Premier Parks

One day in 1974 standing over a deep fryer proved to be game-changing for a young Hue Eichelberger. It was his very first job and he was working in a fish-fry hut at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington. “I probably realized my first day on the job that the theme park business was for me,” says Eichelberger. “I just never stopped.”

45 years later, Eichelberger is Chief Operating Officer for Premier Parks and, with the help of ProSlide®, serves up fun instead of fish.

When Eichelberger was in his early amusement park days, water parks were still in their infancy. “Probably in the early 80s I watched the first water park be built in Grand Prairie, Texas, and was fascinated with the thing,” says Eichelberger. “I watched as they were building the wave pool, had no earthly idea what a wave pool was, and knew that I just had to work there.”

Through connections he had made in the industry and his growing experience, he made it happen. Starting with White Water Grand Prairie in Texas, Eichelberger worked at a series of water parks across the country.

Once he was in the business, it wasn’t long before he heard the name ProSlide® echoing from park to park!

During those early years in water parks, Eichelberger met Kieran Burke and Gary Story through a connection at Frontier City amusement park in Oklahoma City. The two were buying water parks from coast to coast as the brand new ‘Premier Parks’ company. Burke selected Eichelberger to helm White Water Bay and he’s been with the company in at least some capacity for almost his entire career.

Now, in their second incarnation, Premier Parks has 14 other parks in addition to Frontier City, and includes the biggest destinations in the business: Wet ‘n’ Wild Palm Springs, White Water Bay, Splashtown at Darien Lake, Wet ‘n’ Wild Toronto, and others.  Annual attendance across Premier Parks properties is over 6 million.

And they choose to power their water parks with ProSlide!

“I guess we really started buying rides from ProSlide® in the early 90s,” says Eichelberger. “And by the time we really started getting going with Six Flags we were buying a lot of rides. I don’t think I could count how many slides we’ve bought from ProSlide® over the years, certainly in the hundreds. I suspect we bought as many slides as anybody else has from ProSlide® in all the years.”

“We love working with Premier Parks,” says ProSlide® President and CEO Rick Hunter. “Hue and the others at Premier are as passionate about this industry as I am, and we’ve just had a great relationship over the years. We know they’re excited by the latest and greatest, and that’s what ProSlide® delivers!”