How to live your childhood dream

Lots of children dream of working at a theme park. For Michelle Hicks, the idea stuck. “It’s the whole reason I studied engineering,” she admits. “It’s what I wanted to do since I went to my first theme park, aged five. My dad would take me on my birthdays, and I knew even then.”

And lo and behold, today Hicks has a job many children – and adults – would go crazy for. She designs and builds the star attractions at Chessington World of Adventures. The Gruffalo River Ride, the Land of the Tiger and the Adventure Tree are all hers. She giggles at the confession, adding: “It’s true, I’m not normal!”

A glance at her CV confirms this. Hicks is a stellar performer on every level. She has won 15 awards in her short career so far. Even at university she was hoovering them up, winning five prizes, including the top award for engineers in her graduating class. A judge described her as “scarily good”. She also writes academic papers, including the esoteric ‘Structural Appraisal of Existing Masonry Quadripartite Vaults’, which beat 300 other papers to the Frederick Palmer Prize from the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Roller coasters via Charlie Chaplin

So, what’s going on? How did a childhood obsession for theme parks turn into a career of outstanding achievement?

“I was 14 when I realised that I could follow my passion for theme parks as a career,” she explains. “I went to a lecture at a university to hear a talk by the designer of a roller coaster. I started to realise what was involved, working with creative teams, engineers and others, and bringing them all together to make it happen. I knew I could do that.”

When she later enrolled at the University of Surrey, she won a scholarship from WSP, a global engineering company. This accelerated her development: “I was lucky, as I was sponsored and also got to work with them during my summers. I also did a year with them.”

She quickly discovered that project management combined all her favourite elements. “At university, I worked on a project to design an iron-ore processing facility. It was multidisciplinary, with chemical engineers and civil engineers, and I took on the project management role. It felt natural.”

On graduating (with a first), she worked at WSP as an engineer. “My favourite project was designing the foundations of the Charlie Chaplin statue in London’s Leicester Square. It sits on a marble plinth. Quite hefty!” But the idea of working in theme parks never left her. “I saw the job ad for Merlin Magic Making, the creative arm of Merlin Entertainments, which owns Chessington, and applied.” With her qualifications, she was always going to get the job.

The Land of the Tiger

Now she builds the kind of rides she loved as a child. “I do it all. It begins with a creative team coming up with ideas for attractions. We ask what is achievable? Can we build it on time and on budget? Then I develop it and apply for funding from the board. Then I appoint architects and creative designers, get planning permission and go to construction. Then I monitor the construction.”

She added to her skills as a project manager by taking the APM Project Management Qualification. “All the project managers at Merlin take it,” she says. “It means we all have the same base knowledge and terminology.”

Can the job really be as much fun as it sounds? Daft question. “It’s incredible!” says Hicks. “The Land of the Tiger attraction features four Amur tigers. It was a beast of a project! Normally, the guests are the priority. Here, the priority is the tigers. We designed enclosures so they have enough space to be happy, and we created walkways so they can walk over the guests. Tigers love being up high. They feel they can pounce on people. If you wear a bright colour or fur, the tigers will follow you. It’s exciting for them.”

She even makes the dull bits sound fun. Take quality control: “With the Gruffalo ride, we needed to make sure visitors saw what we intended. The ride consists of boats travelling along a water trough. We walked around the trough, but realised we were too tall, so we weren’t seeing what the children would see. We had to crouch down, looking like ducks walking around the trough. People looked on thinking ‘She’s finally lost it!’”

Hands-on research

Is the passion dimming? Er, no. “My work is my passion,” she enthuses. “Even on my holidays I go to theme parks. I think of it as research. If anything, working in the industry gives me a greater appreciation of what goes into a ride. I see them in a brand-new light.”

Perhaps the secret to Hicks’ limitless commitment is the impact her work has on visitors, especially young minds. “You immerse them in a story,” she says. “They lose themselves in it. You see the effect an attraction can have, and you think: ‘How can I take it further?’”

Hicks has plenty she wants to achieve. She’s already helping the next generation by being the youngest member invited to the industrial advisory board at her old university. “Next for me is getting my chartered status with APM,” she reveals. She could work anywhere. “But I’ll stay at Chessington,” she says. “We are working on some big projects. I can’t tell you what. Top secret!”

Michelle’s top tips for outstanding performance

1 Never settle for less than “Wow!’’ If you want to deliver amazing work, you must be prepared to stop a project and take action, no matter how far along it may be. When I was working on the Gruffalo River Ride, we got to the construction phase, but we saw the station where the guests get on and off, and it wasn’t making us say “Wow!” We could do so much better. But we had just a month left. We decided to act. We sat down with the creative team and came up with a new vision, adding layered scenery and artificial foliage. Yes, it sounds completely bonkers. But it makes guests say “Wow!”

2 Explain your logic. Cost overruns during a project are not easy to handle. During the Gruffalo redesign, I needed to go to the client to ask for more money. I presented the cost implications and explained why we needed the extra budget. I also detailed how we’d minimise the cost impact. Explaining the logic behind my request and why our changes would result in a better experience, together with how we would cover the cost, meant they backed us.

3 Listen to everyone. As a project manager, you’ll need to have difficult conversations at times. My tip is to make sure you really listen to everyone’s points – and then process them. By doing this, you will come up with a fair outcome, and everyone will feel like they have been included in the final decision.

4 Work on your weaknesses. When I came to Chessington, I had a few areas of weakness. One was the operational side. When we work on a new attraction, we need to be aware that the rest of the park is open. It can’t close to suit us. I learned to keep everyone informed of what’s happening and be very clear in our requirements. It also helps to second-guess what others may say and prepare for compromises.

5 Have fun! I find that, when I work with big teams, I get the best out of people by creating a sense of community. It is important to me that we all like what we do. Frankly, if we aren’t enjoying working on an attraction, then maybe the guests won’t either.