Katie Stretch

Since joining the Walt Disney Company in 2003, Katie has made significant contributions in Engineering and Safety roles including her pivotal engineering leadership during the opening of Star Wars lands at Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World and her valuable navigation of safety practices during COVID.

Katie’s 20 year career with Disney has included roles leading teams in Engineering, Safety, and Maintenance supporting multiple parks around the world. In May 2022, Katie was promoted to the Senior Vice President of Worldwide Safety, Health, Engineering & Sourcing. In this role, Katie has global responsibilities for ensuring Cast and Guest health and safety, ride safety and reliability, consistent sourcing of high-quality products and services and optimized supplier diversity for the DPEP organization. She will lead and provide strategic direction to a talented team that through technical guidance and collaboration, identifies and manages risks to the organization resulting in improved business and operational performance.

Katie is a native of California and currently lives in Winter Garden. She moved to Central Florida in 2002 to attend the University of Central Florida with the hope of becoming a mechanical engineer for Walt Disney World someday. In 2003, she started an engineering internship with Walt Disney World and continued to work there while finishing her Mechanical Engineering undergraduate degree. After becoming a licensed Mechanical Engineer with the states of Florida and California and receiving a US patent, she went back to UCF to obtain her graduate degree in Engineering Management. Today, Katie is married and has three children who love visiting the Disney theme parks.