Since 1985, Jeff Havlik has worked on entertainment destinations at PGAV. Although he has worked on a range of destination projects, his main areas of expertise have been new attraction development and master planning for theme parks and water parks. He created a special master planning operational programme that links every facet of a park’s offerings to attendance targets. This programme may be applied to park layouts, construction budgets, and operations projections.
His new attraction experience is most notable in coaster experience design. He has created over 22 bespoke coaster designs from concept to completion. He has assisted in the development of rides that are often ranked among the top 10 roller coasters worldwide, working with leading ride manufacturers.
One nominator said: “He is fun, fanciful and creative whilst also being very logical and analytical, a duality that has allowed him to create attractions that are both enjoyable guest experiences and financially and operationally successful client projects.”
Speaking about his role as part of PGAV’s Love What You Do series, Havlik said: “I’m the tether to reality for this cacophony of creative people that work here, providing a foundation and a framework of analysis and programming and planning that they use to build magical places that function as much as they are beautiful.”
Talking to blooloop in 2021 about his career, he said:
“It has been the only firm that I have worked at since graduating from college. I have an architectural degree and came to PGAV with more of an urban planning background. After I got hired, I realized that this background works well in a theme park environment. Urban planning talks about how people move through spaces, what creates iconic entries and points of interest, what gets them to stop and shop and dive into everything. So, although when I joined, we were a more mixed firm of traditional architecture and theme park planning, I quickly ended up in the theme park section of the practice.
“It’s fun work, to design places where people enjoy being together.”