We may be the Official Paint of WALT DISNEY WORLD® Resort and DISNEYLAND® Resort, but it’s Tamara Sargent-Benitez, corporate account manager, who delivers customer service excellence to help ensure these and other Disney properties remain the fairest – and most protected – of them all.
A Disciple of the Disney Way
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Disney has been a major influence in Tamara’s life story. Each July, while growing up, her parents packed her and her brother into the family car and drove 14 hours from Kentucky to the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. The family eventually moved to the state, where Tamara joined the Disney family on the hospitality side during and after college. Years later, the resort served as the backdrop for when she met her husband.
After she left Disney in 2000 to work in the coatings industry, Tamara’s career came full circle when she joined us in 2011 as an account development manager working on, not surprisingly, the Disney account.
“Having been a Disney cast member and immersed in the Disney way, I understand the high expectations of employees and vendors. Disney leads the world in customer service, and it expects the same level of service from its vendors that it gives to its guests.”
As our corporate account manager dedicated exclusively to Disney, Tamara doles out that service with a side of openness, honesty and responsiveness. She’s the PPG corporate single point of contact for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts U.S. to coordinate all things coatings, from colors and specifications to recommendations and tools. She works with the contractors the company hires and coordinates with her PPG colleagues to find the best product for each unique application.
Beyond Halls and Walls
Those applications go beyond the halls and walls of resort buildings. Think attractions, vehicles, infrastructure and even costumes. The distinctive blue found throughout the AVATAR FLIGHT OF PASSAGE® attraction? Our fingerprints are all over that. We’ve created more than 30,000 custom colors with Disney and have been involved in bringing many attractions to life.
The talented people at Walt Disney Imagineering choose the colors for all of Disney, and then we work to match those colors in each of our products that will be needed. These could be an architectural coating for a building or a protective coating for an attraction vehicle that can stand up to the everyday exposure to suntan lotion and hand sanitizer. It’s challenging to get the same color on such differing products, but our experts do exactly that.
At the Walt Disney World Resort, which is larger than the island of Manhattan, Tamara coordinates this beyond-the-norm color matching with our color experts and employees who work at an on-site PPG store that’s located behind the MAGIC KINGDOM® Park. The Disneyland Resort and other Disney properties are served by nearby off-site stores.
“I’ve worked for other paint companies in my career, and I’m #PPGProud about the phenomenal products that we offer Disney and all of our customers. I’m also proud of our collaboration with other vendors who help us be a one-stop shop for Disney. If we don’t make a required product, we’ll find and work with a vendor that does.”
The Magic Remains
Since she’s based in Orlando, Tamara is at the Walt Disney World Resort almost daily unless she’s traveling to the Disneyland Resort or another of the company’s properties. Despite this familiarity, she still feels the magic.
There’s a lot of fondness in my heart for Disney. I have many Disney items displayed in my home. My stepdaughter is a Disney fanatic, and her daughter is named Aurora after the character in Sleeping Beauty.
Could Tamara have influenced that name choice since this sleeping beauty was her favorite Disney character as a child?
“I loved the story, and I loved Aurora’s dress. I also liked Maleficent. If I had to pick a Disney character that I most relate to now, though, it would be Mulan. She’s a woman in a man’s world, which the paint industry has been traditionally. She’s pretty headstrong, too.”
Learn more about our decades-long relationship with Disney.