From Doughnuts to Disney
For the past few years, Gregg Wagner (’02) has been living the dream.
In the 1990s, one dream was realized when Wagner returned to Georgia Southern to earn an information technology degree.
Through hard work and determination, he then landed a dream job in 2002 with the Disney Company, navigating from Statesboro to Shanghai and sailing almost 40 times to the Bahamas and Mediterranean – all on the company payroll.
A DeVry Institute graduate, Wagner re-enrolled at Georgia Southern in 1998 in the middle of the Internet boom. “With a new business, two kids and a wife, I was considered a ‘non-traditional’ student,” he said. Looking for extra income, Wagner launched a new sandwich business within his parent’s shop, Daylight Donuts.
“My parents were workaholics – my dad was a mechanical engineer by trade and my mother worked in the Office of the Registrar. They opened Daylight Donuts as their second jobs. My dad would arrive at 2 a.m. to cook, and my mom would get there at 6 a.m. to sell the donuts,” he said. When the shop closed at 10 a.m., the site would transform to Daylight Gourmet Sandwiches, which Wagner operated with his wife.
After graduation, Wagner learned about an employment opportunity through a friend, who was an IT manager for Disney. “The Walt Disney Company was converting their enterprise from various systems to SAP (a standard for international business software). One of my friends – an IT manager for Disney – knew that Georgia Southern was a SAP training campus and that I had completed classes and research in that area,” he said.
Over the years, Wagner managed day-to-day shipboard IT operations of Disney Cruise Line’s cruise ships before working as the application manager for DCL’s new fleet of ships, the Dream and the Fantasy. During the three-year stint, he was charged with coordinating all information technology needs for the luxury vessels, such as trouble shooting and setting up the resources for training more than 1,500 crew members on the specifics of the ship’s new computer systems. Wagner also lived onboard the Dream for more than three months prior to the maiden voyage. One of the highlights of the project was a trial test of the 750-foot AquaDuck water coaster still docked in a German shipyard. Braving harsh winter temperatures, Wagner and his IT team donned wetsuits for the three-hour test of the water coaster slide, which winds around the length of the ship.
Wagner’s successful work on these multifaceted projects led to his recent promotion as the Infrastructure Manager for the Global Business Technology Team for the new Shanghai Disneyland and Resort. He is collaborating with other technology-based teams to coordinate the building of the IP technology network and data centers at the new park and resort. For the next four years, the Orlando, Fla., resident will travel between California and China to prepare for the scheduled opening of Shanghai Disney in November 2015.
As an undergraduate, Wagner never imagined that he would travel around the world during the course of his career, and he credits many of his professors with preparing him for the future. “I often look back at the classes that taught the importance of culture and cultural sensitivity. In my wildest dreams, I could not have predicted this sitting in Dr. Whitworth’s project management class,” he said.