ÐÔÊӽ紫ý

Highlights

• For hospitality management alum Doug Akers ’07, the best operations are the ones guests never notice.

• Over more than two decades at Universal Destinations & Experiences, Akers has helped create seamless guest experiences that allow people to focus on making memories.

• Now, he’s helping inspire the next generation of experienced leaders to combine storytelling, technology and operations to create wonder for generations to come.

A child clutches a wand before stepping into Hogsmeade for the first time. Nearby, a father smiles, remembering his own first visit years earlier. Grandparents pause for a photo. Teenagers race toward their favorite coaster. Doug Akers ’07 notices all of it.

As senior vice president of operations for Universal Destinations & Experiences, the ÐÔÊӽ紫ý hospitality management alumnus helps oversee the intricate systems that make those moments possible. But after more than 20 years in the themed entertainment industry, he’s learned that operations isn’t really about attractions, transportation or crowd flow.

It’s about protecting something surprisingly fragile: wonder.

Finding the Right Path

Akers’ love of theme parks began early. He found himself happily spending hours designing his own theme parks inside video games and paying far more attention to the operational details than anyone else his age thought necessary. While friends obsessed over bigger roller coasters and taller drop towers, he wondered where deliveries arrived, where maintenance crews parked and what made the fantasy feel believable.

“I had my own little fan website,” he says. “People think I’m obsessive, but I’d ask myself, ‘Where’s my service road? Where’s my warehouse? The park doesn’t look real. It needs the support buildings.'”

As a child, Akers helped his parents with the annual school carnival, arriving before the crowds to watch an empty schoolyard transform into something magical.

Looking back, though, the curiosity started even earlier. As a child, Akers helped his parents with the annual carnival at his elementary school, arriving before the crowds to watch vendors transform an empty schoolyard into something magical.

“I think that’s really where I got my roots,” he says, reflecting on early mornings spent watching adults solve problems, adapt to surprises and somehow make it all look effortless.

By high school, that curiosity had become impossible to ignore. He enrolled in Honors Physics after hearing about a key design project that challenged students to apply scientific principles to something they cared about. He knew immediately that he wanted to create a theme park.

At ÐÔÊӽ紫ý, he discovered that operations offered the same intellectual challenge that first drew him to engineering.

The project quickly grew beyond a classroom assignment.  Along with crafting miniature toothpick landscapes and designing attractions, Akers wrote fictional press releases announcing the park’s grand opening and carefully mapped out how every element fit together. He wasn’t just building rides — he was creating an experience.

Engineering seemed like an obvious choice when Akers began college. He had always been fascinated by how systems worked and how their pieces fit together. At ÐÔÊӽ紫ý, he discovered that operations offered the same intellectual challenge that first drew him to engineering, while adding a dimension he hadn’t expected: human behavior.

How do thousands of moving parts and people come together so seamlessly that guests never stop to think about them? How do all those unseen details shape what people remember long after they return home?

Those questions ultimately led him to , where he discovered an academic environment that blended entertainment, finance, guest service, leadership, operations and strategic thinking.

Learning to See the Invisible

A college job at Universal Orlando Resort became something much bigger — a cauldron of knowledge, more wondrous than anything else he had known. Each new opportunity brought greater responsibility. Akers worked in transportation, attractions, food and beverage, entry operations and special events across multiple parks and international projects. By building a reputation for thoughtful leadership and a willingness to learn every corner of the business, he rose from a college employee to one of the company’s senior executives.

Along the way, he learned one lesson that has shaped his career: the most exceptional operations are often the least visible.

When every detail is executed seamlessly, guests never think about logistics, staffing or transportation. They’re focused on making memories with family and friends.

That’s when Akers realized operations were never the end goal. They were the foundations that made those meaningful experiences possible.

Wonder Doesn’t Have an Age Limit

Spend a day in the parks with Akers and one thing becomes clear: he spends as much time watching guests as he does monitoring attractions. A child experiences a beloved story for the first time. Parents revisit childhood memories. Grandparents watch a new generation imagine and dream.

For Akers, those moments are the true measure of success.

Wonder doesn’t disappear as people grow older. It simply takes on new meaning with every stage of life, creating memories and connections that span generations.

Creating and operating the spaces where those moments take place has quietly become the work of his career.

Leading Through Curiosity

Today, Akers oversees operations on a scale he never imagined as a college student. His career has taken him across the U.S. and around the world, including helping open Universal Studios Singapore and Universal Studios Beijing.

Those experiences also help shape the future of the industry. Through the first-of-its-kind housed within ÐÔÊӽ紫ý’s Rosen College — created in partnership with Universal Destinations & Experiences — students will learn how storytelling, technology and operations work together while designing experiences that inspire wonder, with Universal helping craft the curriculum.

At ÐÔÊӽ紫ý, professors and mentors challenged Akers to think differently and encouraged him to pursue opportunities he hadn’t considered. They helped him recognize that careers rarely follow a straight path and that curiosity is often a better guide than certainty.

It’s the same advice he shares with ÐÔÊӽ紫ý students: Don’t become so attached to your original plan that you miss the opportunity in front of you. The best experiences are the ones held together by thousands of invisible details working in perfect harmony, Akers says.

Somewhere today, another child will step through Universal Orlando Resort’s gates carrying a wand almost as tall as they are. Years from now, they may return with children of their own.

Akers hopes they never think about the thousands of unseen details that made the day possible.

He hopes they remember only how they felt.

He hopes they remember the wonder.

is about more than reaching a destination. It’s about creating the conditions for bold ideas, transformative experiences and life-changing opportunities, similar to the ones that shaped Akers’ career. Join us in investing in students, strengthening our university and helping ÐÔÊӽ紫ý continue to reach ever higher.