JON OLIVAN

A Force In Marketing, Promotion and Business Management

My diverse career all began during my college years working as a Jungle Cruise tour guide at Disneyland where I was specially chosen for my personality and public speaking skills.

After graduating from college with a major in Communications, I worked in various facets of the entertainment industry–initially in entry level jobs, then moving up to professional caliber positions at both Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox studios.

While I worked at Fox in TV distribution, I attended the L.A. Conservancy’s Broadway Theatres walking tour in downtown Los Angeles and it inspired me to develop a business strategy to help commercially save and revive many of the district’s endangered theatre landmarks including the Orpheum, Los Angeles, Million Dollar, Palace, State and Tower theatres by pitching their longtime operator Metropolitan Theatres to allow me to launch Metropolitan Events & Locations–a new company division that promoted use of these theatres as location filming and special event sites.

I also established the non-profit Friends Of The Orpheum that produced special events including classic film screenings, dance performances, live musical performances and eventually the annual Spook-a-thon horror and sci-fi film festival. The popular festival garnered support from all of the major movie studios and often involved screenings of rare 35mm films. Proceeds helped restore a number of restoration projects including its original incandescent rooftop sign which had been out of use since World War II.

After the State of California eliminated its popular location filming tax credits in the early 2000’s, Metropolitan curtailed its downtown L.A. operations and I was tapped by the Castle Green–a popular Pasadena filming and event site–to become its general manager, where I remained for two years and increased annual venue rental income by 20%.

[The ground floor of the historic Castle Green includes lavish rental spaces frequently used for wedding receptions and other events]

I eventually shifted my career direction and migrated to the gaming industry–working for Diamond Game where I served as marketing director for its electronic casino gaming machines and later managed its entire retail sweepstakes division.

I am currently enjoying my next major “frontier” in the tourism industry. After often serving as an ad hoc tour guide as a facet of  my previous career experiences, I decided to become a professional tour director for various Southern California-based tour and transportation companies including serving as a lead tour guide for the Turner Classic Movies Film Location Tour in Los Angeles. My goal is to expand my tour director role to soon include “over the road” tour assignments to other U.S. and international destinations which I am currently working towards.

On a secondary basis, as a hold over from my prior full-time location site rental career, I also represent the non-profit Discovery Cube children’s museum properties in L.A. and Orange County on a part-time basis for occasional location filming use, so please feel free to spread the word or reach out to me with prospective freelance project ideas or career opportunities.

My goal is to infuse both my professional and personal life with honesty, passion, dedication and humor. In my recreational time I oversee two large Los Angeles-based Meetup.com social media groups–the TCM Classic Movie Fan Club of Los Angeles and the LGBT professional Gay Winos (creating each group, administering memberships, planning events, promoting activities and updating websites for several hundreds of members).