Linda Alcorn

As early as age ten, she had constructed a cardboard model of Disneyland on her bedroom floor. So it’s not surprising that when she obtained her Bachelor’s of Science in Engineering from UCLA, the place she sought employment was WED Enterprises.

Linda Alcorn was the first female engineer hired at WED (now Walt Disney Imagineering), fresh out of college, in the Show Control section of the Electronic Engineering department in the fall of 1979. She began work on the EPCOT project. Each engineer was assigned a single attraction. But there were many more attractions than engineers, so Linda was assigned "all the others," eventually taking on responsibility for ten pavilions: World of Motion, France, Canada, China, UK, Germany, Denmark, Japan, Italy, and four parts of CommuniCore.

After EPCOT, Linda went on to work nearly 40 years at WDI. Smart and tough, Linda was often the only woman in the room at hundreds of meetings; yet because she was on the engineering side, and not the creative side, she worked largely in the background, bringing one attraction after another to life.

In the late 80s Linda relocated to Orlando. Throughout the late 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s she was probably responsible for most if not all of Disney’s Florida show control projects, new or rehabs.

In the early 1990's, Linda relocated to Paris to handle show control systems for all of Fantasyland in the new Euro Disneyland park. Once again, she had responsibility for more attractions than any other show control engineer.

Like the women in "Hidden Figures," Linda is a groundbreaking hero, who has been far too neglected in terms of her historical contribution to WDI and the industry. She’s been a mentor to women and men, and her kindness and acceptance of all types of people helped many young Imagineers gain confidence while working in the atmosphere of WED Show/Ride Engineering back in the early 1980s. As one of the first hires, she set the tone for the department for decades.

Linda retired from Disney in October 2016.

​A final note: Linda is the “McBride” of Alcorn-McBride, the renowned show and media control systems company. Her husband Steve Alcorn has relied on Linda’s engineering skills over the years to hone the company’s products.