{"id":279961,"date":"2026-04-22T08:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T08:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/279961\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T08:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T08:27:11","slug":"six-flags-names-10-new-park-presidents-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/279961\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Flags names 10 new park presidents \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Six Flags game of musical chairs will leave many former park presidents sitting in the same seat they had before along with a few of familiar faces moving to new locations after the amusement park chain eliminated the roles last year in a cost-cutting move.<\/p>\n

Six Flags announced on Wednesday, April 22 the names of the park presidents who will be reintroduced in 10 key markets \u2014 including Knott\u2019s Berry Farm and Six Flags Magic Mountain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese changes are about putting leadership, expertise and accountability as close to our guests and team members as possible,\u201d Six Flags CEO John Reilly said in a statement. \u201cWe\u2019re empowering our teams to move faster, innovate locally and deliver exceptional experiences every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

ALSO SEE: Six Flags reverses course and brings back park presidents<\/a><\/p>\n

Six Flags eliminated park president positions at all 27 amusement parks in the chain in May 2025 and moved to a geographic operating model with senior vice presidents overseeing four regions: Northeast, West, Midwest and Texas.<\/p>\n

The strategic shift sought to centralize certain functions and responsibilities at the corporate level following the $8 billion merger<\/a> that combined Six Flags and Cedar Fair into a North American amusement park juggernaut.<\/p>\n

Here are the 10 new Six Flags park presidents:<\/p>\n

\"Knott'sKnott\u2019s Berry Farm park president Raffi Kaprelyan. (Courtesy of Six Flags)
\nKnott\u2019s Berry Farm<\/p>\n

Buena Park<\/p>\n

Raffi Kaprelyan most recently served as Six Flags West Coast Regional VP. The former Knott\u2019s GM returns as park president.<\/p>\n

\"SixSix Flags Magic Mountain park president Brian Oerding. (Courtesy of Six Flags)
\nSix Flags Magic Mountain<\/p>\n

Valencia<\/p>\n

Brian Oerding moves to Magic Mountain from a similar role as park manager and VP at Carowinds outside Charlotte, North Carolina.<\/p>\n

\"CedarCedar Point park president Colleen Brady (Courtesy of Six Flags)
\nCedar Point<\/p>\n

Ohio<\/p>\n

Colleen Brady moves up to Cedar Point park president after serving as assistant GM and park manager at the Ohio theme park.<\/p>\n

\"KingsKings Island park president Tony Carovillano. (Courtesy of Six Flags)
\nKings Island<\/p>\n

Ohio<\/p>\n

Tony Carovillano basically stays in the same position at Kings Island \u2014 exchanging his GM\/VP title for park president.<\/p>\n

\"Canada'sCanada\u2019s Wonderland park president Christopher Mortensen. (Courtesy of Six Flags)
\nCanada\u2019s Wonderland<\/p>\n

Ontario<\/p>\n

Christopher Mortensen returns home to Canada\u2019s Wonderland after a decade of amusement park leadership roles elsewhere \u2014 most recently as GM of Noah\u2019s Ark water park in Wisconsin. He was a manager in ride operations and maintenance when he left Canada\u2019s Wonderland in 2014.<\/p>\n

\"SixSix Flags Great America park president John Krajnak. (Courtesy of Six Flags)
\nSix Flags Great America<\/p>\n

Illinois<\/p>\n

John Krajnak most recently served as Six Flags Midwest Regional VP. The former Six Flags Great America park president returns to the role again.<\/p>\n

\"SixSix Flags Great Adventure park president Mike Fehnel. (Courtesy of Six Flags)
\nSix Flags Great Adventure<\/p>\n

New Jersey<\/p>\n

Mike Fehnel basically stays in the same position at Great Adventure \u2014 exchanging his park manager title for park president.<\/p>\n

\"SixSix Flags Over Georgia park president Richard Pretlow. (Courtesy of Six Flags)
\nSix Flags Over Georgia<\/p>\n

Richard Pretlow takes the role of park president of Six Flags Over Georgia after serving as Six Flags Director of Operations at the corporate level. He was the former park president of the now-closed Six Flags America<\/a> in Maryland.<\/p>\n

\"SixSix Flags Over Texas park president Pete Carmichael. (Courtesy of Six Flags)
\nSix Flags Over Texas<\/p>\n

Pete Carmichael most recently served as Six Flags Northeast Regional VP. He becomes park president of Six Flags Over Texas after holding similar roles at Six Flags New England and Six Flags St. Louis.<\/p>\n

\"CarowindsCarowinds park president Bridgette Bywater. (Courtesy of Six Flags)
\nCarowinds<\/p>\n

North Carolina<\/p>\n

Bridgette Bywater takes over as Carowinds park president after serving as Kings Dominion GM.<\/p>\n

The leadership announcement leaves nine smaller Six Flags locations that will be led by local park managers and senior vice presidents:<\/p>\n

California\u2019s Great America (Santa Clara)
\nSix Flags Discovery Kingdom (Vallejo)
\nKings Dominion (Virginia)
\nSix Flags Fiesta Texas
\nDorney Park (Pennsylvania)
\nSix Flags New England (Massachusetts)
\nFrontier City (Oklahoma)
\nSix Flags Darien Lake (New York)
\nSix Flags Mexico<\/p>\n

California\u2019s Great America is expected to close<\/a> in the next few years as the lease for the 112 acres the park sits on comes to an end.<\/p>\n

Frontier City and Darien Lake are owned by the parent company of Enchanted Parks and managed by Six Flags, according to Screamscape<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Six Flags sold six of its smallest parks<\/a> in March that were combined into the new Enchanted Parks regional amusement park chain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Six Flags game of musical chairs will leave many former park presidents sitting in the same seat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[2223,163,165,164,8311,16187,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-279961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-amusement-parks","9":"tag-anaheim","10":"tag-anaheim-headlines","11":"tag-anaheim-news","12":"tag-knotts-berry-farm","13":"tag-six-flags-magic-mountain","14":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}