Scott Wolf: What were you doing before you became Ambassador?

Matt Ebeling: I worked for Disney thirteen years total. I started in entertainment as a performer during my college years while I attended Pepperdine, so I worked summers and holidays and any weekend I could sneak away to get over there and entertain the kids and families and everything.

SW: Were you doing shows or parade or something else?

ME: Predominantly just random special event and atmosphere talent. Just that with the kids and an occasional stage show here and there, but mostly the special events both on and off property. That was really fun and a great introduction to the company because it was all about the things that ultimately Disney's trying to do which is just to have that creation of memories with the families. It was really, really enjoyable.

When I graduated from school, I got my foot in the door job with Resort Sales at the Disneyland Resort. I was about twenty years old I think and they put me in charge of the Grad Night program, so it was kind of a daunting introduction into corporate life. I had to learn, it was kind of "baptism by fire" as they say. I never worked in an office before. I never experienced anything other than playing baseball, and the entertainment stuff. I didn't even know how to use email real well yet alone run a multi million dollar sales program for a thousand high schools or so.

It was a really neat blessing to experience that on the forefront because it prepared me in a really short time for what it means to work in administration over there and really to help me develop a love for event planning, because what I discovered being in sales is that while I loved the relationship side of it, I discovered I really didn't like sales. I liked the relationship side and I liked the event side so I ended up moving over to another area of sales that was responsible for the actual event planning and implementation rather than just the selling of those programs.

So I went into what was called Park Event Services. It was basically a special events group that was in sales that planned all of the corporate picnics and private parties. I think they still call them After Dark in the Park and some other private parties, where a company or corporation or other group will buy out part of the theme park after hours and have a private event. It got tailored to their interests, and of course some of the more modest little quicker picnics and things where a group would come in and have the Festival arena or Golden Horseshoe or the Big Thunder Ranch area cornered off for them.

That's how I got into event planning for the first time and really, really loved that. Those are the roles I had before the Ambassador program.

SW: I think the Special Events part of the resort is something that the general public doesn't know about too much.

ME: It's so neat. What I love about it is that being a person who loves people so much, I was never into the politics so much or trying to climb the corporate ladder and all that stuff, I just really cared about trying to make a difference and having fun with people and just helping people out. I enjoyed the special events business because to get anything done you had to work with lots of different departments and lots of different people. You were never a silo. You had to be all over the resort both physically and relationship-wise. I think that's what really paved the way for me finally saying I would enjoy serving in the Ambassador role. I felt like I finally had a better feel of the workings of the whole resort and not just my little area where I was performing in entertainment or in sales. I got chosen in October of '01 for my 2002 year and that's what led up to. Really fun stuff.

SW: When you became Ambassador it had been Ambassador teams for awhile. You were the first solo Ambassador since '95.

ME: That was really a shock.

SW: Did you know you it would not be a team?

ME: Well, before that there had never been a solo male Ambassador. When I applied I remember looking back at some of the Ambassadors I really respected over the years, namely Dorothy Stratton is a good example. It took Dorothy several attempts, two or three years, before she got selected. I thought, "This is just going to be my practice year. I'm going to go into this thing just to give it my best shot and to learn how the situation goes."

As we got through it I started to want it more and more of course as I advanced. Then they announced the finalists and it was me and four women. I knew the history enough to know there had never been a male by himself.

They had actually told us up until the ceremony that it was definitely going to be two people. They said it was going to be a pair. So here I am thinking, "If it's a pair, maybe I have a shot because maybe they'll want a guy and a girl." But I was still thinking, "Who knows?" They didn't mention it in rehearsal, but it wasn't until the actual ceremony that Cynthia Harriss hushed the entire audience and said, "I know you've all been looking forward to this moment... and I know you are probably not expecting this but I have to tell you that this 2002 year is going to have just one Ambassador." She just dropped the bomb and nobody knew. It hushed the whole audience because everybody had been thinking it would be a pair.

