was made, or at least not lost, things were fine. The actual operations were all his to control. As soon as CF stepped in, that went away. All decisions came down from above, my friend was reduced to implement and report. That, along with a pay-realignment to CF rates (read: pay cut) basically eliminated his management position and he quit at end of season.

Anecdotally, I've been getting the impression from folks who still work there or recently left, that Cedar Fair is sort of falling back toward that overly corporate, Kinzel knows best, type management style. That at a park level, managers have less and less ability to make decisions. I frequently hear things along the lines of, "We don't make those decisions anymore, Charlotte does." Or, "Charlotte won't let us do that." That's definitely the biggest complaint I hear from folks now is the decrease in their decision making ability. The feeling like they should be the subject matter experts of their own park but are not listened to. There's definitely a lot of frustration and discontent for corporate that wasn't there 5-6 years ago, at least not like this.

I think it's definitely understood that given the company structure, there is always going to be that and infact needs to be to a certain extent. If simply for the sake of consistency and executing a unified company vision. It just feels the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction like it was pre-Ouimet. That a lot of the empowerment done under Ouimet is being undone.

Speaking of reputations of the different park GM's over the years (Hildebrandt, McClure, etc), the reputation the current GM of CP has, at least in the circle I'm familiar with is, "cut, cut, cut." I suspect it's just her carrying out Charlotte's directives.

Again, I just have the impression the CF pendulum is swinging back the too far the opposite way from Ouimet era. Ouimet seemed to have the right balance of empowerment, customer focus, and unit holder value.

Jeff:

Well look no further than what happened at Kings Island in its first year on the roster. Kinzel arbitrarily applied all of the CP paradigms to the park and it was a disaster.

I think the same thing can be said of year one of the Worlds of Adventure/Geauga Lake purchase. There were a lot of dumb decisions that first year. I don't remember them all but they seem to come right after another.

The really dumb one I remember was Geauga Lake had some kind of reading program that they had promoted. Kids read X number of books and they would get a free ticket to the park. As soon as Cedar Fair took over they eliminated that program. The reality is that the cost likely wasn't prohibitive but the bad publicity cost them plenty.

I also recall something about Cedar Fair pissing off a lot of the corporate partners who used to hold large company picnics at the park.

I'll never believe Cedar Fair bought the park to close it. I think Kinzel regretted not buying it back in the 80s when he had the chance. But, the bonehead PR decisions coupled with the significant operating costs Six Flags left them...and the pending economic crisis were just too much to overcome.

One thing to consider about the evolution of leadership at Cedar Fair: the revolving door of full time employees was never like it is today in the Kinzel era. That was a time of 6-day work weeks in-season, shirt ties and strict grooming, no summer vacations, and so on. Today the culture is opposite of that but full time retention is worse. I’d love to read those exit surveys to see what the reasons are for leaving.

The novelty of working in a "fun" place is gone, and the pay is better basically everywhere. I don't think it's a mystery.

A lot of this control that Kinzel (and others in the 70's, 80's and 90's) held was rooted in the fact that if you didn't like the way things were done, there was a qualified pool of people itching for a full-time opening that could replace you. External job postings for management roles were scarce because each park had qualified candidates already, many who had worked for years on seasonal wages and no benefits.

This feeder system has all but evaporated at all parks, as college age kids have abandoned ship on the summer job market. Instead of fun summer jobs, internships that advance your career are deemed essential for upward career mobility. Parks are lucky to get anyone to apply for seasonal jobs anymore, where as twenty years ago they barely had to lift a finger to fill their ranks.

There is a lot less competition for the jobs at the bottom, which affects the middle and the top. Whether or not you need a corporate brain to tell everyone what to do in the absence of talent is certainly debatable.

Wahoo Skipper said

"I'll never believe Cedar Fair bought the park to close it. I think Kinzel regretted not buying it back in the 80s when he had the chance. But, the bonehead PR decisions coupled with the significant operating costs Six Flags left them...and the pending economic crisis were just too much to overcome."

