April 01, 2025

Mizzou Engineers leverage their passion and expertise to unlock a better future. For more than 25,000 alumni worldwide, Mizzou Engineering has been the gateway to professional success and personal fulfillment.

Andrew Cassell (BS ME ’22) is a mechanical engineer at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, where he designs and analyzes mechanical solutions for attractions. He recently took a moment to talk about his journey.

Since I was a toddler, I wanted to build things.

Working on rides at Disney became my dream job around the age of nine, thanks to Walt Disney World vacations my parents took me on. I still keep a notebook with all the ride and vehicle ideas I sketched as a kid.

Landing the job at Disneyland was one of my biggest hurdles.

I probably applied to 50 different roles during my time at Mizzou. In my last year, I finally had a promising interview for a planner role with the maintenance team, but I never heard back.

On graduation day, I was lining up with my classmates in Mizzou Arena when I felt my phone buzz. It was Disney offering me the planner role. I had to sit on the big news for the entire commencement ceremony.

The planner role allowed me to dive headfirst into the maintenance practices that keep the parks running. After a year-and-a-half, I was offered a mechanical engineering role, where I could apply all the skills and knowledge I gained at Mizzou Engineering.

Dr. Craig Kluever incorporated real-world applications into his curriculum.

Kluever’s career at NASA set a high bar for us. The stories he shared with us were also a wake-up call as to the implications of a failed design or analysis for human life.

Each ride comes with its own challenges.

You could be applying fluid mechanics to a water ride or rotational dynamics to a roller coaster. Not only did I learn all those topics at Mizzou Engineering, but I also learned to collaborate to finish work and meet deadlines.

There are so many different directions and industries you can take a mechanical engineering degree into, and going through the curriculum at Mizzou Engineering helped me figure out where I wanted to take my interests and passions.

No two days are the same.

I could be knee-deep in a stress analysis to mount a new variable frequency drive inside the Monorail, or I could be out in the field directing the installation of a 14-foot roller bearing at Astro Orbiter. From the Enchanted Tiki Room to Pirates of the Caribbean, I can be working on many different attractions in a single day.

Being in a role that balances design work with field work enables me to gain exposure to all kinds of problems. And no matter how small or how large the project, an engineer’s job is to treat every problem with the utmost care and responsibility.

I get to work with 70 years of incredible engineering design as a park-side engineer.

I eventually want to go into new attractions and technology with Walt Disney Imagineering. That little kid sketching in his notebook still wants to build something from the ground up.

At Mizzou Engineering, we say “yes” to our dreams. Join us!