Monday, September 20, 2021
Linda Alcorn | Disney Imagineering's first female engineer
blooloop: Electronic Engineer Linda Alcorn was the first female engineer hired by Walt Disney Imagineering (then known as WED Enterprises). In a 38 year career beginning with the company in 1979, she designed the show control systems for attractions at Epcot, Magic Kingdom, Disney/MGM Studios, Animal Kingdom, Euro Disney, and Expo ’86.
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3 comments:
This is really cool! To be the first anything is very impressive, so congratulations to Linda Alcorn. I have always been interested in Imagineering, less as a career for me to go into and more as a professional curiosity. I have a friend who is very invested in Imagineering and who I think definitely would love a career doing it. There is a series on Disney called the Imagineering Story where we as viewers get to go on a behind the scenes tour with Disney Imagineers. We are shown what it takes to design and build and bring to life Disney theme parks around the world. I have yet to watch it, but it is on my list of things to get to when I have time. I'm not much of an engineer, but I do love watching processes of design and creation, especially for different forms of entertainment. I am glad to see that Alcorn has had a prosperous career, and I'm sure she serves as an inspiration for many to come.
Being a person who is from Florida and grew up going to Disney pretty regularly, I found this article so interesting. I have always thought that my exposure to Imagineering may have something to do with my desire to be a designer. I remember being enthralled in the design and technical aspects of Disney parks from a very young age. In elementary school, I attended engineering camp at Walt Disney World for three consecutive summers. I found the engineering part of building a rollercoaster so interesting. This article really spoke to me and brought up many of those memories from my childhood. I applied to CalArts and was rather drawn by the programs connection to Imagineering. I do not see myself going into that field but this article put a lot into perspective. Namely, that despite her degree, Linda was able to work and succeed in a creative arena.
I never had much personal exposure to Disney being from NY. I've had relatives who have worked there because my grandparents and uncles lived their for a period of time but I've personally only been once. Besides the fact that this article is very poorly written from a journalistic point of view; this article was very interesting to me because of how early she was hired! I also thought that it was really great that she was hired a year after she graduated from UCLA with a bachelors degree in engineering. I can't imagine that it was an easy field for women to be in in 1979, let alone be the first woman hired at a company as well known as Walt Disney. I also wanted to look more into this to see if Walt Disney has kept up in hiring women in engineering roles and was pleasantly surprised to find that the current senior vice president for engineering (among other things) is a woman (and BIPOC too). This is really inspiring after seeing so many companies being boycotted because of their misogynistic tendencies or racist practices. Good on Disney, I hope to continue seeing things like this.
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