SeaWorld Orlando Has a New President, and for the First Time Since 2023 One Person Runs All Three Orlando Parks

SeaWorld Orlando has a new boss, and the more interesting part of the announcement is not the name. It is the org chart.

Brad Gilmour, now president of SeaWorld Orlando, Aquatica Orlando and Discovery Cove. Image: SeaWorld Orlando.

United Parks & Resorts announced on Thursday, August 6, that Brad Gilmour will serve as president of SeaWorld Orlando, Aquatica Orlando and Discovery Cove, effective immediately. He succeeds Jon "JP" Peterson. The company did not say why Peterson was leaving.

Gilmour is a 23-year company veteran who has been with United Parks since 2003, and he has been park president for Discovery Cove and Aquatica since 2023. SeaWorld's news release said he has served in leadership roles across the parks.

"His deep operational knowledge, combined with his proven track record across our Orlando parks, makes him exactly the right leader to guide our parks into their next chapter. I'm confident our teams will benefit greatly from his leadership," said Kyle Miller, who the company's news release identified as co-chief operating officer for United Parks & Resorts. Of the outgoing president, Miller said simply: "We are grateful for JP's contributions."

The company just reversed its own 2023 decision

Brad Gilmour speaking at Discovery Cove for the park's 25th anniversary. Image: Matt Roseboom, Attractions Magazine.

One person running all three Orlando parks is not new territory for the company. Kyle Miller was named interim president of SeaWorld Orlando, Aquatica and Discovery Cove in 2019 and later stayed on in the role permanently.

The company then split those responsibilities in January 2023, when Miller was promoted into a corporate operations position, chief parks operations officer for the company's Florida parks. Peterson took SeaWorld Orlando, Gilmour took Aquatica and Discovery Cove, and that is how it has stood ever since.

Gilmour's appointment puts the three parks back under a single president for the first time since that split. Whether that is a deliberate strategic recombination or a practical response to an unplanned vacancy, the company has not said.

What he inherits

A ride scene from Expedition Odyssey: Fire & Ice, the attraction Peterson championed in a May interview. Image: Dani Meyering, Attractions Magazine.

The timing is awkward. United Parks reported second quarter attendance of 6.1 million guests across the company's parks earlier this week, down 2.9% year over year, which the company attributed to the unfavorable timing of Easter this year along with a decrease in international visitors.

Gilmour also walks into an unresolved labor fight. The National Labor Relations Board recently ordered Discovery Cove to recognize and bargain with a union representing divers at Discovery Cove and Aquatica, after finding that the company had unlawfully refused to do so. As Attractions Magazine notes, that dispute began while Gilmour was president of those two parks, though the public record does not establish his individual role in the company's response.

On the creative side, he takes over a park that has been leaning hard into story-driven attractions. Peterson spent a May interview with Attractions Magazine talking up that shift around the debut of Expedition Odyssey: Fire & Ice, describing the internal process as a conversation that starts with "You get a vision and a conversation of, 'How do we make this better?'" He was bullish on the result: "I think we have hit something that is going to be, for a very long time, a ride that people talk about," Peterson said.

Two months later he is no longer running the park, and the man who ran the water park and the swim-with-dolphins park next door is running all three.

Sources

• WKMG News 6 ClickOrlando, Aquatica, Discovery Cove president to take over SeaWorld Orlando as well
• Attractions Magazine, SeaWorld puts all three Orlando parks under one president

Image credits: Brad Gilmour portrait, SeaWorld Orlando. Gilmour at Discovery Cove, Matt Roseboom, Attractions Magazine. Expedition Odyssey: Fire & Ice ride scene, Dani Meyering, Attractions Magazine.