Matt Ouimet Taking over Cedar Fair

[Purpura]

(RTTNews) - Theme-park operator Cedar Fair Entertainment Co. (FUN: News) on Monday named amusement park and hospitality industry veteran Matthew Ouimet as president of the company, effective immediately.
Ouimet will also succeed Dick Kinzel as the company's chief executive officer, when Kinzel retires upon the expiration of his contract on January 3, 2012. Sandusky, Ohio-based Cedar Fair said the action is in line with its previously announced CEO succession planning process.

http://www.rttnews.com/Content/Breaking ... 49855&SM=1

[WWWD]

I have always appreciated Ouimet's work - and he's received a couple of our pins, too!

[CBeilby]

I'm cautiously optimistic about this. As a former Knott's employee, I've not been a fan of the way Cedar Fair does business, but I also worked for Disneyland when he was in charge there, and saw the changes he made to the resort after the years of neglect under Paul Pressler and Cynthia Harris. If anyone could make improvements to Cedar Fair, it'll be Matt Ouimet.

[techie-13]

Hope it brings good things to the parks.
With California's Great America, they are dealing with years of delayed maintenance and currently seem to be really focused on getting through the season just to get to the "Haunt".

[dazyhill]

Well Jack Falfas for years was "heir apparent" to the Cedar Fair throne, so Matt Ouimet has to be better than Jack. The fact that Matt worked for years at Disney and other types of businesses gives him points in my book.
There's a lot of neglect at Knott's too. Mostly on the employee side. The employee parking lot is an eyesore and hasn't been repaved in years.

[CBeilby]

Well Jack Falfas for years was "heir apparent" to the Cedar Fair throne, so Matt Ouimet has to be better than Jack. The fact that Matt worked for years at Disney and other types of businesses gives him points in my book.
There's a lot of neglect at Knott's too. Mostly on the employee side. The employee parking lot is an eyesore and hasn't been repaved in years.

No bloody comparison. Matt is a universe better than Falfas. But, considering his position, and the fact that he's going to be working out of Sandusky, part of what's going to have to happen re. Knotts is going to be a good, old fashioned, snail mail letter writing campaign

Send mail to

[INDENT]Matt Ouimet
One Cedar Point Drive.
Sandusky, Oh, 44870-5259[/INDENT]

Tell him about your concerns with the park. One thing about Matt is that he listens to these things.

[Freak]

While I'm happy it seems that the Devil is finally retiring, I'm not holding my breath to see what I want to see happen @ Knott's. It'll be a slow process if it happens at all.

So I guess put me in the cautiously optimistic boat as well.

[KingsIslander]

I'm really excited about this.

[PatchOBlack]

Remember, folks, Cedar Fair owns more than KBF. As a matter of fact, they run my local amusement park. To be honest, on my last visit there about a year or so ago, while I didn't think it was bad, it also seemed to lack a certain...how can I put this..."sparkle". I think it may have been because, over the years, it seems to have gone from having certain areas following certain themes to more of "amusement park generic". Hopefully, Mr. Ouimet can bring a bit of the twinkle back to the parks.

[Amphigorey]

I don't think I've been to other Cedar Fair parks (Knott's doesn't count since I visited long before they owned it), but the last time I visited Great America, it was filthy. There was trash throughout the park, and the grossest thing was the entire wall of chewing gum in one of the queues. Ick.

Also, when I asked an employee where First Aid was, she didn't know. I thought that was appalling.

I hope Matt Ouimet can bring a little of the Disney standard of cleanliness to the Cedar Fair parks.