With the founding of WhiteWater in 1980, Geoff Chutter helped establish an industry that continues to bring joy to millions around the globe. A water park veteran, Geoff’s start in the amusement and attractions space began with his investment in his own park in BC, Canada. Undeterred by a lack of water slide suppliers, he decided to leave his career as a CPA with KPMG to manufacture his own rides, and thus created his own manufacturing empire.

Four decades on, WhiteWater continues to thrive under Geoff’s stewardship as CEO, maintaining its place as the world’s undisputed leading water park manufacturer and supplier, by any metric. Where other suppliers chose to offer one or two product lines, Geoff built a complete water park service company, offering all of the products and services that a customer would require to launch their own world-class parks. Always looking to the future, Geoff was early to expand internationally, with our first projects in China in 1990 and establishing offices in Europe, the Middle East and Asia ahead of our competitors. 

Throughout the years, Geoff has been recognized with various awards such as the national EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2019 award. Under Geoff’s stewardship, WhiteWater has also been named one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies for many years.

Born and raised in Vancouver, Paul worked most of his teenage summers at WhiteWater, not only enjoying water parks but doing everything in between: from pushing a broom and cleaning up the fabrication plant to data entry. Perhaps, his choice of a commerce undergraduate degree at McGill University in Montreal was to escape this “ground up” education in the family business. Subsequently, he went on to attend law school in the UK at the University of London. That led to a career in investment banking, with the majority of his years spent in London and Toronto. Despite being successful in his own career, a sense of belonging to the family business, WhiteWater, called him home, and Paul joined WhiteWater full time in 2015.  

In his current role as Chief Commercial Officer, Paul oversees WhiteWater’s global business development efforts and functions. These include the Sales, Marketing, and Pre-Contract groups (Sales Operations, Ride Engineering, Architectural Design Services, and Estimating) as well as Corporate Development.

Onno is the COO of WhiteWater West Industries Ltd. since 2018. He joined WhiteWater as the Director of Supply Chain in 2017. Onno’s specialty is in international supply chain management with over 10 years of experience at Philips Electronics in various senior supply chain positions and 4 years with Cooledge as VP of Manufacturing. He has worldwide industrial experience in Eindhoven (Netherlands), Shanghai (China), and Vancouver (Canada). In 2012, he moved from the corporate environment of Philips to a small entrepreneurial start-up Cooledge in Vancouver. After 4 years with Cooledge, Onno made a change from electronics industry to entertainment industry. Onno Meeter is Dutch by origin and a proud father of two daughters.

Franceen Gonzales has outstanding credentials as a park operator and held top management positions at Golfland Entertainment Centers Inc., Waterworld Safari in Phoenix, Arizona, and Wet ’N’ Wild Waterworld in Texas. She was previously Vice President, Risk Management and Waterparks, for Great Wolf Resorts where she was responsible for safety and risk management as well as water park operations and maintenance for the company’s 12 water park resorts in North America.

She is a member of the IAAPA Global Safety Committee, has chaired the IAAPA Membership Committee, and served on the IAAPA Governance and Strategic Planning committees. Currently serving on the board of directors of AIMS (Amusement Industry Manufacturers and Suppliers) and NSPF (National Swimming Pool Foundation), Franceen teaches certifications such as the upcoming AIMS Pool Operators Certification Course. Franceen is also a former board chair and board member of WWA (World Waterpark Association) and the IAAPA board of directors.

Michael has a 25-year track record of implementing cutting-edge technologies for the attractions and hospitality industries. Playing a key role in the Disney Parks Next Generation Experience (NGE) project, Michael led the implementation of several innovative initiatives including MagicBand and MyMagic+, as well as single-finger biometrics at park entrances and the Disney Gift Card. Michael was also instrumental in developing and delivering Carnival’s Ocean Medallion guest experience platform. Most recently, as Global Vice President of CX Solutions Technology for Aristocrat Gaming, his unprecedented credentials helped shape the future of customer experience engagement platforms. Michael is passionate about helping to make venues welcoming, engaging places for all who enter.

Marshall, better known as Marsh, was born in Coronado, California and grew up playing all sorts of sports and has made his career in them too. He has extensive experience managing operations in various industries, including Callaway Golf.  He first joined Wave Loch, Inc. in 2007 and currently serves as President and Chief Operating Officer of FlowRider, Inc., a subsidiary of WhiteWater purchased in 2014. Marsh is a true southern California native, he graduated from San Diego State University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and to this day surfs before he comes into the FlowRider office.

Doug found his home in the attractions industry in 1995 working within the “dry” FEC and interactive waterplay products. His experience crosses both business development and operations. He has managed the Attractions international sales teams at SCS Interactive/Koala Play Group as well as managing Prime Play. In 2005 , Doug joined WhiteWater, becoming the manager of the Attractions division. After 10 years of general management, he transferred his over 20 years of international business experience to become the Executive Vice President, managing strategy and business development of all WhiteWater divisions and products for Asia-Pacific. Doug also serves on the board of the Asia-Pacific Division of the Themed Entertainment Association.

