reunion – Disney Employee Engagement Speaker

In Disney’s body

Disney leaders at a January 2025 reunion — L-R: me, Kevin, Tracy, Laura, Kathy. Kathy, Laura and i worked as mid-1980’s Disney’s Contemporary Resort Front Desk Leads.

Pictured above, coincidently, are four people i worked with before joining Disney Institute in 1999.

Kevin, with his back to us, was the Resort Operations Area Manager when i was on DLDP at Disney’s Village Resort (DVR) in 1987. Kevin rose to a Resort Vice President.

He ran leadership meetings more efficiently and effectively than anyone i ever encountered at Disney.

By the way, DVR later became Disney Institute, and then (and now) Disney’s Saratoga Springs Vacation Club.

Didn’t think of this until trying to theme this post to ‘body’…no one asked me (and i never expected anyone to) if i am still bicycling. Cheryl and i had one car, two jobs with different schedules, and we lived 30 miles from Disney’s Contemporary Resort. We also had two nice bicycles. i rode one of them to work for several years. We eventually bought a second car.

Final note: Mentioned in the second paragraph, DLDP stood for Disney’s Leadership Development Program. It later changed to DMDP, Disney’s Management Development Program.

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This website is about our BODY. To read today’s post about our SPIRIT, click here.

From a mistake, an amazing opportunity

Live like you mean it — Known each other since 1977, freshman year at West Chester State College (now WCU). Glacier National Park, Summer 2016 (Lake Josephine).

From a mistake, an amazing opportunity; will get to that in a minute.

Booked last week’s trip to Glacier National Park as a last resort for a Summer trip because it was the only available reservation out of all the Glacier National Park Lodges – apparently, booking four months in advance isn’t even close to being enough. In a panic, i took the last week of August (the only thing available for the entire Summer).

i knew it would be a bad idea to take our son out of school for a week on the third week of the new school year.

Desperate, i booked the only option.

Each week i went back to the Glacier National Park reservations site and a month later, a miracle – an opening for an entire week at Rising Sun the first week of August (and no school conflict)..

Kept the August reservations – there were two. Four nights at Rising Sun, two nights at Apgar.

Later, a college buddy accepted the invite to travel that final August week.

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This website is about our physical health. To easily leave this site to read today’s post on jeff’s spiritual health website, click here.

Surprisingly joyful, out of nowhere

West Orange County trail system under construction near Disney’s Magic Kingdom.

Disney University lobby floor icon — i always stop for a drink of water here when running through Walt Disney World property.

Long-time Disney Cast Members — Left to right: me (30 yrs) Bob (44 yrs), Dale (35 yrs), Inez (42 yrs).

Walt Disney World opening Day Cast Member name tag — Bob was there on opening day, October 1, 1971, which means he was hired before WDW opened.

Surprisingly joyful, out of nowhere. That’s what happens sometimes. In miles five and six above, you’ll notice the pace slowed to a crawl while i talked with not only three Cast Members i worked with in the 1980’s, but also three Disney Institute Cast Members i worked with last year.

My three Contemporary colleagues have 44, 42, and 35 years respective service at Walt Disney World. Then there’s me, a pup, with only 30.

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This website is about our physical health. To leave this site to read today’s post on my spiritual health website, click here.

Real life in real time yesterday

34th annual Fraternity reunion — Maggie was the center of attention, She found my “Jack the Bear”.

Slept in until 6am yesterday. Why mention it? Because being intentional about our health means we over manage certain things we used to under manage or ignore.

Sleep is one of them.

While sleeping in didn’t get me to eight hours, it did provide one more hour than waking up at 5am, which would have been better for getting my writing done.

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