With the founding of WhiteWater in 1980, Geoff Chutter helped establish an industry that continues to bring joy to millions around the globe. A water park veteran, Geoff’s start in the amusement and attractions space began with his investment in his own park in BC, Canada. Undeterred by a lack of water slide suppliers, he decided to leave his career as a CPA with KPMG to manufacture his own rides, and thus created his own manufacturing empire.

Four decades on, WhiteWater continues to thrive under Geoff’s stewardship as CEO, maintaining its place as the world’s undisputed leading water park manufacturer and supplier, by any metric. Where other suppliers chose to offer one or two product lines, Geoff built a complete water park service company, offering all of the products and services that a customer would require to launch their own world-class parks. Always looking to the future, Geoff was early to expand internationally, with our first projects in China in 1990 and establishing offices in Europe, the Middle East and Asia ahead of our competitors. 

Throughout the years, Geoff has been recognized with various awards such as the national EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2019 award. Under Geoff’s stewardship, WhiteWater has also been named one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies for many years.

Born and raised in Vancouver, Paul worked most of his teenage summers at WhiteWater, not only enjoying water parks but doing everything in between: from pushing a broom and cleaning up the fabrication plant to data entry. Perhaps, his choice of a commerce undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montreal was to escape this “ground up” education in the family business. Subsequently, he went on to attend law school in the UK at the University of London. That led to a career in investment banking, with the majority of his years spent in London and Toronto. Despite being successful in his own career, a sense of belonging to the family business, WhiteWater, called him home, and Paul joined WhiteWater full time in 2015 as Chief Business Development Officer.  

Paul has led the next generation of WhiteWater’s growth, establishing strategic alliances and broadening the company’s offer beyond ride design and manufacturing. He was instrumental in spinning off Vantage, a guest interaction and venue management platform, into its own SaaS startup and is the co-founder of Endless Surf. Paul leads all commercial operations for Endless Surf and sees Endless Surf’s immediate inroads in the Surf Pool industry as recognition of the requirement for venues to create authentic experiences for a broad surf audience with flexible reliable waves to serve their different needs; underpinned by a transparent partnership approach.

Onno joined WhiteWater in 2017 as the Director of Supply Chain, bringing with him over 20 years of international supply chain management experience. His career has seen him travel the globe from his native Netherlands to Shanghai to his current home of Vancouver, where he now serves as WhiteWater’s President of Water Parks. His early career began in electronics, where he worked for Philips Electronics in various senior supply chain positions for 10 years before moving on to Cooledge as their Vice President of Manufacturing. An avid cyclist and runner, Onno lives in Vancouver with his wife and two daughters.

Una joined WhiteWater in 2015 with an already established 20-year career in international B2B marketing from Professional Services to SaaS. In the last eight years, Una has not only taken the helm of WhiteWater and FlowRider’s Marketing but has also led the design and execution of the Vantage and Endless Surf brands. Overseeing WhiteWater’s brand portfolio gives Una a rather broad understanding of the market, from water, theme, and surf parks to the software and services that support them.

Sitting on WhiteWater’s executive, as Chief Marketing Officer, Una spearheaded the company’s sustainability strategy, leading its new Sustainability department. She has also been an advocate for sustainability within the industry, as she has for the promotion of women in the traditionally male amusements sector, she regularly writes and speaks on both topics.

Outside of the office, Una is a wife, mother of two daughters, and dog mom to Tom, her sled dog rescue, who can be seen sleeping in her office on Teams calls or joining her on her lunchtime runs.  She also serves on the board of CLEAR, a charity dedicated to finding a cure for Alzheimer’s.

Joanne joined WhiteWater in 2020 with over 20 years of experience working with organizations and leaders to help make environments where employees can thrive. In the 12 years before joining WhiteWater, she worked as a leadership development consultant, facilitator, and coach, across a range of industries—high tech, government, legal, software development, manufacturing, engineering, and not-for-profit: private, public and cooperative. Value and impact were the hallmarks of her work. She started her early HR career in electronic manufacturing and a clean energy start up. In her time at WhiteWater, Joanne has led discussions on EVP, or employee value proposition, initiated a peer recognition plan, succession planning programs like Team20 and established a WhiteWater Leadership Foundations program for all leaders. She backs a small “super strong” team who support people operations in the Middle East, Europe, China, and the USA.

Joanne is a fully trained coach through the Coaches Training Institute. She maintains a CHRP designation with the Chartered Professionals of HR BC. She holds a post-degree diploma from BCIT as well as a baccalaureate degree in Political Science and English from the University of Victoria.

Outside of work, Joanne is a family-gal with two kids and a dog, Luna. She is active in taking dance and yoga classes and is even known to participate in improv and stand-up comedy classes.

Doug found his home in the attractions industry in 1995 working within the “dry” FEC and interactive waterplay products. His experience crosses both business development and operations. He has managed the Attractions international sales teams at SCS Interactive/Koala Play Group as well as managing Prime Play. In 2005 , Doug joined WhiteWater, becoming the manager of the Attractions division. After 10 years of general management, he transferred his over 20 years of international business experience to become the Executive Vice President, managing strategy and business development of all WhiteWater divisions and products for Asia-Pacific. Doug also serves on the board of the Asia-Pacific Division of the Themed Entertainment Association.