I remember talking to the other finalists and they all kind of agreed that at that moment they were thinking, "Well, shoot, I don't have a shot now." I'm thinking, "Well, there's never been a guy by himself, if it's going to be one person I don't have shot."

When they picked my name I was genuinely floored. It just turned out to be one of those things I never could have predicted because I really went into it more at the prodding of my friends telling me I should because it always seemed like something bigger than me.

SW: Do you remember your first official day as Ambassador?

ME: Yeah, I do. More than anything I remember the night before because my first official Ambassador event was hosting the New Year's Event countdown, going into the 2002 year.

They often have several countdown locations spread out across the resort and they had us over at the It's a Small World mall area and we had a stage setup there and we were basically entertaining that crowd all night. It was me and my predecessors, the outgoing Ambassadors Heri and Doina. We were there for four or five hours leading up to midnight in tuxedos and top hats and a crazy getup, just hollering at the crowd and just pumping them up. Every time one of the time zones celebrated the New Year we made a big to do about it. We were all tied in to "Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve" and every now and then the live camera would pan over to us and we'd do our little thing. That was my first memory of my first day. The New Year's Day itself we didn't do a whole lot other than rest.

I remember them telling me, even before the selection, that it was going to be a really busy year. Once the selection happened and they said it was going to be by myself, they said, "Okay, brace yourself..."

SW: Isn't that a tremendous difference... being a solo Ambassador, rather than sharing the duties with another?

ME: Yeah, and I don't have any regrets. There are pros and cons. I really enjoyed having the role to myself in some ways because I got to experience it all, but some of the disadvantages were that lots of times there were more demands than I had time for and we'd have to say no to things. I think when you have more than two people it gets a little convoluted, but by having two people you have a better shot at being a more accurate representation of the Cast.

I enjoyed it but it was busy, really, really busy. I remember one of the classic speeches that the Ambassadors always give to the applicants as they're coming in and considering their experiences is that this is a real commitment. There's a certain amount of sacrifice to personal life and family and that sort of thing. It's not uncommon to work seven days a week and always be on call. I can remember more than one time when I got waken up in the middle of the night to do a live radio broadcast over the phone with like an Australian radio station because of the time difference, or just working like twenty hours straight several days in a row. Just sleep, getting naps and catnaps on property between events... you did anything you had to serve the resort and stay on top of it all. It was fun and there were no regrets. You knew it was a sprint and you knew it was going to be hard work, but you also knew it had an end to it so it made it okay.

SW: What kinds of big things happened at the resort the year you were Ambassador?

ME: "Mickey's Detective School" opened that year, and w We opened "A Bug's Land" which included "Flik's Fun Fair." I enjoyed that because I knew that DCA (Disney's California Adventure) definitely needed some more attractions for the real young kids at that time. That was one piece of feedback that the resort was really listening hard to and trying to act on. So having all those pre-school-aged attractions come out was good for them.

I have a lot of fond memories celebrating the one year anniversary that year of DCA and the Grand Californian Hotel and Downtown Disney. I think that was my first big speaking moment was opening the ceremonies of the one year birthday at California Adventure in Sunshine Plaza. I just remember having an insane amount of characters and the monorails crossing behind with the characters hanging out of windows, and confetti and different folks that were integral to the design of the park, and Cynthia Harriss of course. That was fun, a big moment for me because I remember thinking, "Disney's a cool place."

When you work for a place like that it gives you confidence. To think I was a real shy kid just a few years before and now I was addressing thousands of people in a famous theme park, I just couldn't believe it.

SW: Do you have a particular favorite memory, or was that it?

