Disney Executive Director of Enterprise Architecture Matt Estes will present “Behind the Magic” from 4–5 p.m. Tues., Sept. 19, at the Chinook Student Center’s Room 150 at Washington State University. A question-and-answer session will follow from 5–6 p.m.
Wed., Sept. 20, professional development discussions open to all students include a drop-in coffee hour from 9:30–11:45 a.m. in Murrow 218, and a no-host, brown-bag lunch from noon – 1 p.m. in CUB 208.
Focus on Disney’s professional internships
“Mr. Estes is passionate about both WSU and about Disney, and is returning for the second year to share information with students and guests about his company’s wide array of ‘professional internship’ jobs available in the U.S. and abroad,” said Judy Hopkins, internship developer and academic/career advisor in the Academic Success and Career Center (ASCC), part of WSU Undergraduate Education. “Students from a myriad of majors will find this type of Disney internship is available in many job types across numerous businesses and brands. We hope faculty and staff will also learn more about professional internships from Mr. Estes.”
The Disney website lists 208 professional internships waiting to be filled in areas ranging from animal programs to architecture, from digital media design to accounting, from software development to marketing, and many more.
College hosts
Hosting Estes are ASCC, Carson College of Business, Honors College, WSU Athletics, Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture, Murrow College of Communication, and the College of Agriculture, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences. From Mon., Sept. 18 through Wed., Sept. 20, before and following his public lecture, Estes will visit students, faculty, and staff in each of those areas.
“By the time he leaves to return to Seattle, he will literally have had the opportunity to touch the lives of hundreds in the WSU community,” said Hopkins.
WSU music degree led to technology career
Estes is a Cougar alumnus and dad. He graduated in 1992 with a bachelor’s degree in music performance, theory, and composition. His son, Karl, is a computational neuroscience major in the Honors College.
In his current Disney position, Estes is responsible for a team that drives architecture collaboration across business, application, data, infrastructure, and security, as well as geographical and organizational boundaries that use various architecture methods to guide the organization toward an available, cost-effective, and secure business-technology ecosystem.
He said his passion for technology originated at WSU while working with a group of graduate students using computers and synthesizers to make electronic music. His interests expanded to databases and technology management, ultimately leading him to Disney in 1998. He has worked on the Disney Magic Band, ESPN Fantasy Games, ABC Breaking News, Disney’s Cloud Platform, and many other products and services. He co-holds patents in cloud computing, is involved in cloud standards development, and possesses a deep background in data applications.
Estes participates in the wider technology community by serving as Disney’s advisory committee representative to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a member of The Data Warehouse Institute, and a work-group chair and active member of the board of directors of the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA). He is a contributing author to several publications, including Data Management for Information as a Service, Cloud Maturity Model and Interoperability Across Clouds Guide.
For more information, contact Hopkins at judy.hopkins@wsu.edu, or 509-335-1419.
Media contact: Judy Hopkins, Academic Success and Career Center, part of WSU Undergraduate Education, 509-335-1419, judy_hopkins@wsu.edu
