While her high school classmates scooped ice cream or sold movie tickets, Tricia Kaman set her sights on a more creative part-time job. Having watched artists sketch souvenir portraits during childhood visits to Cedar Point, in Sandusky, Ohio, she decided to apply for a position.
“I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to get paid for drawing?’” she recalls.
Starting in 1965, Kaman spent five summers doing portrait sketches, cartoons, and silhouettes for park guests. She built her portfolio and used the income she earned at Cedar Point to help cover her tuition as a student at the Cooper School of Art. Though she loved the work, a career as an amusement park concessionaire never crossed her mind.
Tricia married Rich Kaman in 1971, after which the couple relocated to Cleveland. Tricia was planning to open an art studio when she got a call that changed her life: Her bosses at Cedar Point passed her name to the operators at Geauga Lake in Aurora, Ohio, who then called and asked her to run a sketch stand.
“I’d just moved and I didn’t have a job; I thought it would be great to draw outside again and figured I would take the job for two or three years,” Tricia says.
The sketch stand was so popular, Tricia started recruiting friends from art school to work with her in the park. She launched Kaman’s Art Shoppes (www.kamansart.com) less than a year after accepting the job at Geauga Lake; within a year, she had five employees and business continued to grow.
Unexpected Success
By 1986, Kaman’s Art Shoppes employed a staff of 105 and provided art souvenirs in five parks, including SeaWorld Ohio, Sesame Place, and Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia.
“Our reputation followed us and we started getting invitations from more and more parks,” explains Tricia, founder and president of Kaman’s Art Shoppes. “I did not plan any of this!”
As the business grew, it became clear Tricia needed support to ensure its continued success. In 1986, Rich decided to leave his career in electronics technology to take on the role of vice president of his wife’s burgeoning company. Together, Rich and Tricia have grown the business into the largest amusement and theme park concessionaire in the United States, with locations in more than 32 major amusement parks.
As vice president, Rich establishes new partnerships and acts as the liaison with park managers. He believes the company’s comprehensive training programs have helped set Kaman’s Art Shoppes apart from other creative concessionaires.
 “We specialize in art products and spend a lot of time training our staff in specific skills like face painting, caricatures, portraits, silhouette cutting…,” he explains. “Parks can train people to run games or work in the gift shop, but they can’t train them to be artists.”
The couple relies on talented recruits from local art schools to fill the 2,500 available positions each season. The bulk of the company’s staff—more than 50 percent—return season after season; a handful of artists and on-site managers have been with the company for more than two decades. In fact, it is not the awards or accolades Kaman’s Art Shoppes has received that make Tricia the proudest. She believes her most important accomplishment is providing work for artists.
“Tricia’s vision was always to create jobs, employ artists, and make them successful,” notes Rich.
In 1978 Kaman’s Art Shoppes launched a program that guaranteed paychecks to its management staff all year, even if the artists worked at seasonal parks. The company also offers 401(k) plans, as well as health and disability benefits to staff—benefits artists often struggle to find at other companies.
“We believe that the artists running operations for us deserve to have year-round jobs,” Tricia explains. “We appreciated the work they were doing and wanted to honor that; it’s helped us keep a good base of dedicated employees.”
Customer Service Is Key
The combination of talented artists and quality products has helped Kaman’s Art Shoppes earn a reputation as top-quality amusement park arts concessionaire. Most of the amusement parks that hire Kaman’s Art Shoppes to run their arts concessions also represent lasting partnerships. Several parks, including Darien Lake in New York, have been clients for almost 30 years.
 Despite lasting relationships and a stellar reputation, Kaman’s Art Shoppes is always looking to improve. The product line has grown to include pastel portraits, caricatures, antique photos, hand-cut silhouettes, henna tattoos, face painting, ride photos, rice jewelry, and airbrushed t-shirts. The personalized souvenirs are popular with guests, and parks benefit from outsourcing arts products to experienced concessionaires. “[Operators] liked us because we brought in revenue and added a unique product to the park,” says Tricia.
The profits that come from offering personalized souvenirs are just part of the reason theme parks continue to renew their contracts with the company. The artists who run the concessions might work for Kaman’s Art Shoppes, but the company ensures its employees are also valuable members of park operations. As part of their training, artists help guests with directions and information, acting as ambassadors for the park and concessionaire simultaneously.
“We want to have the best employees in the park, and we teach them to be an integral part of the park staff,” says Rich.
Continuing to Thrive
To ensure operations are running smoothly at the parks, Rich spends most of his time crisscrossing the country for site visits. He travels at least four days per week and logs about 50,000 frequent flier miles each year. During client visits, Rich meets with park managers and concession operators to go over sales reports, discuss problems, and provide support. The company’s commitment to customer service is so intense that a decision was made not to pursue contracts overseas.
In 2002, Kaman’s Art Shoppes secured a contract to be the official arts concessionaire at Six Flags in Bottrop, Germany. Over the next two years, the company failed to make a profit—a loss Rich attributes to distance, not lack of effort or skill.
“It’s impossible to run a business that is so far away,” he says. “We couldn’t be as responsive to problems or make regular trips to check on things. It was a good lesson.”
The recession also provided an important business lesson. Until the economy shifted, Kaman’s Art Shoppes had never sought out new business, counting instead on parks approaching the family. To ensure the company’s continued growth, a business development director was hired in 2010 to recruit new accounts. The move has been a success: Kaman’s Art Shoppes has secured several new contracts in the past year, including agreements with the Detroit Zoo and the Louisville Zoo.
Over the past 30 years, Kaman’s Art Shoppes has achieved success beyond anything Rich or Tricia ever imagined.
“When I started this business, I thought it would be a way to earn a bit of pocket change doing something I loved,” Tricia says. “The biggest surprise to us has been the sheer growth of the business; I feel so grateful to provide this service to guests.”
Jodi Helmer is a frequent contributor to Funworld. Contact her at jodi@jodihelmer.com.
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