Pressler Advances to Head Disney’s Parks and Resorts

Former Disneyland chief Paul Pressler, long seen as a rising executive in the Walt Disney Co., was promoted to chairman of Disney’s Parks & Resorts division.

Pressler, 43, replaces Judson C. Green, a 19-year Disney veteran who quit in April as head of the attractions unit. While Pressler moves up from president, his duties remain essentially the same and the position he held for the past two years will likely be abolished.

In addition to Disney theme parks and resorts, Pressler also oversees the Disney Cruise Line, Disney Regional Entertainment and Walt Disney Imagineering. He is also responsible for those businesses’ long-term growth and international expansion initiatives.

He joined Disney in 1987 as senior vice president for Disney licensing and eventually became president of Disney Stores. In 1994, he took over as president of Disneyland and oversaw the detailed development of Disney’s California Adventure, the theme park scheduled to open in February next to Disneyland.

Disneyland and the other theme parks employ more than 77,000 people, including 12,000 in Anaheim.

Pressler replaced Green as head of the attractions division in late 1998 when Green became chairman of the unit and began focusing on such overseas expansions as Disneyland in Hong Kong.

Disney Chairman Michael D. Eisner described Pressler as having a “remarkable combination of management skills and sheer creativity.” He said the executive has built upon Disney’s successes.

Green, 47, was one in a long string of top managers to resign in recent years. He has since become president and chief executive of Navigation Technologies Corp., a Chicago maker of digital maps for auto navigation systems.

Green, once regarded as a potential successor to Eisner, took the helm of Walt Disney Attractions in 1991 and led the push to add new parks, hotels and retail and entertainment zones. Second theme parks in Anaheim and at Tokyo Disneyland are being built now to create “destination resorts” like Disney World Florida.

The attractions division has posted double-digit growth in revenue and profit for five straight years. In the past two years, operating profit rose 27% while Disney’s stock price and many divisions have languished or dropped.

“Attendance and earnings at our parks and resorts are at an all-time high and we are now poised for even greater success in the years ahead,” Robert A. Iger, Disney’s president, said in a prepared statement.

Besides California Adventure and DisneySea in Tokyo, Disney Paris Studios is scheduled to open in 2002 as the second theme park at Disneyland Paris.

Pressler was not available for comment Thursday.