Article published today in the Orlando Sentinel:
Also a column published today in the Sentinel
While we can rightly criticize Eisner for his performance over the last ten or so years, it is easy to forget that at the time Eisner and Wells took over it was widely feared that Disney would be acquired and cease to exist.
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
Eisner legacy: A bigger Disney
Theme parks, region flourished during his tenure
Jerry W. Jackson
Sentinel Staff Writer
September 28, 2005
There are no airports named for Michael Eisner in Central Florida. No major roadways or subdivisions. But the outgoing chief of the Walt Disney Co. has left his mark.
For better or worse, many community leaders say, the area was shaped by the ego and ambition of the company's long-serving chief executive.
As the top boss at Walt Disney Co. since 1984, Eisner made the critical calls in California that molded much of the economy and culture of Orlando and indeed all of Florida during the past two decades, a range of leaders say.
"He made the big decisions," said Linda Chapin, former Orange County chairman, now serving as director of the Metropolitan Center for Regional Studies at the University of Central Florida.
Disney during Eisner's tenure pumped billions of dollars into capital construction in Central Florida with two new theme parks, thousands of hotel rooms and time-share resorts. The building boom created tens of thousands of jobs at what would become the nation's largest single site employer -- Walt Disney World Resort.
With 57,000 full- and part-time workers, Disney World employs more people than the entire populations of many cities in Florida and pays out about $2 billion a year in payroll and benefits. When Eisner took control, Disney World's employment was less than 20,000.
Two of Disney's four parks -- Disney-MGM Studios and Animal Kingdom -- were Eisner creations. He also conceived and oversaw the launch of Disney's successful cruise ship business, based in Celebration, a mixed-use community created by Disney from scratch.
Not everything Eisner touched turned to gold in Orlando. The concept of the Disney Institute, where guests would take classes and expand their minds while on vacation, failed as first conceived. The buildings that housed the institute have since been converted to time-share vacation resorts, although the work of the institute continues in a more dispersed way across Disney property.
Orlando also was supposed to be an animation hub for the company, but that grand plan collapsed as the company in recent years yielded to economic pressures and changing animation trends.
A micromanager, Eisner had a hand in most every detail. Orlando business leaders say his early successes clearly helped lift Disney's fortunes.
"He was the right leader at the right time for the company," said Rick Walsh, senior vice president of corporate affairs at Darden Restaurants Inc., one of two Fortune 500 companies based in Orlando.
"I think different leaders have different strengths, and he came in at a time when there was a desperate need for leadership [at Disney]," Walsh said. "Clearly, the company rebounded under his leadership, and he built the business. It's a much bigger business and a better run place than it was when he arrived. So his impact has been huge, and huge here in Central Florida."
Disney under Eisner not only bulked up on the business side but increased its philanthropy in Central Florida as well, Walsh said, setting a high bar for other companies.
While Eisner's background and strength was mainly in the movie and television industries, "my sense is that he had a true affection for the theme parks," Walsh said.
Eisner spent a fair amount of time in the Orlando parks, particularly early in his tenure, generally sporting a polo shirt with a ball cap and shades, checking out the rides and chatting with guests. In that respect, he followed in the footsteps of Walt Disney himself, returning time and again to the theme that much of the company's magic was vested in the parks.
Widely recognized for his ambition and ego, Eisner dubbed the 1990s "the Disney decade" and made sure that the last Orlando resort he conceptualized and built, Animal Kingdom, was the largest of any of the Disney parks worldwide.
Animal Kingdom never lived up to the early hype and hope, however, at least in terms of attendance and popularity -- peaking at 8.3 million visitors in 1999, it has since failed to climb back above 8 million, remaining the least attended of the four Disney parks in Orlando. And Disney's economic woes, management battles, shareholder revolt and other widely reported scraps took the shine off Eisner's halo late in his career.
But during Eisner's reign Disney helped "create a brand for Orlando as an exciting place to be," said Bill Peeper, president of the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau. "Whether intentionally or not, they did help create that brand, and that will have a lasting effect," ensuring part of Eisner's legacy, Peeper said.
Eisner hobnobbed with Hollywood elite, partied in Paris, frequented New York and never was exactly a regular in Orlando's corporate scene. Peeper, who has spent nearly 25 years at the top of Orlando's leading tourism lobbying organization, recalls meeting Eisner exactly once. "Sometime in the 1990s," Peeper said.
Disney's Orlando executives through the years have insisted they had plenty of autonomy and resources, to keep the Orlando empire humming. Disney's corporate headquarters -- and investors -- certainly benefited from the generous cash flow of the Orlando resort, one of the entertainment giant's main economic engines.
