Matt Ouimet departs Cedar Fair board

RideOn

Yesterday, 6:50 PM
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.

Spot on, except it's not growing too top heavy - it already is and is suffocating the park-level senior leaders and operators. CF's margins have never recovered - and they won't fully - because they now have this massive amount of fixed cost sitting in Charlotte. And it's absolutely at the detriment of their park level folks. With the tough year the California parks are having (primarily due to weather in Q1 and Q2), it looked like they pulled all the FT roles for Knott's and CGA back this spring/early summer. A few have returned but not what it once was. I'll be interested to see how long Jon Storbeck stays on at Knott's now that Ouimet is fully gone from the company. He was the former VP of Disneyland Park that Ouimet brought over as GM at Knott's. That'd be a huge loss as Knott's has delivered outstanding results much of the last decade.

It is interesting that Iger's hand-picked successor (Chapek) was largely regarded as a flop, and so too is Ouimet's hand-picked successor. I think highly of both Iger and Ouimet so what conclusion can be drawn? They both were good at recognizing talent so it may have less to do with them and more to do with the personalities that came after.

I've been in the position of taking over for a highly regarded CEO who had things running very well when he left. Our culture wasn't perfect before he retired...but it was running well. There is a huge temptation for a new leader to "put their stamp" on the organization...and dare I say, there is an expectation. I can understand that desire...but I was very conscious of not making any drastic changes...and even careful about small changes that might have led to unintended consequences. I believe that strategy has proved successful because all of the executive leadership that was here before my transition remains today.

In defense of Cedar Fair and Zimmerman...a lot of the talent drain (at least at Cedar Point) was coming regardless of who was taking over. Many of the folks I worked with in the 90s are of the generation that was going to be retiring on a natural timeline that coincided with the executive leadership change but I'm not sure can be blamed on it. Perhaps they lost some people due to the culture change. Or, perhaps the culture changed because they lost a generation of CP leaders who literally aged out.

And, if you have taken any leadership classes in the last decade or so you know that Kinzel's leadership style is not one that is considered effective with today's workforce. I was at a conference last week with sessions such as "Servant Leadership", "Empathy in the Workplace", etc. I just can't picture Kinzel (or many of the leaders who I worked for in the 90s) sitting in one of those classes...let alone buying into them.

Servant leadership works. It shouldn't be confused with not enforcing accountability, but when you ask your people what you can do to help them be successful, that tone makes a difference. Some people need oversight, sure, but most only need guard rails, if that.

The Disney situation is unique. I can't blame Iger for his choice, because that position is too unique to be able to predict who might be good at it. It's not like there's a long list of candidates who have run a successful, diverse media and theme park conglomerate. Those people don't exist until they have the job. But at Cedar Fair, to Don's point, there was a pretty good machine in place with a lot of success. The pandemic was a unique problem, but it doesn't mean that they couldn't keep operating in a similar fashion a year later.

I've wondered if things would have been different for Chapek had the pandemic not gone into full force a week or so after his being named CEO and/or if Iger hadn't been asked to stick around. (Or if the fascist governor of Florida hadn't decided he didn't want people acknowledging homosexuality.) And maybe it just would have delayed the inevitable. He made some poor decisions under pressure and the chips might have fallen differently if he had more time to grow into the position without a massive social and business upheaval and his predecessor hanging out in the office.

I'm still surprised Josh D'Amaro is still around after Iger came back... Every time he speaks I feel my IQ drop. In a perfect world, and if Iger truly believed in creativity like Walt that division would be led by a senior Imagineer with vision, instead of some accountant. Just imagine if every park had the philosophy of the Tokyo Resort.

As a person who has both the public mailers for WestCot and the 30s Cali Resort Plan, Disney's America, and hunting for the Port Disney flyer and lust after Tommorowland 2055 crew jackets. The wholesale hault of the Disney Decade is still being felt today, and I think Eisner's trepidation across al parks post Paris rubbed off on Iger the wrong way.

I do think Zimmerman prob held some grudge against the CF and Kinzel management style being pushed across the chain, and I think is trying to adopt a more Paramount Park logic post-Ouimet but ironically in a Kinzel fashion. He is also 58, and I think will definitely not hold on as long as Kinzel. I just hope a manager still left from Ouimet era rights the ship slightly,

I want to know who killed Ouimet’s plinko games?! Shame!!!! That’s part of his legacy!

I thought that Plinko game was great...but I wondered how they were allowed to operate it. I always understood that games of "chance" were considered gambling...while legal midway games were dependent on a "skill", and therefore were not gambling. You'd be hard pressed to argue that Plinko was anything but a game of chance.

But, I'm no lawyer and admit to being out of my lane on this one.

If the player gets to choose the initial placement, that might be enough to qualify it as a "skill." It would depend on how the statute is written.

Makes me think of this story from The Price Is Right.