The marine park makes a huge splash with the hiring of Jim Lake to take over the president role, as the theme park is close to unveiling a highly-anticipated diving rollercoaster.
Lake will be Sea World's fourth president in the last six years, taking over the position in such a pivotal time period for the theme park, as it still trying to bounce back from a park shut down due to COVID-19.
However, Sea World has a new project that could help the company bounce back with a major impact.
In two months from now, Sea World will open its new theme park, Sesame Place, which is designed to provide a setting based on the popular kid's show, Sesame Street. This new theme park is set to replace the former water theme park, Aquatica, located in Chula Vista.
Sea World's new dive coaster was originally set to debut last summer, but due to complications involving the pandemic, the debut date had to be pushed back multiple times leading up to this point.
Chula Vista's Sesame Place will be the first to debut on the West Coast of the country, with its opening date being scheduled for March, though an exact date has yet to be announced by Sea World. This new theme park will reportedly keep the water rides that were used for Aquatica but will be re-themed to display the Sesame Street brand. The park is also expected to hire up to 900 employees to work at Sesame Place, which would be about 300 more than Aquatica had employed.
Lake has many years of experience working in theme parks, spending the majority of his managing career at Disneyland, which started when he enrolled in the Walt Disney College Program in 1989, before going on to invest three decades of working experience at Disney.
The former Disney president says that animal parks have always been appealing to him and that leading this park will be a monumental move for his career involving this industry.
“I do really like the animal aspect of this park, you can’t really get that anywhere else, and I also like the theme park element of it as well so it’s a combination of those two things,” Lake said. “It’s a place where there’s really something for everyone to experience, which makes it’s a special place,” he added.