Chapin, Orange County's top government leader during the 1990s, said that while critics have pointed to the low pay for many of Disney's jobs and the service economy that it spawned, the company always offset that to some extent with good benefits and a clean, inclusive work environment that attracts applicants from throughout the country and world.
The dramatic growth of Orlando International Airport is largely the result of Disney's growth, Chapin said, making it attractive for other companies to choose Orlando because of the quality air service.
Disney's relationship with Orange County government also improved during Eisner's reign, Chapin said.
Although former Disney executive Dianna Morgan, who retired as Disney World's senior vice president of public affairs in 2001, has been widely and correctly credited with spearheading the new era of cooperation and community involvement by the company, Chapin said, Eisner "clearly gave that signal. It was a sea change of attitude."
Jerry W. Jackson can be reached at 407-420-5721or jwjackson@orlandosentinel.com.
Copyright © 2005, Orlando Sentinel | Get home delivery - up to 50% off
Also a column published today in the Sentinel
COMMENTARY:SUSAN STROTHER CLARKE
Don't forget Eisner also saved company
Susan Strother Clarke
BUSINESS COMMENTARY
September 28, 2005
There was a before, you know.
Before the Michael Ovitz lawsuit.
Before the shareholder revolt.
When Michael Eisner got to Disney 21 years ago, he wasn't the guy with the target on his back. He was the guy brought in to fix things, to protect the sleepy company from another attack by corporate raiders.
And that's just what he did.
Say what you will about Eisner -- and I've said plenty -- but there's no disputing the facts: The reluctant retiree who leaves his post this week had a passion for entertainment. And, despite a privileged background, he had an uncanny feel for popular taste.
Eisner purchased the ABC television network; he launched Disney's theatrical productions; and he oversaw a hotel and theme-park building boom in Central Florida.
Did pettiness and ego sometimes mask his skills? Absolutely.
Were there flops? To be sure. You don't hear much about the Disney Institute at Walt Disney World these days. And those plans in Virginia for Disney's America, a history park about which an executive said tourists would "feel what it was like to be a slave," were scuttled, fortunately.
But through much of his career, Eisner was golden, as near as it came to a reincarnation of Walt himself.
Charlie Ridgway, a retired Orlando publicist, remembers the first time Eisner and Frank Wells, Disney's late president, walked through the Magic Kingdom. Hundreds of workers lined up to shake their hands outside Cinderella Castle.
"I think there was a significant feeling of relief," Ridgway said.
That's because Disney had weathered two raiders -- Saul Steinberg and Irwin Jacobs. Had either succeeded, they may have busted up the company and sold off the parts.
Eisner was the guy who kept Disney together.
Early in his tenure, Eisner recognized the key to success in Orlando would be keeping people on property. That meant giving them more hotels to stay in and something to do at night -- namely Pleasure Island (where, incidentally, he tooled around on skates with Michael Jackson).
In the boom-building days, it wasn't unusual to find Eisner in a hard hat at construction sites. Before he was so recognizable, he would sneak into the park as a regular tourist to see what the experience of paying customers was like.
His favorite ride or show? It was always the one that had just opened.
"He's a promoter. The newest thing will always be his baby," said Tom Elrod, a retired marketing and entertainment executive at Disney. "And he was fanatical about the competition."
He wanted to know about everything -- and his sneaking around included trips to SeaWorld and Universal Orlando, too.
At his parks, he would insist on changes, like closing the Magic Kingdom's Alien Encounter show to make it more intense.
He rode Mission: Space at Epcot at least 20 times when it was under development.
I asked current and former executives if Disney would be Disney -- a $31-billion-a-year conglomerate -- were it not for Eisner.
No way, they said.
The last couple of years have been difficult for the Big Mouse. Shareholders, who once stood in line to get his autograph, stripped him of his chairman's title.
And a judge, though clearing Eisner and other directors of wrongdoing, had harsh words for him regarding the $140 million in severance paid to his buddy, Michael Ovitz.
But there was a time when folks were happy to credit Eisner with turning a tired company into a powerhouse.
I hope when people look back on his tenure, they remember that, too.
Susan Strother Clarke can be reached at sclarke@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5414.
Copyright © 2005, Orlando Sentinel | Get home delivery - up to 50% off
While we can rightly criticize Eisner for his performance over the last ten or so years, it is easy to forget that at the time Eisner and Wells took over it was widely feared that Disney would be acquired and cease to exist.
