In 2019, Walt Disney Imagineer Kevin Rafferty announced after Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway opened he would retire. Shortly after the attraction opened, the novel coronavirus pandemic forced the closure of businesses worldwide – including Disney Parks. Rafferty’s retirement plans were put on hold.

Now, almost a year after Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway opened, Rafferty has officially announced his retirement. “After 42 years of creating magical guest experiences as an Imagineer, Executive Creative Director Kevin Rafferty shared his plan to retire April 1, 2021,” read post from Walt Disney Imagineering on Instagram.

In 1974, Rafferty was studying to become a Roman Catholic priest. After five years, Rafferty left the priesthood and enrolled at Cal State to study art. Meanwhile, he decided to apply at The Walt Disney Company. He thought they’d see how gifted he was and they’d eventually (and quickly) transfer him from the park to The Walt Disney Studios. Instead, Rafferty started his Walt Disney career as a dishwasher at the Plaza Inn at Disneyland.

He thought if he could make an impression with one of the top brass at the Disney Company they would quickly transfer him to the Studios. Well, his first impression involved a clogged drain, a CO₂ tank, and Dick Nunes. “I could and probably should have been justifiably fired right then and there …,” said Rafferty. “The girls still didn’t talk to me, but they talked about me.”

After two years, Rafferty was transferred and promoted to busboy, but this time he was at the prestigious Club 33. “The moment I stepped through the concealed front door into the fancy foyer,” said Rafferty. “I felt like Jed Clampett must have felt the day he arrived in Beverly Hills.” Although he may have been a fish-out-of-water there, he quickly rose through the ranks, and, in less than two years, he was promoted to maître d’, sous chef, waiter, bartender, and lead.

During this time, Rafferty graduated from Cal State with his degree in art and was ready for his big job with the Walt Disney Studios. However, a recruitment poster for artists and designers for a new park, EPCOT Center, that prominently featured Mickey Mouse on in – in the style of the WWI Uncle Sam recruiting poster – detoured him from the Studios to Imagineering.

After accepting the job, which including a $200 pay cut, Rafferty thought he was on his way to being an artist. Even though the job was not what he thought it was, he still accepted the position just so he could get his foot in the door and see what was behind the Disney Imagineering curtain.

It was during his Traditions class where he had an encounter with another senior member of Disney management. Rafferty didn’t find out who he was until his first working day in Special Services. “Carl never mentioned our time together in orientation,” said Rafferty. “But he did smile and wink at me once passing in the hallway my first week at Imagineering. I like to believe he got a big kick out of my enthusiasm for working at WED.”

Working in Special Services, Rafferty was working for the artists and Imagineers. He was sweeping the floors, emptying the trash cans, setting up rooms, dusting models, and cutting cardboard frames to “frame the concept art created by the real artists.” Although Rafferty didn’t feel like this was a great job, he quickly learned how fortunate he really was. Every day he went to work he was surrounded with many of Walt’s original artists, animators, and Imagineers including Marc Davis, John Hench, Harriet Burns, Herb Ryman, Harper Goff, X Atencio, Ward Kimball, and many others.

Rafferty was promoted and worked on other projects in Imagineering, however after EPCOT Center and Tokyo Disneyland opened, he found himself on the end of a massive layoff. He found his way to a small advertising agency doing layouts and eventually took a second job at Southern California Edison as a proofreader and copy editor.

Rafferty was told that one of his friends from his Club 33 days, Mark Rhodes, was transferring out of show management and that he suggested Rafferty should take his place. He returned to the company as head scope writer. Rafferty was quickly promoted at WDI. Throughout his career, he worked on numerous attractions at Disney Parks around the world. Rafferty worked with Jim Henson on the story development for Muppet Vision 3-D, he named everything and was the official show writer for Typhoon Lagoon Water Park, Comedy Warehouse at Pleasure Island, Pan Galactic at Pizza Port in Tokyo Disneyland, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Toy Story Mania, Test Track, Mickey’s PhilharMagic, the re-imagining of the submarines at Disneyland into the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, dreaming up and creating the immersive world of Cars Land, and many more project that did and didn’t come to fruition.

“When I started, there were only two Disney parks in the world. It’s really been my honor, my pleasure, and my joy to be around and watch the expansion of the magic that Walt Disney Imagineering has made,” he says. “I’ve been there for all that. It’s been an amazing ride.”

In 2019, Rafferty wrote, “Magic Journey – My Fantastical Walt Disney Imagineering Career” – released by Disney Editions.