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Designer Times by Bob Gurr
Page 2 of 2

Look what (50) years has done to Disney. Known in 1954 as Walt Disney Productions, a movie studio located in Burbank California, the company had maybe a handful of operating departments. The Studio, Character Merchandising, Buena Vista Film Distribution, and a new outfit....Disneyland. Walt had his own WED Enterprises, which sold small parts for home model railroad buffs to build their own Lily Belle locomotives

Look at The Walt Disney Company today (TWDC). Probably (50) times larger in revenue, dozens of business divisions located all over the World. A vast empire encompassing Movies, Animation, TV, Theme Parks, Publishing, Sports, Internet, Consumer Products, Collectibles, Music, VHS and DVD....on and on.
It's really not fair to compare Disney of yesterday and today.....Times change. These companies need all the modern business tools they can use.

What we can compare are the characteristics of the Disney leaders then and now. Walt led a fairly small stabile group of creators and executives...almost a family-like situation where everyone went by their first names and talked freely and easily amongst themselves. Sure, the decorum stiffened up a bit when Walt walked in your door, but the daily work interfaces went pretty smoothly I thought.

For a detailed look at how things have operated over the past twenty years, read Disney War by James B. Stewart. TWDC has thousands of diverse employees in so many different trades. Like all massive organizations, it's almost impossible for one guy to know everything about every business division. So big outfits have big top layers creating a big gap from the top leader down to the folks doing the actual daily work.

In Walt's day, there was virtually no gap. Walt would talk to anyone at any level. Walt would be the first to know when something was not going as he liked. What impressed me so strongly was how Walt and a handful of guys directed all the Disneyland work with almost no administrative layers These guys would be in charge of their own areas and their folks would talk to anyone in the other areas without going thru anyone in charge.

Dick Irvine ran the architectural and set designers who were making construction drawings for the Disneyland buildings, Roger Broggie ran the machine shop which was gathering up all the Disneyland ride stuff, Joe Fowler was in charge of all Disneyland construction contracts. Emil Kuri and Frank Millington handled all the artistic decorations and soft goods like drapery. George Bowers ran the mill at the Studio which was fabricating much of the Disneyland architectural detailing back at the studio including the Mark Twain superstructure.

These guys along with Walt all trusted one another. When Walt would propose some new idea that was not practical, one of them would tell him so on the spot. Idea dropped....try something else. Walt virtually never ordered something dumb and forced a guy to do it, unlike situations in recent years.
This gang seemed to run very smoothly and informally with ongoing decisions being made daily on the spot. I never was aware of any formalized orders or committee reports beyond the basic memos adding some details to the ongoing tasks.

Walt would want something, say to do with Disneyland ride mechanical stuff.
He'd ask Roger Broggie to get me started right away...no paper orders, just "Bob, get started, go talk to whoever you need information from". Walt would then come around every few days to see my progress. He did this with everyone from what I could tell.

Everybody pretty much did whatever tasks needed doing without respect to specific divisions. We all jumped in to help. I found it totally natural to source out some parts, do the purchasing detail, even go get the parts in my own car. Sometimes I'd pick up things on my way to Disneyland that typically should have gone thru the Studio Transportation Department. One day I'd be sketching parts on the shop floor, doing some of the fabrication myself. I'd be the test driver on a new ride, even get costumed up to be the ride operator on opening day. I got the task to train the first ride operators on the Viewliner and Monorail. Wherever you'd go, you'd find everyone pitching in. And Walt would be right there in the middle of it all.

Then when a new attraction would open and Walt could tell the press all about it, you'd then see that twinkle in his eye. Walt was tickled pink.
oOo

Next Month: Projects from Never

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-- Bob Gurr