Una joined the WhiteWater family in 2015, already an international business to business marketing expert having enjoyed a broad 20-year career ranging across several market sectors from professional services to energy management SaaS.  Una started her career running B2B advertising campaigns and then consulted on direct marketing best practice for large financial services providers in the UK. Since 2005 Una’s roles have involved building marketing teams to help organizations put customer understanding at their center and build meaningful brands which connect with employees and customers alike. As a literature graduate and MBA Una believes that Marketing merges storytelling, psychology, data analysis and common commercial sense to simplify ‘why?’ for customers.  Una leads the marketing for WhiteWater and all its brands; making sure each international market and business area has a voice which leads the industry.

Rainer Maelzer started in the theme park industry in 1997 before co-founding the German company wiegand.maelzer in 2006. Rainer and his co-founder grew wiegand.maelzer to become one of the top 10 water slide companies in the world. Under Rainer’s leadership, wiegand.maelzer went from developing stainless steel water slides for other local German companies to a major global player in the industry. Rainer contributed significantly to the development and expansion of some well-known European water parks, including one of the largest indoor parks in the world, Therme Erding.

After 12 years with wiegand.maelzer, Rainer made the transition to WhiteWater to lead our Europe, Russia, and Africa team. Seeing an opportunity to forward WhiteWater’s position in the market, Rainer led the creation of a new office in Munich, Germany in May of 2020. The WhiteWater European team was formerly in Barcelona, Spain but Rainer saw a need for the company to be closer to the center of Europe and moved us over to Germany. Expanding the team from only Sales, Rainer has brought over project managers, after sales personnel, tech support, and slide path designers to our Euro team to better serve our local clients.

David Bogdonov graduated in 1989 from Lakehead University in Ontario with a Bachelor of Engineering degree. He immediately got to work in project management and worked with general contractors such as Commonwealth Construction and Walter Construction. David joined WhiteWater as a Project Manager in 1999, where he managed projects throughout North America and Europe. In 2005, he was promoted to Director of Project Management where he led the department for four years. In 2009, David made the transition over to business development and spent the ensuing 8 years as the lead salesperson in the Chinese market. David has spent 20+ years at WhiteWater.

Phil grew up in Shanghai, China and obtained his civil engineering degree from Tongji University there. He spent the next decade working in construction industry in China, Cyprus and Canada, he obtained his master’s degree in engineering project management from University of Manchester while in Europe. Phil joined Whitewater in 2006 as a project manager, spent the next few years in the head office with various roles in project management, engineering, manufacturing. He and his family moved to Shanghai in 2011 and set up the Whitewater’s Shanghai office. Over the next decade, Phil and the Shanghai team oversaw the transformation of the amusement industry in Asia, participated in many high-profile, world class development projects along the way. He obtained his MBA from University of Southern California while overseeing the Asia operations.

Phil is a registered professional engineer in BC, Canada. Phil and his family enjoy travel and experiencing different cultures, they have visited fifty countries across five continents. He is also a proud father of two teenage girls.

Mike started his career at WhiteWater managing the Park Attractions Division in the European office before relocating to the UAE to strengthen our fourth regional office in his capacity as Executive Vice President, Middle East, and India. In his role at WhiteWater, he continues to work with several of the world’s leading parks, such as Atlantis and Yas Waterworld while also focusing heavily on greenfield development projects, including Dubai Parks and Resorts, Shanku’s Waterpark in India, and Laguna Waterpark in Dubai. Having now lived in the Middle East for several years, traveling extensively across the region, Mike has focused heavily on understanding the varying cultures and how these need to be considered when designing and building new destinations.  A fun fact while Mike lived in Barcelona he used one of his four languages to be a soccer commentator on Spanish TV sharing his enthusiasm for the world’s most popular sport.

Growing up at the foot of the Adirondack Mountains in Upstate New York, Travis is an avid outdoorsman who is always ready for the next big adventure. A true Renaissance man, Travis is a master stonemason and sculptor, accomplished painter, college varsity athlete, Ironman, historian, lecturer, and world traveler. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, Travis combined his architectural education with his masonry experience to form a company that specialized in natural stone consulting and building healthy, sustainable public and private projects.

Travis was introduced to the Creative Water industry when he accepted the role of Manager of Architecture and Planning for the Aquatic Development Group. After thoroughly enjoying his time designing hundreds of projects and helping ADG win multiple industry awards, Travis recognized that the future of the industry was international and set his sights overseas.

As the Director of Operations for the Middle East, Travis uses his unique experience as a professional collaborator, water park designer, and niche construction company owner to do what he does best: Build and manage diverse teams by working collectively with clients, design professionals, skilled contractors, craftsmen, businesses and government to achieve efficiency and quality within set budgets, strict deadlines and ever-changing work environments.

Travis also enjoys traveling to lecture at colleges and local governments on smart growth, alternative energies, and green building. His favorite adventures are the ones he goes on with his wife and young son.