[Montano] I really do enjoy using the hand tools.
It takes me back to the years when I was younger.
There is some natural talent that's involved,
but a lot of all those techniques are all learned.
If you have the will and the desire to learn it, you will learn it.
My name is George Montano. I'm 74 years old.
I started working at Disneyland Resort at the Staff Shop, May 9th of 1968.
My brother and my dad started working on the Small World project in 1965.
They asked me if I was interested, they were hiring people.
I came in and applied.
They told me that they would hire me, but it was only for six months.
The rest is history. I've been here for over 50 years.
Sleeping Beauty's Castle, that's the icon of the park.
Behind us here is the hub, and, of course, this is the entrance to the castle.
Present, the castle is under refurbishment.
If you're coming to Disneyland, you have to visit the castle.
That's my favorite attraction.
What I'm working on is applying a thin coat on the face of these castle stones.
It's a full finish with cement plaster.
Once I get this material on there,
I'll texture it out with a brush and a sponge.
It has to look as natural as you can get it.
Perfect, would look like it was man-made stone.
So, you're trying to get the imperfection.
Basically, I've worked on just about every attraction in the park.
Like Matterhorn, Sleeping Beauty's Castle, pirate ride, Small World.
And then I've worked outside of Disneyland in Japan, in France.
And, of course, Florida.
It's a really rewarding experience.
Morning, Lou.
This is that work order we talked about earlier in the week.
It's that turret for the castle.
If we can jump on this and get somebody to run this molding.
And it's this one here that we have circled.
We'll have to start from scratch from a model
and, of course, mold it and then cast it.
My day in, day out responsibilities are:
I go through the system and prioritize how we're gonna distribute the work,
and I assign it to the crews.
At the Staff Shop, we make molds, models in plaster
and all kinds of architectural ornamentation.
What I'm making here, it's a mock-up for the Matterhorn rockwork.
My dad had came to work here on the Matterhorn as a plasterer.
It was in 1958.
I came to work in 1968.
That was the first time that I had a chance
to work with my dad on the Matterhorn itself.
My dad would tell me the story of the plasterer
who would talk about the Matterhorn,
you know, "What does that have to do with Disneyland?"
You know, he couldn't visualize what it was.
It actually turned out to be a very popular attraction here at the park.
What I'd really like to see is someone to follow in my footsteps
and do what I've done.
I feel like I'm carrying on a legacy. A lot of great memories here.
But I ran across these photos.
This was in 1972, my dad's in this photo here,
and I'm right next to him and my brother's here
on the front row.
Photo of the castle
and some of the architectural ornamentation that we replaced.
I was telling myself I was gonna retire after this one.
I'm still looking forward to another project.