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Register Award winner - Richard Kinzel

By EVAN GOODENOW
evangoodenow@sanduskyregister.com

SANDUSKY - He's a hands-on workaholic, but he knows when to delegate authority. He is conservative and frugal by nature, but his biggest successes were huge risks. He is outgoing and personable, but will play tough when he has to.

Like many successful people, Register Award winner Dick Kinzel has his share of contradictions. But all agree his transformation of Cedar Point from a regionally successful amusement park to a national model has been a labor of love.

"My job is really not that hard," Kinzel said in 2003. "This isn't rocket science -- it's fun."

Fun is the stock market name for Cedar Fair -- the corporation that runs Cedar Point and amusement parks in five other states -- and fun is what the amusement parks are all about. But it is, after all, a business -- one in which Kinzel is considered a visionary.

He worked his way to becoming a $1.3 million CEO with plenty of elbow grease and shrewd decisions. They included recognizing Cedar Point should be seen not only as an amusement park, but a resort, acquiring Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Vista, Calif., and constructing a series of bigger and better roller coasters including the 200-foot Magnum XL 200 and the 310-foot Millennium Force.

"The secret that Dick has is to know which ideas are the great ones and how to pick the apple from the tree," said Jack Falfas, chief operating officer of Cedar Fair and the man who took over day-to-day operations of Cedar Point in 2004. "His laboratory is walking the parks. If there's electricity around a ride or if there isn't, that's how he tells. You can't get a sense of our business from a balance sheet."

Turning a regional success into a national powerhouse was not all fun and games for Kinzel. The ride began in 1972 when the Toledo native rolled into Cedar Point in a Volkswagen bus he planned to sleep in on the campground while earning $14,000 a year working in food services.

He worked his way up to CEO by logging a lot of hours, but still found time to be a good husband and father of four. Kinzel -- married to Judy Kinzel since 1961 -- managed to be there for his kids while still overseeing a business that has returned more than $1 billion to stockholders since going public in 1987.

"He didn't bring his work home with him when he came home," said Derek Kinzel, the youngest of Kinzel's children. "When he came home, he wasn't the president of Cedar Point, he was dad and that meant a lot."

Kinzel, his children and his seven grandchildren regularly vacation at his condo in Venice, Fla. And he has been known to parody James Cagney's song and dance routine from the Yankee Doodle Dandy movie when the grandchildren stop by the Cedar Point offices.

When he's not running his business or going for a run or attending church with the family on Sundays, Kinzel is likely to be watching a Yankees game or attending a Buckeyes game. But work is never far from his mind. "We can be watching a Lakers game, or the Cavs and all of a sudden he'll ask about business," said Falfas who sees Kinzel as the older brother he never had.

Although gregarious and approachable, Kinzel can be tough in whom he promotes and how jobs are done.

"If you screw up, you know it, but if you do well, you know it too," said John Hildebrandt, vice president and general manager of Cedar Fair. "He gives a lot of positive reinforcement."

Kinzel runs a no-frills operation and hates waste, whether it's litter that he picks up in parks during the 2,000 or so hours he spends walking them, or executive excess.

Kinzel also knows how to play hardball. He got Sandusky to back down on a car tax in 2003 by threatening to sue the city. Kinzel said the city needed to decrease its spending rather than implement the tax and reminded city commissioners Cedar Point has its own police force, repairs its own roads and frequently donates to charities.

While disagreeing with him about the tax, Brett L. Fuqua, a Sandusky city commissioner, said he has tremendous respect for Kinzel. "He did what any businessman would do in that position," Fuqua said.

But Kinzel would rather play diplomat than benevolent dictator with the city, as in trying to mediate the water regionalization dispute. "We just want them to talk," Kinzel said of Erie County and Sandusky commissioners after urging them to stall plans for new water plant until after the election.

"I wouldn't say he was trying to throw his weight around," said Mike Kresser, ex-officio mayor. "He was trying to help."

No carpetbagger, Kinzel -- a husband and father of four -- lives in Sandusky, unlike past Cedar Point CEOs. And unlike many of his contemporaries, he has never pitted communities against one another by threatening to move the company headquarters out of town. Even during the parking tax beef.

The community commitment was evidenced again in December when the Victory Temple Soup Kitchen was threatening to close. Kinzel ponied up an undisclosed amount of his own money and about $12,000 of Cedar Point's to keep the kitchen running.

While not afraid to spend money when he believes it is warranted, Kinzel hasn't gotten greedy. "Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered," Kinzel wrote to Donald Trump when the real estate tycoon was soliciting quotes for a business advice book in 2003.

The quote may not have been heeded by the ostentatious Trump, but it has helped Kinzel steer clear of the tough times. In 2005, responding to an attendance decline from 3.2 million attendance to 3.1 million, Cedar Point announced a $5 price cut to $39.95 was made for one-day admission this season.

"When things are going bad, you can't just sit on your hands and say, 'Well, they're going to get better,'" Kinzel told National Public Radio in November. "This year, we suffered in all of our parks."

Kinzel will be walking and talking around the parks this season, but he is also stepping back as he plans to retire after the 2007 season. The transition is a tightrope he must walk Falfas said.

But even in retirement, Kinzel will be a presence. "You don't raise a child like this company and just walk away," Falfas said.

FunCoast.com is your online guide to summer fun for Cedar Point, the LakeErie Islands and Sandusky area. Our site offers up-to-date information on area attractions, restaurants, hotels, gasoline prices, ferry schedules, swimming, birding and fishing, along with a complete listing of events happening in the Sandusky/Cedar Point area. To use our Webcam and zoom in on Cedar Point's rollercoasters, go to http://funcam.funcoast.com