womengineers day 2003 KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Rachel Hutter
Director
Attractions Engineering Services and Quality Assurance
Walt Disney World® Co.

Born in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, Rachel attended Michigan State University and graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Theater.

Rachel’s early engineering jobs included medical research in Functional Electrical Stimulation for spinal-cord injury patients, Facilities and Construction Management at General Motors, Controls Engineering at General Mills, and Technical Support for United Electric, an Allen-Bradley distributor.

Rachel joined Walt Disney World® Ride and Show Engineering in 1997. She was part of the Imagineering team that built Disney’s Animal Kingdom® Theme Park. After construction, she joined Disney’s Animal Kingdom® Engineering Services team as the park’s Reliability Engineer.

Later Rachel was promoted to the Manager of Park Systems and Transportation. In this role, she led the Park Systems team that maintained the data and audio communications networks and the stand-alone PC show equipment. Rachel also led the Transportation team that maintained the park’s trains, boats, and Safari vehicles. This experience eventually led Rachel to Walt Disney World® Technical Services where she managed teams that supported radio, video, electronic access, PC and peripherals, point of sale, and alarm systems needed for operations of the Walt Disney World® Resort.

In her current role, Rachel is leading a team focused on the technical proficiency of the maintenance teams that work on rides and attractions. She also leads the Quality Assurance teams that are responsible for safety through inspections, engineering reviews, and process control.

On the home front, Rachel has been married for ten years to Lawrence, a Jazz musician, who is a stay-at-home dad for their beautiful son, Lawson.