CCS Alumni Feature
Jeremy Grunert’s Creative Aspirations
L ike many teenagers, Jeremy Grunert ’06 worked at Busch Gardens during high school, but he never planned on making it a career. In fact, a “Themed Entertainment” degree didn’t even exist when he
huge presentation he worked on in Mr. Hickinbotham’s geography class that allowed him to work in a group and find a presentation style that worked for him. His participation in the CCS musicals also allowed him to see the behind the scenes work that goes on. After graduation, he moved on to a community college in Orlando while working at Universal Studios. It was there that he met a team of creative professionals that worked in the park and sparked his interest in a theme park career. He began taking courses in drafting, lighting and theatrical design. He introduced himself to the design team and “offered to sweep the floor, get coffee, or whatever they needed so that I could be in that creative environment. So, when the opportunity to work on the Harry Potter project came up, they
thought of me.” Once on the project, he met producers, directors, and creative people and was able to learn how things come together. After the project ended, he went back to school to get some more skills. Then he was offered a job at another expansion of the Harry Potter project called Diagon Alley, and then at the end of that project he stepped away from Universal to work at Thinkwell and moved to California. There he was instantly exposed to hundreds of projects including Universal Japan, Universal China, and invited to be the producer for the Warner Brothers World in Abu Dhabi, the largest indoor theme park in the world.
graduated. Little did he know that one day he’d have his dream job, working on designing some of the biggest theme parks in the world.
At Cambridge, Jeremy said that
being on the Yearbook staff for 3 years really helped him develop his creativity, design, and presentation skills that he would use extensively later on. In addition, he remembers a
8 | ccslancers.com Spring 2021 - Connections
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