The rumblings from the middle management people I knew from that era was that Kinzel scared to death that the Henningers and McSwigans would by Geauga Lake. They were interested in it the first time it came on the market, but were outbid by Premier. The second time he wasn't going to let the Pittsburgh boys buy it regardless what it would cost. Looking back at it, he probably should have let them have it.......

RideOn's comments are spot-on.

Swap out Dick Kinzel for Tim Fisher; and Sandusky for Charlotte - and the culture, decision-making, empowerment, of Cedar Fair is almost identical now as it was in the mid 2000s.

Fisher has created a monster in Charlotte. Centralizing nearly everything - removing all empowerment of GM and park-level directors/managers that Ouimet instilled and nurtured. The GMs are now little more than figure heads whose only responsibility is cost-cutting at the park and guest experience level - with all strategy and decision-making coming out of Charlotte with an ever-growing, expensive corporate headcount.

It's really sad to hear how much the culture has shifted backwards over the past 5 years of the Zimmerman/Fisher era.

I’ll add that it often seems the individual parks are in hiring freezes for year round positions. Positions that in many cases have been in desperate need of being filled. Positions that have been vacant, let alone creating new positions that could be helpful. At the corporate level however it’s the opposite. CF just feels it’s growing too top heavy.

The more I hear about how things are going, the more I wonder if Ouimet split because of that culture change.

You all know more about the inner workings of the company than I do. I will note that Ouimet took the wheel at a time when the economy was well into recovering from the financial crisis, and that may have made it easier for him to accomplish some of what he did, whereas the current leadership has had to navigate through a pandemic and the strange economy of the last couple of years (including large labor cost increases).

Not denying or excusing any amount of micromanagement or poor decision-making, but at least you can say that the economic environment didn't prevent Ouimet from implementing his plans. It's less clear that's true now.

RideOn:

Ouimet seemed to have the right balance of empowerment, customer focus, and unit holder value.

I wonder if Ouimet voiced his opinions and was tired of it falling on deaf ears to a company he once championed. He certainly doesn't need Cedar Fair.

Is it time to call for a seance and have the sprit of George Boeckling visit Charlotte to straighten things out??? I’m game.

^Only if it brings more trees back to CP and they rip out about five mostly worthless roller coasters. <ducks>

Speaking of trees, I miss Charmland.

Well it's only $12.99 on Amazon.

After going to CP on 9/1 I was glad to see they put a pretty large photo of Boeckling up in the Pavillion behind the bar.

Though I'm sure the common parkgoer assumes it's Teddy Roosevelt.

I still can't fathom celebrating a 150th anniversary, selling everything in the old museum, designing and building most of the new one, and then just stopping.

Also not making the abandoned 10k to 15k playground from Forbidden Frrontier into a Passholder with kids' experience or something.

Did somebody say charm?

Jeff

Yesterday, 8:00 PM
The more I hear about how things are going, the more I wonder if Ouimet split because of that culture change.

That was my initial reaction. You start a new 3 year term on the Board... to abruptly resign 3.5 months later unless there is a health issue (pray to God there is not), a new executive leadership opportunity in which you need to fully devote your time (I haven't heard any announcements since of a new executive role elsewhere for Ouimet) or significant disagreement with management/other Board members. Otherwise, he would have stepped down at end of his 3 year term in May.

Out of the entire Board, only 2 directors remain from his time as CEO so there's been a wholesale shift.

Either Ouimet misread Zimmerman badly (remember, Ouimet appointed Zimmerman as COO over several other internal candidates or going external/Disney route back in 2012 and was his hand-picked successor as CEO in 2017) or Zimmerman never let on how dramatically he'd re-shift the company backwards to the Paramount days. I continue to think Zimmerman bringing on Fisher was one of the worst decisions he made as it squashed any diversity of thought, experiences, strategy, etc. Fisher was really the genesis of shifting CF back to the Kinzel culture but replacing Sandusky with Charlotte and Kinzel with Fisher.