ME: One of the things that I think is important to note is that I was selected almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks. So there was kind of this overall atmosphere at the resort which was really hard for people for awhile. I remember people were just trying to find a sense of cheer again. I felt like a lot of my role was to really focus internally whereas for many Ambassadors their role was often about traveling the world and bringing Disney to the far reaches of the globe. Mine was a lot more inward. It was about spending a lot of time with the Cast Members and trying to cheer them up and just bring a smile wherever I could, and in the local community we did a lot with Children's Hospital of Orange County and visiting the kids there. That was one of my personal favorite things.

A couple other memories... one is that a baby was born inside Disneyland Park during my year. That was one of the more surreal pages that I got.

SW: How were you involved in that?

ME: I literally just got a call. We had a really archaic version of the Blackberry back then. It was kind of a little pager with little buttons on it. I just got a call saying someone had a baby inside Disneyland. I remember thinking, "Is this a joke?" I called back and they said she basically had labor in one of the manager's offices. She went into labor just as she came through the gates. The main entrance offices were used and the child was born inside the park.  rushed over to the hospital with a basket of goodies and plush and characters and we visited with the mom and dad and baby and took some photos, and let them know how excited we were for them. There was a point of pride about this kid being born there and it was special.

Then, as a baseball fan, being a part of all the festivities of the Anaheim Angels winning the World Series that year. What that entailed for me was that the resort hosted the team and their families for a slew of activities. It might have been the next day after the series, it was pretty close afterwards. They started with a breakfast in Toontown one morning early with all the families and I was there to host that, and then we joined them for a celebratory parade down Main Street. Then they got into buses and did a celebration parade through the city of Anaheim.

We just kind of stuck with them the whole day, and it was really fun seeing how childlike the guys were in celebration of this and seeing the effect that Disney has on grown men. They were just totally impervious to the giddiness.

SW: Did Disney own the Angels at that time?

ME: They did which made it extra special. It was our team. So many of the Cast Members and the Guests grew up with the Angels, so seeing them achieve that level under our watch was so, so cool!

SW: Diane (Killeen) said one of her favorite memories occurred during your term as Ambassador. It was the return of the USS Shreveport.

ME: Oh, that was great, that was a really neat memory. It was all spurred by a wonderful program through the VoluntEARS called Operation Uplift (which started in 1995 during Operation Desert Storm). It was basically a postcard program where Disney would design and purchase postcards and pay the postage and basically just have the postcards available at different events throughout the resort for both Guests and Cast Members to just sign anonymous notes of encouragement to the servicemen and women serving aboard various ships that Disney started up relationships with. They would pick like a certain battleship and this year happened to be the Shreveport.

Every few months they would just have these enormous duffle bags of signed postcards from members of the Disneyland community just airlifted out to the ship in the middle of their tour. They would just ring the bells and dole all these postcards out and the servicemen and women would just swarm over them and read them, and even though they didn't know who these people were that were lifting them up, it just touched them so much.

This particular ship, the Shreveport had been away on a mission in reaction to 9/11. They were gone an unusual amount of time. I don't know how long they're usually gone, but this one was gone almost eight months. It was gone over the Christmas break and everything. We at the Disneyland Resort wanted to lift them up during that time and part of the closure to that relationship we airlifted Mickey Mouse out to the ship by helicopter to actually ride the final ride back home with the crew. Then I went out to the port in Norfolk, Virginia and visited with the spouses and families in preparation of their servicemen and women coming home. I just participated in a few fun little ceremonies when the ship did dock.

There's a bunch of traditions in the military and the Navy and such and one of them was about acknowledging the women that had babies while their spouses were serving away. I've got this picture of all these mothers on the dock holding their babies, waiting on the dock for their husbands to come home.

There's also some sort of contest of who gets to have the first kiss with their spouse when they disembark, so this lucky serviceman who won that got to run down the deck before anybody else and we were there with his wife. It was just really neat seeing the reunion of all those people.

SW: I imagine it would be quite emotional.

