KIMBLE CREEK CONSULTING - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Themed Environment Design Management Consultant

Val Usle is a Themed Environment Design Management Consultant. With over four decades of service to The Walt Disney Company he worked on nearly all major projects - both domestic and international that Walt Disney Imagineering pursued during this time. The body of experience that emerged created skills and knowledge that will allow clients to benefit in three major areas: DEVELOPING AND MANAGING A PLAN. Theme park project teams are short-lived entities that require their leaders to assemble a diverse group of people, quickly align their talents with the ‘Big Idea,' and help them focus on a DELIVERY PLAN that effectively balances with business constraints. Typically, the plan does not stay balanced for long, as each day brings scope, schedule, and/or budget challenges. In this environment, being a leader means your team relies on you to be a PROBLEM MAGNET. This does not mean that every issue can (or should) be solved by leadership, but it does require an obligation to listen closely, stay engaged, and assist where it is vital and most rational. Val's insight on the critical nature of up-front planning, as well as managing the realities that press upon the plan during its execution, was gained over time from leading progressively larger and more complex projects. INTEGRATION. The number of diverse professional disciplines involved with theme parks can easily exceed that needed for comparably complex projects such as hospitals. But beyond the number of varied skillsets, the inclusion of creative talent makes the industry unique. Unlike the Sistine Chapel, where all the beauty flowed through one hand holding a small brush, themed entertainment requires the vision to flow through the hands and brushes of many. Avoiding ‘Tower of Babel results' from so many different and passionate people mixed in the same arena is accomplished only through DEEP INTEGRATION where everyone has an understanding of the overall plan, while at the same time owning and mastering their part of it. Theme park integration cannot simply be mailed in and Val understands and appreciates that a leader's job is to be the NUMBER ONE FACILITATOR OF INTEGRATION. PROCESS. Having the intuitive ability to see and explain the human physics and milestones needed in an artistic organization to move a team from initial concept to turnkey operation in easily understood terms is paramount to any themed project. Imagineering's leadership leveraged Val's project experience, teaching skills, and appreciation for how things work ‘behind the curtain,' when it tasked him to be one of the authors of Imagineering's original PROJECT MANAGEMENT GUIDE as well as a subsequent major refresh, THE TRIANGLE OF SUCCESS. Even in today's world of virtual design and fast-paced construction, every Imagineer still applies the matrix management and life cycle principles co-authored by Val nearly three decades ago. Val culminated his Imagineering career being the lead Design Manager for the new Star Wars Lands being built in California and Florida. Each of these fourteen acre sites will host the most intense and deeply thematic settings Imagineering has ever attempted, and Val successfully led both through their master planning efforts. Since leaving Imagineering, Val has established KIMBLE CREEK CONSULTING, LLC to offer services leveraging his thematic design experience to assist clients' internal staff in the following areas: • Project Planning and Mobilization • Progress Assessments • Facility, Show, and Ride Integration • Delivery and Resource Strategies • Work Plan Development • Programming and Scope Development • Request for Proposal Preparation • Process Coaching