Richard L. Kinzel (born July 25, 1940) is the former CEO of

Cedar Fair Entertainment Company Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, or simply Cedar Fair, was an American company headquartered at its flagship Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio, United States. The company was a publicly traded master limited partnership that origina ...

. He served as president and CEO of Cedar Fair until January 2, 2012, when his successor, Matt Ouimet, took over as president and CEO. He was involved in Cedar Fair for 39 years.

Career highlights

Valleyfair

Richard Kinzel started out at Cedar Point as an employee but was transferred to Valleyfair in 1978 to run the newly acquired park. He served as the General Manager of Valleyfair from 1978 to 1986. In 1986, the then-CEO of Cedar Fair stepped down due to health issues. Kinzel was promoted to president and CEO.

CEO of Cedar Fair

When Kinzel stepped in as CEO of Cedar Fair, the company owned just two parks: Valleyfair and

Cedar Point Cedar Point is a amusement park located on a Lake Erie peninsula in Sandusky, Ohio, United States, owned and operated by Six Flags. It opened in 1870 and is considered the second-oldest operating amusement park in the US behind Lake Compounc ...

. His first major highlight was the installation of Magnum XL-200, a

hypercoaster A hypercoaster is a roller coaster with a height or drop measuring at least . The term was first coined by Arrow Dynamics and Cedar Point in 1989 with the opening of the world's first hypercoaster, Magnum XL-200, which features a height of . Th ...

at Cedar Point that was intended to draw more crowds to the park. "Magnum" was the first coaster to break 200 feet and is considered by many to have started the so-called "coaster war" competition between amusement parks, which would make up the majority of Kinzel's tenure at Cedar Fair. In 1992, Cedar Fair made their first acquisition with Dick Kinzel as CEO; Dorney Park was acquired from Harris Weinstein. Six Flags Worlds of Adventure was acquired by Cedar Fair in 2004, and all

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and

DC Comics DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book seri ...

theming, walk around character costumes and souvenirs were either removed or destroyed upon completion of the sale. The

SeaWorld Ohio SeaWorld Ohio was a theme park and Ocean, marine zoological park located in Aurora, Ohio. It was owned and operated by United Parks & Resorts, Busch Entertainment Corporation. The Ohio location was the second SeaWorld park to be built in the c ...

exhibit was shuttered and Six Flags vacated the animal exhibits and transported the animals themselves to the company's other parks. In 2006, Kinzel and Cedar Fair acquired the former Paramount Parks. The deal added all five parks plus their water parks to the Cedar Fair chain. Cedar Fair's revenue went from $569 million to $1 billion. Kinzel is most notable for this move because it expanded Cedar Fair into new markets with competition. In 2010, Kinzel announced that he would retire. On June 20, 2011, it was announced that Matt Ouimet would take over as CEO of Cedar Fair, effective immediately. Dick Kinzel officially retired on January 2, 2012, when his contract was up.

Life after Cedar Fair

In an article in the ''

Toledo Blade ''The Blade'', also known as the ''Toledo Blade'', is a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, published daily online and printed Thursday and Sunday by Block Communications. The newspaper was first published on December 19, 1835. Overview The first issu ...

'', Kinzel stated that life would be very different once he retired. He hadn't had a summer off since joining the company and so planned to take many vacations. Though he'd been asked to work on a few projects, he wanted to take some time off. On May 9, 2013, Kinzel announced that he would be stepping down from the board of directors of Cedar Fair. He also said he plans to stay in Sandusky but has a winter home in

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kinzel, Dick 1940 births Living people Cedar Fair American chief executives American entertainment industry businesspeople