Biography | Card Walker — The Burbank Lot Where He Became the First Non-Family President

Roy O. Disney died in December 1971.

The company he and his brother had built needed a president who was not named Disney.

They chose Card Walker.

He had been on the lot since 1938, on the board since 1960, and chief operating officer since 1968.

Donn Tatum stayed chairman and chief executive.

Walker took the presidency under him.

The Los Angeles Times later called him the first chief executive who was not a member of the Disney family.

That title arrived in November 1976, when he added CEO to the president's job.

Chairman followed in 1980, when Tatum retired.

The office was here, at 500 South Buena Vista Street.

The Burbank studio had opened in 1940 after the Hyperion lot closed.

From this ground Walker had already helped buy the Florida acreage that became Walt Disney World.

From this ground he would later approve EPCOT Center and the first Disney park outside the United States.

The family company had become a public corporation that still talked like a family.

Walker's work was to keep both sentences true after the founders were gone.

He retired as chief executive in February 1983 and left the chairmanship after Tokyo Disneyland opened.

He remained on the board into the late 1990s.

The water tower still marks the lot a visitor can see from Buena Vista Street.

Photo: Coolcaesar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons