NAMES TO REMEMBER

WALTER "WALT" ELIAS DISNEY

A ROUGH START

• In 1917, 16 year old Walter Disney dropped out of high school to serve in the army, although he was rejected as he was too young
• After serving as an ambulance driver in France, Walt returned to America and was hired for the Kansas City Film Ad company where he made cutout animations.
• Disney later decided to start his own animation company with one of his former coworkers. They released short films called Laugh-O-Grams, as well as a a series of films called "Alice in Cartoon Land."
• His animations were quite popular, although worsening debt forced him to declare bankruptcy in the mid 1920's.

AN AD FOR WALTS FIRST ANIMATION COMPANY

DISNEY BROTHERS STUDIO

• Walt, along with one of his co-workers, Ubbe Iwerks, well as his brother Roy, began a new animation company in California. They quickly made a deal with Margaret Winkler, part of a New York Company, to distribute the Alice cartoons, and created shorts with a new character, Oswald the lucky rabbit, at $1500 per film.
• However, things came crashing down when Margaret and her husband took everyone of Disney's animators and stole the rights to Oswald.
• Disney, his brother, and Iwerks, along with their wives, created an animation for Walts new character Micky Mouse. The animation was Titled Steamboat Willie, and Walt was the voice of Mickey.

ANIMATION DOMINATION

• Steamboat Willie was a hit, and soon after came the rest of the classic gang, with animations that included Donald, Minnie, goofy, and Pluto. And in 1937, They released their first full length film, "Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs." Disney and his company were looking up from here, despite a small bump in the road when employees when on strike and the company was left shaken. After this, Walt was making future classics, from "Cinderella," to "Alice in Wonderland," to "Peter Pan."

DISNEY PARKS

• Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California in 1955.
• The parks instant success lead to the construction of parks in Hong Kong, Paris, and Tokyo.
• The project which Walt was most excited for was in Florida. He was to build four parks in Orlando Florida which included Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, MGM Studios, and his very own Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow, or EPCOT. Sadly, however, Disney died of lung cancer before he could see it completed.

DEBRA "DEBBI" FIELDS

ON THE STREETS

• Debbi opened Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chippery in Palo Alto, California in 1977.
• On her first day, things were going slow. She decided to go out on the streets, giving free samples of her baked goods.

A WINNING SMILE

• Her bakery was a success, bringing in $75 in sales just in the last few hours of the day.
• As her bakery grew, she was making more and more of a name for herself with her charm. She was able to give people a special feeling by remembering all of her regulars and being friendly over all.
• Eventually, her loving customers persuaded her to open another location.

EXPANDING THE COMPANY

• From the addition of her second bakery, it's been nothing but success for her.
• She's gone across 10 countries, and has opened over 700 bakeries.
• In addition she has written several cook books and stands as the face of her company.

Pierre Omidyar

NATURAL TALENT

• Since he was just a boy Pierre had a talent with technology.
• When he was 14, he wrote his first program to catalog library books.

A GOOD START

• Fresh out of university, Pierre worked for Apple where he developed the Macintosh for three years.
• He went on to develop a software company called Ink Development Company. This was later bought by Microsoft in 1966.

EBAY IS BORN

• In 1995, Pierre ran a code on his website which allowed people to go on the page and list items for auction for others to bid on.
• After it was apparent that this would be a hit, Omidyar developed it into its own website, calling it "EBay."
• By charging a small price for listing items, as well as a percentage of the money which the items sold for, he had instant profit.
• Today, he has made billions, and is now an avid philanthropist.

SCOURCES

• http://www.ltbn.com/hall_of_fame/Fields.html
• Biography.com
• debbifields.com

THANK YOU