THRILLS AND SPILLS clockwise: the Super Flume at Dollywood in Tennessee; AquaPlay Giant RainFortress at Cowabunga Bay in Utah; Disney Cruise Line slide; Wet’n’Wild Gold Coast in Australia; and Sunway Lagoon’s Abyss in Malaysia


completed more than 5,000 installations and shows no sign of slowing down, adding new ones at a rate of 200 per year. Chutter hasn’t slowed down much himself. He’s about to jet to the Far East, where he will visit Japan for the 38th time. The former CPA keeps tabs on things like that, including his air miles. “I’ve fl own 1,172,000 miles just with Air Canada.” In 2015 alone, he racked up more than 100,000 fl ying miles. Not all of those jaunts were sales-driven; many involved customer relations. “You sign a $30- million contract. You know what? The CEO should get off his keister and go and say thank you.” Born and raised in Vancouver, Chutter entered the business


world in Toronto at age 23 with accounting fi rm KPMG. Aſt er fi ve years he’d been promoted to management and was on his way to becoming a partner when his career took a radical detour. While working on an audit in Kelowna, BC, Chutter saw his fi rst water- slide park. It intrigued him. “I just had a gut feeling that it could turn into something,” he says. He and an uncle purchased 7 hectares of land in Penticton,


BC, and raised $1.5 million to construct a 1.2-hectare waterpark. The WhiteWater Waterslide & Recreation Complex opened in 1981. It was dead basic: “Four body slides from a tower, a whirl- pool and a fast-food stand,” recalls Chutter. The move was met


with bemused skepticism by coworkers at KPMG. “They thought I was a lunatic. They said I could come back aſt er I’d gotten this craziness out of my system.” In retrospect, Chutter believes his CPA background aided him


in his new venture. “For a 29-year-old it provided a level of credi- bility on the business end. It also allowed me to read fi nancials and make sound decisions.” Working at KPMG also allowed him to pick the brains of management teams at various companies and gain insight into the challenges of operating a business. The water-play industry was still in its infancy and Chutter


and his six employees had to sort out most everything on their own, including designing their equipment. That fi rst summer, four people who visited the park said they were keen to open a waterpark in their hometowns and asked Chutter where he got his waterslides. “We said we could provide the engineering, the slides and the supports for their parks. That resulted in four con- tracts.” By 1983, Chutter had grown tired of the day-to-day hassles of running the waterpark. He decided to sell the facility and shiſt his focus to development. He says that getting in on the ground fl oor of an emerging industry was a boon. It seemed as though almost everyone wanted a waterpark in the 1980s. Developing strategic partnerships helped propel the company


SEPTEMBER 2017 | CPA MAGAZINE | 33


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