Influential Woman · Theme Park

Patty Garden

Costume Technician, Universal Orlando

Orlando, FL

34Years experience

Certifications · Degrees · Memberships

Degree School of Life - On-the-job training at Walt Disney World and Universal Studios Member Police Explorers (former member)

Her Story

About Patty

I have been working in the theme park industry for well over 40 years, with experience at both Walt Disney World and Universal Studios. My main background is in maintaining walk-around characters for theme parks. I worked in the entertainment field at Universal for 30 years, and 4 years ago I transferred to technical services. In technical services, I do a lot of maintenance and repairing of characters, but we also do seat covers for rides and different types of scenic work for the theme parks. We're pretty much jack-of-all-trades, masters of none. We just did a bunch of out-of-service covers for our new theme park in Frisco, Texas. I started with Universal in 1992 and am now the OG of creative fabrication technicians - I am the original one. I've had the pleasure of training the vast majority of my coworkers. I got into this field because of my stepfather when Walt Disney World was changing their mentality to bring in people and train them the way they liked it done. I was fortunate enough to be accepted, and I found that this was a calling. I love what I do. I learned to airbrush, paint, and color match - everything through osmosis and actual job experience, with no formal schooling whatsoever. It's nice to know that people can get into these careers based on backgrounds like cosplay. There's only a handful of people that do these jobs, and I'm in a very fortunate position.

Her Interview

Ten minutes with Patty

01What do you attribute your success to?

Honestly, I attribute my success to taking pride in my work and realizing that people go into debt to come see our product. I want to make the best that I can make it and make that experience good for them, because these are the memories that these people are going to have with their grandparents, with their children, with their grandchildren. I just want it to be the best that I personally can make it, and I take pride in what I do.

02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?

The best advice I've ever received is to work hard, because it's not going to be handed to you. And when you do it, do it the best to your ability and take pride in what you do. I have lived my career doing just that.

03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?

I would tell them that people get very fearful of this type of work because they're afraid they're going to mess something up. But mistakes are going to be made, because you don't learn by getting it right. So don't be afraid to take a chance, don't be afraid to take a risk. Just don't be afraid of it. Just meet it head on and try to figure out the challenges that you're going to come across, because you're going to come across many of them. Collaborate with your coworkers and bounce ideas off of them. Don't be afraid, don't be shy. Don't think because you're new into the field that you don't have good ideas, because you probably do.

04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?

For me, I'm kind of up there in age, and we work with young people. What is frustrating is the younger generation right now have not learned a work ethic. It's a little challenging to teach them to take pride, and just because it's not in your job description doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it - to take a risk, to take a chance. They feel that I only have to do this, this is what my job says I have to do, and they're not going to learn from an old generation that's been doing it for a long time. That's probably my biggest challenge. It's trying to teach them a work ethic and to teach them that you have to pay your dues. We have a young person that I work with, and this is their first job ever. They are making very good money, well over $20 an hour, and they don’t think that's enough. When I started here, I was making $8.10 with 7 years Disney experience under my belt.

05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?

It is as simple and as easy as it is - love thy neighbor, love thy coworker. Be proud of what you do and just be the best human being that you can be. I mean, it's pretty basic and pretty simple. We all have families and we all need a job to support those families. So just value the human race, good, bad, and ugly.

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