ME: It really was. Just to see them all coming back and safe from harm and seeing Mickey Mouse on the deck all lined up with hundreds, if not thousands of servicemen and women in their dress whites and they're all saluting, it was really cool. Then Mickey did a ceremonial hat exchange with the captain. That's another tradition is for ship captains to exchange hats in a ceremonial show of support to each other. Mickey brought his own hat, like a Steamboat Willie kind of thing and did an exchange with the captain, and then I presented the captain with a proclamation from the resort declaring the entire crew honorary citizens of Disneyland. It was a fun day and it was neat that we got to be a part of it.

SW: What an extraordinary year.

ME: For me, the whole year was a blessing because I felt that it really was about the Cast Members and it was largely centered on them, and that really fit well with who I was and my passions. I think the true satisfaction from the role always came from the honor of representing them to the world. Just interacting with them as much as I could, being out in the park, and just sitting down and having a good conversation with a Cast Member and hearing their story and then helping to tell that story to others. That meant a lot to me, having that responsibility.

People would always come up to me, and the Ambassadors tend to be pretty formal looking and to many Cast Members they can seem almost unapproachable at times, and my insistence has always been to break down those barriers and let them know, "Hey, I'm just a guy. I'm just a Cast Member like you. I'm serving you, I'm not here as some sort of superior role. I'm here because I'm at your service." I think that's really what the role should be and tends to be. When it's done right, it's about serving the Cast, it's about me last and the Cast first and I think that's what makes the program so special.

SW: What did you do after you were Ambassador?

ME: I still loved the special events role so much that I got into another special events team at the Disneyland Resort called Cast Activities. They're the group within Human Resources that plans various fun events for the Cast Members. Before the Ambassador term I planned externally and now I planned events internally. We did events like Little Monsters (Halloween party) and Minnie's Moonlit Madness was one of my fortes that I loved to plan.

SW: I've done that, it's fun. For people that don't know it's an elaborate scavenger hunt for Cast Members which takes place throughout the Disneyland Resort after hours.

ME: It's great fun. Then there's the service awards for celebrating milestones of service. There's the Cast film screenings, the family holiday party, any of the Cast previews for new shows or attractions, I planned all of those. And the sports leagues, I ran the Cast sports leagues for several years. Technically they called them the Disneyland Resort sports leagues. They were basically like intermural sports if you were to compare it to a college. Just Disney Cast Members playing sports all year round. For instance, we played basketball and there'd be 40 teams of just people that worked at Disneyland. We had basketball, softball, volleyball and the canoe races which were of particular interest to most people because they couldn't be found anywhere else in the world.

SW: Have all these been going on for awhile?

ME: The canoe races are close to almost 45 years old now. The best I could tell the basketball was around twenty years old, maybe more, softball is at least 35 years old, and volleyball is probably about 15 or 20.

Disney's a funny place because there's so much to do. It was kind of like a college experience in that way where depending on your interests there were things you could venture to and certain things you didn't, but there was always something for anybody.

SW: What did you do after Cast Activities?

ME: After five years of Cast Activities I went back to public affairs and actually worked in Communications as the Production Manager in charge of Cast TV and did graphic design for things like the Line (Disneyland's internal newsletter) and for language translation. I just left that role last July and now I am working for Pepperdine University. I'm the Executive Director of Alumni Affairs.

SW: So that's similar to what you were doing with Disney?

ME: Yes, so many similarities and parallels. I feel like all the experiences I had at Disney led to this. I wasn't looking to leave Disney by any means. I just had a really great opportunity and I went to Pepperdine as an undergrad so this is like coming home to me in a certain way, but oh boy do I miss Disney. It was a really hard decision. There's always a chance I'll go back, we left on really good terms and I just loved it. I still keep in touch with everybody and my wife still works for Disney.
(Picture right, Matt & Roy E. Disney)

SW: I sure appreciate your time for this interview.

ME: It's my pleasure. It was an amazing year. I just fell into a big pot of blessings and tried to serve the best I could. I wish everybody could experience what I experienced.

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