What Happened to all the Projects?

To this day Greg is still working on finding a city to joint venture for a waterpark and/or an adventure park. Trying to partner with a manufacturing company for the adventure park was never successful. What resulted was an internal effort to manufacture the structures our selves. The expansion of the Dallas parks was successful with the installation of three new major Splashtacualr, ride manufacturer, attractions.

The Summerlin, Las Vegas waterpark never came to fruition. The building of the park was pushed off a year due to financing complications. Later the management company, HFW, and the investors, the Bulloch’s, parted ways. I do not know they details as to why the two parties separated but do know who came after HFW. Ironically enough the company that took over the management agreement was Village Roadshow. If you are unaware of their work in the amusement industry you do not need to look further than Phoenix. Village Roadshow is the parent company of Wet n Wild Phoenix! The announcement of Wet n Wild Las Vegas was made earlier this year in October. The park is scheduled to open the summer of 2013. 

The Second Opportunity

So as my work ended at WNW and Yost Advisors I decided to find work in something I loved. I started rekindling old acquaintances and tried to feel for what was out there. I remembered an old friend from elementary school who worked for the Arizona House of Representatives. I contacted him to see if they were hiring. He replied and informed me that October marked the beginning of the hiring process for the 2013 season. So I applied and moved forward with the process. Now, I thought to myself, I’m trying to do something I love, public policy. The process was rather intensive but after going through with it I was offered a position page.

I am looking forward to the new journey that the spring semester will bring. I feel beyond blessed that I get to work with our policy makers even if it is at small level. I was actually supposed to start January 7^th but was called to work early. I hope to use this opportunity to learn the ins and outs  of our legislative system to gain an upper hand when it comes to applying for jobs after I graduate. I also hope to make enough connections inside to also help me land a job after I graduate.

           

I can even admit that I will be making less money at the state than when I was a my other jobs but it doesn’t bother me as much. I am ok with where I am now and know that this is the first step to the rest of my journey. 

Not Wanting To Continue

As the year on my contract quickly approached I was faced with making a decision. Should I continue in this industry or should I try something new? I was starting to feel unhappy in my position. I know that we all have to start somewhere but I didn’t feel, as though where I was, was a position that was going to get me where I wanted to be. As I have stated I want to help and serve people. I feel as though that could be a position in a non-profit or government agency. I also feel as though I can serve people through politics. The one thing I knew was that I was not going to achieve my dream by staying in the amusement industry.

I felt that at both positions I held with Greg and WNW that I was not getting paid enough, I won’t go into details. I also knew that there was a limited amount of room for advancement. I had peaked at my positions and knew it would be a long time before I moved up or I would need change. When the time came for renewal I informed Greg that I was no longer going to work with for him. As I stated earlier he was a long time family friend and he understood where I was coming from. So with his blessing I left and moved on. 

Texas Part II

The second half of my trip consisted of spending time at the waterparks. At this point I was separated from Greg and spent time with another intern at the company. Our job was to secret shop the five waterparks in the Dallas area. We had to see if we could sneak into the park, try all the food, buy a locker, see if we were offered a souvenir cup and observe any oddities.

This task was an all day event because every park was at least one hour apart. We were successful in getting to every park by the end of the day. Every park varied slightly in their operation some executed better than others. We were successful in sneaking in a few times and did catch some odd behavior from employees but it had to be done. After we had gathered all the information we then had to compile it and send it as a presentation to the VP of Operations so that he could show it to his general managers.

It was nice spending the day at the five waterparks and trying some cool new attractions but it was also cool that our feedback was being taken on what the park operations were like. 

A week in Texas Part I

Over the course of the year Greg and I discussed spending my summer at the Dallas waterparks. This would allow me see the parks operations first hand. Time went by and no solid plans were made. So by the time we wanted to set something up it was too late! So we settled on me going out there for a week.

I arrived in Dallas with Greg and we made our way to our hotel. I was to spend the first few days with Greg and then move on to spending time at the parks. While with Greg we met with the Texas State Fair and explored the idea of installing an adventure park at their fair! We wanted to place one in Texas because the Texas fair set the standards for the other state fairs. If Texas bought an adventure park then so would everyone else!

We also met with the people at PrimePlay Inc. The direct competitors to White Water West. We tried working on an water ropes course with them too but pricing was too high. The director of the state fair was generous enough to give us a tour of the facilities, which was awesome! They also gave us the inside scoop on their up and coming attraction. The fair is in the process of building the worlds tallest observatory tower, i.e. space needle. 

100+ Projects

It was our duty to find a new location for the next Hawaiian Falls Waterpark. Greg would travel two weeks a month in search of a joint venture agreement with any city that would have it. It was my job trying to land Greg meetings in the different cities and arrange all of his agendas, directions and travel arrangements.

We were working in finding a place in states like Arizona, California, Alabama, Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Florida, and Hawaii. In each state named above there were at least twenty cities we contacted and continued contact with in order to try and land an agreement. It was utter chaos trying to keep everything organized and up to date. I could honestly not keep up with the rate of meetings we had and the amount of work we had to do. The list only grew larger by the week. We went from one rolling suitcase to three in a matter of weeks. Each rolling case jammed with correspondence and agendas from previous meetings with each city.

IAAPA Part III

My favorite experience at the IAAPA Conference was when we met with a major hotel CEO from the Las Vegas strip and discussed the possibility of building them a waterpark. What I enjoyed most about the meeting was the people in attendance. First was a gentleman named James Yust, also known as the father of waterparks. Another gentleman who used to be the director of Disney's Imagineers. Lastly was the CEO of the major Las Vegas hotel.

Keep in mind this meeting was to see the possibility of building a water park and what that would consist of. The Las Vegas CEO would raise a question and the experts in the room were charged with answering them. I enjoyed listening to the experts draw on their previous experiences and why they felt a certain  way. It was also cool because it is not every day that you have access to those kinds of people!