Jobs You Never Knew Existed

Origin Stories

Jobs You Never Knew Existed

November 07, 2024

Gravity-defying. Spine-tingling. Kaleidoscopic colours. These are but a few of the phrases we use on the daily to describe the incredible products we deliver for parks around the world. We have meetings in boardrooms named Boomerango and Abyss where we have long debates between calling a slide DNA Twist or Helix Twist (we went with Helix). This is to say, we all are quite privileged to work in such a fun and interesting industry that allows much creative freedom.

For every slide, ride, and wave project you see, there was a team of talented people who made it happen. Some of those roles you’re probably familiar with, such as engineer, architect, and product manger. Then there’s some you might not have had any idea about, think: colour specialist, Styrofoam sculptor, theming manager. If you want to learn more about these roles, we’ve found someone who has done them all.

Meet Katherine McConnell.

P.S. Some photos are pre-Instagram, apologies for the resolution. And yes, that is a young Katherine painting in the thumbnail photo.

A Career in Creativity

It started as a childhood dream…

“Growing up, I was always enjoyed being creative. Whether it was drawing, painting, sculpting, knitting, embroidery, or crafts, you name it, I was into it. My dad always supported me in this and taught me much of what I knew about painting and art in general.”

“When I was about to graduate high school, I told my teachers that I wanted to go to art school. They told me I would be ‘throwing my life away.’ They thought with my good grades I would do well to go to university and ‘become an accountant or something like that instead.’ Unfortunately, my dad agreed with them that art school would be a waste of money, but he didn’t believe that getting into the arts would be a waste of time.”

Dad, fiberglass salesman, to the rescue

“A couple weeks after finishing school, I received a phone call from my dad. He said, ‘how would you like to sculpt Styrofoam into giant animals for a living?’ I was obviously perplexed, so I asked for more details. He was a fiberglass salesman, and the place he worked for sold fiberglass products to a company called, WhiteWater, that manufactured water parks. They had an opening in their Theming Department, where artists worked to sculpt Styrofoam into giant pirate ships and characters of all sorts, to decorate those theme parks. He told me he could get me an interview if I wanted one.”

“I had never sculpted Styrofoam before, but I also knew that sometimes you had to fake it ‘till you make it!, so I gathered my little portfolio of drawings and paintings and went to a job interview at WhiteWater. I met with the shop manager at the time named, Sean, and I don’t remember feeling like he was particularly impressed with me, but he showed me around the shop anyway. I was amazed by the giant 30-foot whale that was being carved, and all the beautiful, themed murals coming out of the paint booth. It was also interesting to see all the children’s play place components being built at Prime Play in the same building.”

Get your X-Acto knife and horse brush…

“After the interview, I waited impatiently for a phone call to see if I would get the job. After a few days of hearing nothing, I spoke to my dad, and he said, ‘Why are you waiting? Just call Sean and see if you got it!’, so I did. I had to call him about three times before he finally answered my call, and after hearing my convincing speech about how good I would be for the job, he finally reluctantly told me, “Yeah sure, come in on Monday and we’ll figure something out.'”

“So, on Monday morning, armed with my lunch box and not a single tool, I marched into the building looking for Sean. Instead, I found a guy named Gene and said, ‘Hi, I’m the new sculptor.’ Gene sized me up, and said, ‘Okay, I didn’t know we had hired a new sculptor but come on in.’ Gene introduced me to Zlatko, who was running the sculpting department at the time. Z, as he’s known around the office, asked if I had any tools, and I said ‘no,’ so he gave me some X-Acto knives and a horse brush (as if I had any clue what to do with these). Then he showed me the 20-foot dinosaur that the entire Theming Team had been working on carving.”

We’re building a dinosaur

“He said that I should just jump in and start helping. The dinosaur was supposed to look like a small clay maquette that someone had made, and I noticed that one of the back leg muscles on the Styrofoam sculpture didn’t match the clay model. I asked Z if I could fix it, and he said, ‘Sure.’ He handed me a chainsaw and told me where the ladders were and told me to wear chaps and safety glasses. Now, I was eager to please, but not completely stupid. I told him I had never used a chainsaw before, so he, of course, helped me to learn how to do it safely.”

