At six, Mike Boodley took his first ride on a roller-coaster -- on the
original wooden coaster in Hershey Park. When it was over, his mother asked
him if he wanted to go again.
"I said no," remembers Boodley. "I guess it shook me up a little." But
by the time the family left the park, all Boodley would talk about was the
roller-coaster. It was the start of a lifelong fascination.
At eight, Boodley built his first roller-coaster in the backyard. It was
no more than a laundry basket, boards and roller skates, but Boodley learned
from the design. "You redo them and you learn," he says.
At 38, Boodley has engineered three roller-coasters, including a wooden
roller-coaster in Hershey Park called Wild Cat. The Wild Cat sits right beside
the very first coaster Boodley ever rode!
"Yeah, that's neat," he says with a laugh. The Wild Cat is also the first
coaster Boodley designed for his own company. "We just gave our lives to it,"
he says.
Ron Toomer's launch as a roller-coaster designer was a matter of being
in the right place at the right time. A mechanical engineer by training, Toomer
found himself without a job after a shakeup in the aerospace industry. "[My
current company] was looking for a mechanical engineer and gave me a temporary
job," says Toomer.
That was over 30 years ago. That same company is the one that built the
Matterhorn, the Pirates of the Caribbean and many other rides for Disney.
Toomer has become a living legend in roller-coaster design. "I have 87
coasters operating in the world. I can't think of anything more satisfying
than what I do."
During Toomer's tenure, the company has developed the modern upside-down
roller-coaster. "The first was made in the early 1900s at Coney Island --
it had problems and didn't work, basically." Toomer took the idea back to
the drawing board and built the Corkscrew.
"That was a great big breakthrough," says Toomer. The Corkscrew graced
Knott's Berry Farm for a number of years and is still being used in the Silverwood
Theme Park. "We're responsible for everything you see that goes upside down
these days," says Toomer.
Sitting in the front seat of the roller-coaster industry
has been quite a ride for Toomer. "We've gone all the way from the first one
that didn't go 40 feet above the ground now up to 225 feet. It's been fun.
I've got to go everywhere, and we've got projects all over the world," Toomer
says.
"I don't know of any other industry where you can go all the way from a
piece of paper all the way through building it and going out and watching
people ride it."
Does the designer have favorites? Toomer likes the rides that were most
challenging to create. "We built a racing coaster for Cedar Point." That's
an amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio, with a lot of roller-coasters.
"The coaches race around in that one," explains Toomer. "Then there's the
Loch Ness Monster in Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the Magnum
-- which was the first 200-foot roller-coaster." The Magnum is also in Cedar
Point.
Toomer says the next big breakthrough will be a roller-coaster that goes
100 miles an hour. Coasters already exist that exceed speeds of 80 miles an
hour. "There's always going to be bigger ones, faster ones. I don't know where
it will end ever."
Toomer knows he's in an enviable position. He gets hundreds of letters
from young people every year who want to become roller-coaster designers.
"I tell them it's easier to get a job as an astronaut and go into outer space.
There's really just a handful of people in the world who design roller-coasters."
On the bright side, Toomer says there is a growing demand around the world
for amusement park rides. For instance, Toomer has been in Malaysia on a project
-- as people get more leisure time and more money, they look for entertainment.
Toomer tries to answer every letter he receives. His advice? "If they really
are stuck on this thing, get their degree and go do their thing and keep their
names in front of potential employers."
That's exactly what Mike Boodley did. He had talked so often to one roller-coaster
manufacturer that when the man got a new contract, he immediately thought
of Boodley.
"It's a very competitive business. They want people to do the newest, latest
thing." Boodley was ready for the job because he'd done his homework. While
he was still a kid, he worked for an amusement park. His first job out of
college was with a company that used to build coasters and had trimmed back
its operations to just build coaches.
"I never got to design a coaster, but they put me on designing cars, which
was the next best thing!"
It also gave Boodley important contacts in the roller-coaster industry,
contacts he kept up when he completed his degree in mechanical engineering
and went to work for the aerospace industry.
"Even though it was paying rent, I still kept in touch with people designing
and would periodically check in with them," he says.
Boodley is currently carving out his niche in the wooden roller-coaster
market. "My personal goal is to design 15 coasters. Once I've reached that,
I'll be satisfied." Boodley will be long retired before people lose interest
in the thrills and chills of the coaster.
"Nobody even had a car when coasters were invented. Now you can go 90 miles
an hour, but people still love coasters -- and I think they always will,"
he says.