Marshall, better known as Marsh, was born in Coronado, California and grew up playing all sorts of sports and has made his career in them too. He has extensive experience managing operations in various industries, including Callaway Golf.  He first joined Wave Loch, Inc. in 2007 and currently serves as President and Chief Operating Officer of FlowRider, Inc., a subsidiary of WhiteWater purchased in 2014. Marsh is a true southern California native, he graduated from San Diego State University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and to this day surfs before he comes into the FlowRider office.

Jamie brings operations and management expertise from over two decades in leisure and entertainment in the UK and the Middle East. An industry veteran who started as a lifeguard, he has ample leadership experience across water park and theme park operations, project management, and design and theming, overseeing and developing some of the most iconic attractions in those regions while working with companies such as Merlin, Emaar, Majid Al Futtaim, and SEVEN. With a keen understanding of the ambitions and challenges in the Middle East, Jamie has served on the board of the Middle East and North Africa Leisure & Attractions Council (MENALAC).

Rainer Maelzer started in the theme park industry in 1997 before co-founding the German company wiegand.maelzer in 2006. Rainer and his co-founder grew wiegand.maelzer to become one of the top 10 water slide companies in the world. Under Rainer’s leadership, wiegand.maelzer went from developing stainless steel water slides for other local German companies to a major global player in the industry. Rainer contributed significantly to the development and expansion of some well-known European water parks, including one of the largest indoor parks in the world, Therme Erding.

After 12 years with wiegand.maelzer, Rainer made the transition to WhiteWater to lead our Europe, Russia, and Africa team. Seeing an opportunity to forward WhiteWater’s position in the market, Rainer led the creation of a new office in Munich, Germany in May of 2020. The WhiteWater European team was formerly in Barcelona, Spain but Rainer saw a need for the company to be closer to the center of Europe and moved us over to Germany. Expanding the team from only Sales, Rainer has brought over project managers, after sales personnel, tech support, and slide path designers to our Euro team to better serve our local clients.

Phil grew up in Shanghai, China and obtained his civil engineering degree from Tongji University there. He spent the next decade working in construction industry in China, Cyprus and Canada, he obtained his master’s degree in engineering project management from University of Manchester while in Europe. Phil joined Whitewater in 2006 as a project manager, spent the next few years in the head office with various roles in project management, engineering, manufacturing. He and his family moved to Shanghai in 2011 and set up the Whitewater’s Shanghai office. Over the next decade, Phil and the Shanghai team oversaw the transformation of the amusement industry in Asia, participated in many high-profile, world class development projects along the way. He obtained his MBA from University of Southern California while overseeing the Asia operations.

Phil is a registered professional engineer in BC, Canada. Phil and his family enjoy travel and experiencing different cultures, they have visited fifty countries across five continents. He is also a proud father of two teenage girls.

David Bogdonov graduated in 1989 from Lakehead University in Ontario with a Bachelor of Engineering degree. He immediately got to work in project management and worked with general contractors such as Commonwealth Construction and Walter Construction. David joined WhiteWater as a Project Manager in 1999, where he managed projects throughout North America and Europe. In 2005, he was promoted to Director of Project Management where he led the department for four years. In 2009, David made the transition over to business development and spent the ensuing 8 years as the lead salesperson in the Chinese market. David has spent 20+ years at WhiteWater.

Mike started his career at WhiteWater managing the Park Attractions Division in the European office before relocating to the UAE to strengthen our fourth regional office in his capacity as Executive Vice President, Middle East, and India. In his role at WhiteWater, he continues to work with several of the world’s leading parks, such as Atlantis and Yas Waterworld while also focusing heavily on greenfield development projects, including Dubai Parks and Resorts, Shanku’s Waterpark in India, and Laguna Waterpark in Dubai. Having now lived in the Middle East for several years, traveling extensively across the region, Mike has focused heavily on understanding the varying cultures and how these need to be considered when designing and building new destinations.  A fun fact while Mike lived in Barcelona he used one of his four languages to be a soccer commentator on Spanish TV sharing his enthusiasm for the world’s most popular sport.

Dawn earned her MA in Communications from the University of Cincinnati. Having lived in both China and USA for many years, she fully understands the differences in business practices between the West and the East. Since 2002, she has been advising developers in Greater China on the design and production of attractions, realizing their vision with world-class products and services. She served as Marketing Director of Asia for Jack Rouse Associates, a world-renowned attraction design and production company. Dawn joined WhiteWater in 2010 and has worked on some of the most successful water parks in the region, including OCT Shanghai Playa Maya Water Park, Grand Sight Adventure Island Waterpark in Lishui, Xinmi Happy Oceans Water Park, Hotgo Water Park in Fushun, Chengdu Paradise Island, OCT Chongqing Playa Maya Waterpark, and Snowstar Waterpark in Shanghai. She is an advocate for sustainable design, innovation, and fair business practices in the region.

Born and raised in Colombia, Tania was then selected to attend the prestigious United World College program in Norway where she completed the IB Diploma. She was also the recipient of the “International Leader of Tomorrow” scholarship to complete her Undergraduate Studies in International Relations, Business and Economics at the University of British Columbia. Tania then completed a Post-Graduate Degree in International Business and Logistics and is currently a PMP candidate.

With over 15 years of experience in Operations Management and Supply Chain in Canada, Italy, Norway, Haiti, Colombia and Mexico, as well as her outstanding language skills, she is a Specialist in streamlining and restructuring Standard Operating Procedures; as well as very passionate about the entertainment industry and helping our clients achieve their goals.