“A few hours later when Sean arrived, I think he was surprised to see me carving. I honestly believe he intended for me to be a shop helper who mostly swept the floors…but I had walked in and proclaimed that I was a sculptor, so in the end he just let me be one.”

Time to paint

“A few months later, it was a bit slow in the sculpting department, so I wandered over to the paint booth to see what Martha was working on. Gene was there and said that I could learn how to paint if I liked, so that is just what I did. Over the months, Gene and Martha taught me how to airbrush, and dry brush and hand paint fine line details with automotive paint. When it was slow in theming, Martha and I would help in the fiberglass department, so I learned how to do that too! Soon, the AquaLoop team moved into the building, and I watched and helped out in that department as well. Everything about this industry was interesting to me, and so much fun to produce!”

Taking charge of Theming

“A few years went by, and I drifted back and forth between paint and sculpting, helping wherever I was needed. One year, there was a job opening for the Lead Hand of Sculpting. I applied for it and got the position! I did that for a few years, training new sculptors and managing the workflow of the department, always carving with them, as time permitted. I loved creating art at work and was hesitant to give that up for an office job.”

“Eventually, the company introduced a new ERP operating system, and I was needed more in the office to help with the transition. I learned how to create production orders and manage our flow of parts and inventory. After a year or so of working in the office fulltime as a production planner, I became restless. I began to do a lot more painting at home, but it wasn’t enough to satiate my creative needs. Then a job opened up for manager of the Theming Department, so I leapt at the opportunity and snagged the role. I was now in charge of sculpting, painting, and hard coating. I did my best to learn all the intricacies of the various jobs and to support the people working in them. I spent my time monitoring and planning production, ordering materials and tools, and estimating the cost of upcoming work.”

The next phase

“At this point, I had been with the company for about 13 years, and Covid had come into play. Demand was slow and there wasn’t much Theming to be done. I decided that I needed a change and took a project management course online in the evenings. I was waiting for a project management role to become available, but wasn’t sure how long I’d have to wait, so I applied for the only office job that I thought I was qualified for, given my extensive history with the company, and I got it! I was now the Executive Assistant to the C-suite at WhiteWater.”

“I packed up my tools and said my goodbyes to the shop employees who I had spent most of my working life with and headed over to the office building to start my new role. I spent most of my days in meetings, taking notes, and sending important emails, but Onno, the COO at the time, recognized that I had more potential than the role was providing me with. To better fill my time, he had me run internal projects like organizing the art installation in the lobby or estimating the value of bringing in a 3D printer to use for theming. One of the little side tasks I had was to write a job description for the much-needed role of a ‘Colour Specialist.’ This would be someone to help decide on colour palettes for the slide paths, work with architecture to create beautiful visuals of our complexes, and consult with customers on their colour needs for their projects.”

Future colour specialist in training

“In May of 2022, I had a beautiful baby girl and went on maternity leave for 18 months. When I returned, I had a discussion with Onno about whether I would like to return to my old role as the Executive Assistant. He said that there were multiple departments where he thought that I could be of value and offered me a few different roles to choose from. One of those roles was the Colour Specialist job. After our discussion, he offered to send me the job description, but I reminded him that I had written it myself…not knowing at the time I had been writing it FOR myself. Needless to say, this is the job that I chose on my return, and it has been a wonderful transition.”

“I now get to spend my days creating gorgeous colour palettes for our amazing collection of water slides and working with some of the most talented designers, architects, and artists in the industry. I work from home sometimes, and on occasion my two-year-old will wander into my office, look at my computer and say, ‘Look a playground!’ and I like to tell her ‘Yes, Isabelle, mommy colours water parks for a living. If you work really hard at your colouring, maybe one day you can grow up to be an artist too’.”

Artistic Inspiration

An artist at heart, Katherine paints in her spare time in a variety of styles. Below is a selection of her amazing work from over the past 20 years. Please have a look by dragging and scrolling.