Sometimes I’m reminded of just how small and interconnected the theme park design world is. As we went to press I attended a technology event at Electrosonic (which included very cool projection mapping on the castle by Super 78). It was a great evening and I ran into many of my colleagues from my days in theme park design—some were people I see fairly frequently, others I had not seen in two decades when we were together on a project in Tokyo: Jerry Parra, Mark Thomas, and Thomas Megna (now the new Themed Entertainment Association Asia Pacific Division Board President).
It was also the first time I’d seen Rebecca Chernack since her husband Peter’s untimely passing last spring. She is another colleague from the Tokyo project and she had come out to network because she is ready to work again in the industry she shared with Peter.
Rebecca is a project manager and producer. I worked with her at Landmark Entertainment, and subsequently she was a project manager at Universal and Warner Bros. She was the project director for the USA National Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo and has had a long association with the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles where she is currently Senior Project Manager. She says she would like to return to the theme park world, and be back in the excitement of travel and site work. I told her I’d pass the word on her availability—she is a true theme park veteran with that real world experience that is hard to explain unless you’ve done it yourself. I understand missing it, especially at a time like this.
Peter Chernack will be honored at the annual TEA Summit and Awards in April with a Service Award that will henceforth bear his name. A theater guy and a theme park industry veteran, he was a founding member and past president of the TEA. He was involved in the Large Format Cinema Association, which is how I met him. He spent 30 years at Metavision, where he was President for 13 years. In 2009 he founded The Chernack Group, which creates themed entertainment experiences for leisure venues and branded attractions for clients including IMAX, Universal, Hallmark, Lockheed, Nat Geo, Mitsubishi, Time Warner, NASA, Hallmark and the Elvis Presley Estate.
Godspeed to Peter and looking forward to seeing where Rebecca will turn her talents.
If you want to attend the TEA Summit and Thea Awards the events will be held in the third week of April. More information at www.teaconnect.org.
