St. Vinny's to host former Disney exec at leadership summit

COEUR d’ALENE — St. Vincent de Paul North Idaho employees must graduate from "Vinny University," where they learn the art of customer service.

At the heart of that training is Lee Cockerell's book, "Creating Magic."

"The philosophy is to create service so exceptional that people have no choice but to talk about you," said executive director Jeff Conroy. "All of my employees, all 100 of us have read the book. It's the first class everyone goes through."

Cockerell, the former executive vice president of operations for the Walt Disney World Resort, will be bringing some Disney magic to Coeur d'Alene Oct. 19, when he'll be the star of a leadership summit at the Hagadone Event Center.

The leadership summit will serve as a fundraiser for St. Vincent de Paul North Idaho as well as a community event where people will get to hear about Cockerell's experiences with Disney and learn some hospitality and leadership pointers.

"I wanted to do something different," Conroy said. "We're known for that. We do the soup event, the Party in the Park, but we also believe in leadership and everything that comes with it."

Cockerell led a team of 40,000 cast members and was responsible for the operations of 20 resort hotels, four theme parks, two water parks, a shopping and entertainment village and the ESPN sports and recreation complex, in addition to the ancillary operations that supported the No. 1 vacation destination in the world. One of Cockerell's major and lasting legacies was the creation of Disney Great Leader Strategies, which was used to train and develop the 7,000 leaders at Walt Disney World.

Cockerell also held various executive positions in the hospitality and entertainment business with Hilton Hotels for eight years and the Marriott Corporation for 17 years, before joining Disney in 1990 to open Disneyland Paris. He now dedicates his time to public speaking, consulting for organizations around the world and conducting leadership and service excellence workshops. He has written several books on leadership, management and service excellence.

"Leadership is a huge topic in our community," Conroy said. "Instead of reading about it or watching someone on a screen, he's going to be here in person."

The Creating Disney Magic with Lee Cockerell event includes two sessions to choose from (morning or afternoon), a VIP meet-and-greet, a book signing and a live question-and-answer recording for the "You TOO Can Create Disney Magic" podcast.

Tickets are $49 each but will increase to $59 effective Monday. They can be purchased at www.stvincentdepaulcda.org/event/creating-disney-magic-with-lee-cockerell/.

The Hagadone Event Center is located at 900 S. Floating Green Drive, Coeur d'Alene.