A former Six Flags executive has taken over at Palace Entertainment. Bonnie Sherman Weber is the new Chief Operating Officer at Palace, effective immediately. She succeeds John Reilly, who moves up to Managing Director at the theme park operator.
Palace Entertainment runs regional amusement and water parks including Kennywood, Lake Compounce, Iowa's Adventureland, and Raging Waters in the Los Angeles area. It has been part of Spain's Parques Reunidos since 2007.
Weber most recently worked as Senior Vice President Park Operations for Six Flags, a position she held for two years before leaving the Texas-based chain in September. She previously has worked as SVP of In-Park Services at Six Flags, after joining corporate following a near-eight-year run as Park President at Six Flags Magic Mountain.
While Weber was running the show in Valencia, Reilly was working down the 5 in San Diego, where he was SeaWorld San Diego's Park President from 2010 through 2016. He also moved up to corporate from there, eventually rising to Chief Operating Officer at SeaWorld Parks before leaving and then taking the COO job at Palace Entertainment in 2019. [Here's a video of me riding the Manta roller coaster with Reilly, back on its opening day in 2012. I don't have any on-ride videos with Weber, so sorry about that.]
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Such a shame that places like Kennywood and Lake Compounce are under corporate ownership ran by former Six Flags/Sea World execs.
Well gosh, if she can bring that Six Flags quality to the company, they should be out of business in a few years.
To be fair, these guys were not the problem at Six Flags and SeaWorld. Fans need to look higher up in the C-Suites for accountability.
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Hopefully this will be a positive change for the company