Written by Scott McNutt
This is one of two posts recapping sessions from the Fall 2024 Supply Chain Forum, held November 12-14 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Read the other on Planning for Global Success with Schneider Electric VP Jen Kelly. Attendees may watch full recordings of all of the Main Sessions at the forum in the Resources tile in the GSCI app.
Regardless of their discipline or function, business professionals who aspire to grow in an organization will need to learn the leadership skills required to do so. In one of our favorite recurring sessions at the forum, UT supply chain management department head John Bell sat down for a wide-ranging conversation with one of the region’s most visible leaders, Eugene Naughton, president of The Dollywood Company. The two men spoke about the vision, mindset, and approach required to succeed when operating an organization as large as Dollywood, which employs 4,100 people across the theme park, Splash Country Water Park, DreamMore Resort and Heartsong Lodge & Resort.
Bell: What is it like running an organization that bears Dolly Parton’s name?
Naughton: After 40 years in this business, what drew me was an opportunity to say that Dolly Parton’s my boss—everything that she represents as a human, how welcoming she is to everyone. As the president of the profit side of the company, I also get the pleasure of serving as treasurer of our 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It’s fun that the more I make on the profit side of the business, the more good I can do around the world on the nonprofit side of the business.
Much of what happens in our Dollywood Foundation is the Imagination Library. The most important thing that she’s proud of is fighting for literacy around the world. Her father couldn’t read and write. She started the Imagination Library to honor her father and to help make literacy important. We’re the largest book distributor in the world. We send more than 3 million books a month all over the world. We have a small but mighty team at our Imagination Library, 41 people who work to deliver that.
Bell: Talk about Dollywood’s response to Hurricane Helene.
Naughton: When I called to ask Dolly for support to help the eight counties in Tennessee that were impacted by Hurricane Helene, it was personal to me. We have 350 people on our team who live in Cocke County. That’s the next county over from where we operate our business. And it’s like World War III happened there. The infrastructure is gone.
When I called Dolly, she was heading to a meeting with the CEO of Walmart, and she said, ‘What help can I give you?’ I said, ‘Maybe you can ask the Walmart CEO to help us with the relief efforts?’ Because the Sam Walton Foundation has bigger coffers than Dollywood Parks and Resorts. That’s when she announced that she was personally giving $1 million to our hurricane relief effort. Then I matched that with $1 million from our coffers. When that meeting with the CEO of Walmart started, it was $4 million. A day later, it was up to $10 million.
Bell: What about this flood you had recently? What was that like dealing with?
In the summer, it rained eight inches in a half hour and then another two inches for the next three hours. We had to react quickly to get folks out of there safely. We lost 27 cars in the flood, totally covered up in our parking lot. We had to help those families stay overnight at our resorts, buy them new cars, and get them on their way. We had 800 people spend the night and missed just two hours of operation the next day.
Bell: How do you manage the group of people under you?
Naughton: Leadership is a verb. You have to provide clear insight into your long-term objectives. Before, we were thinking more short-term. When I took over, we had a long-range vision. Our long-term strategic objective is to be the number one family destination in the U.S.
The other thing is, you have to be a visible leader. You have to be on the property. I average about 18,000 steps a day on property, and I enjoy interacting with the guests, because all the answers to what we need in our organization are found in the park as you’re talking to guests.
Bell: It’s amazing what you can learn when you ‘walk the factory floor.’
Naughton: My first job was in culinary. I spent a career saying, ‘Lunch comes at the same time every day’… If I don’t have enough restaurants to feed lunch to 5,500 people an hour for three hours, then I’m not going to have a repeatable experience, I’m not going to make much money, and you’re going to upset a lot of people.
What makes a loyal customer for us is being able to achieve seven entertainment units per guest in a single day. The average length of stay is six hours at Dollywood. The 27,000 people that come each day all have to experience seven things. You have to have enough show capacity to do that. You also have to have enough ride capacity to do that.
Bell: Has labor been a challenge?
We’ve done new initiatives that have helped us gain traction from a retention perspective. We started a 100-percent-paid college tuition program, Grow U. We fund two-year and four-year degrees for anyone working 34 hours for us … I have 400 people involved in this program working for me, and they’ll be around for at least four years.
Bell: You’re a graduate of the Haslam College of Business’s executive MBA program in strategic leadership. Has it had an impact on how you approach running that team?
Naughton: I learned a tremendous amount about myself. One of the biggest takeaways I got was the leadership development; you start to understand your personality and why you make decisions, and you start to understand other people better. And you have to push yourself to be a lifelong learner. It’s a lesson I took away from my MBA program.
Ten years ago, our campus made about $32 million in profit for the year. When I took over in 2019, it made about $80 million a year. One of our classes was about creating big, audacious goals. I told people I wanted to double our profit in three years. And we did it.
Bell: Dollywood is one of the country’s top theme park destinations, according to TripAdvisor. What’s the secret sauce?
Naughton: The people are what make it go. If your folks don’t feel well cared for, they won’t be focused on caring for the guests. We’ve done a lot to help that along. We have a retention bonus to say ‘thank you’ to all the people that work for us. Those who work for us on a seasonal basis can earn up to $1,500.
We used to celebrate our big attendance days—the next day, we would buy everyone lunch. That was the number one ‘thank you’ I got. So, I decided to have a free lunch every day. We feed everyone who works for us. If they need a biscuit, they can go to the host cafeteria and get it. If they need a meal to take home, they can do it. We’re spending about $3.5 million to feed 4,100 people.
Bell: Can you share with us your biggest accomplishment as a leader?
Naughton: The Dolly Parton Experience, which we opened in May this year, is a long-term legacy play. The thing that I’m proud of is that when I walked Dolly through the completed experience … she got a chance to see all of her life’s work in one place. And I know I hit the mark when I saw her tear up.
Bell: It must have meant a lot to her that you’d found what she was looking for.
Naughton: She’s super humble and didn’t want me to do that project. But it was important to me for the project to happen in her own words. I wanted it to live on with her voice, with her essence.
Save the date
The Spring Supply Chain Forum will be held April 10-12, 2025, at the Marriott Knoxville Downtown, and you won’t want to miss it. The event is exclusive to over 80 organizations, like Schneider Electric, that partner with UT to learn, network, and recruit the best supply chain talent.
If your company is not an SCF partner, contact us to speak with a team member about either of our two corporate partnership options.
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