Byron Loper '04

General Manager,
Ice Magic

q: What do you do?

a: Sell decorative ice sculptures and wireless lighted décor for corporate and social parties. This includes tables, chairs, dance floors, bars, buffets and whatever else you can imagine (see photo background). We donate décor to the Orlando Magic Youth Foundation's Black Tie and Tennies Gala, and you can also see our ice creations at ICEBAR Orlando. I deal primarily with meeting planners at destination management companies, not directly with companies themselves.

q: What's your favorite part of the job?

a: No two parties are ever the same!

q: What's the greatest challenge?

a: You only need food and drink to make a party happen. Everything else, including décor, can be considered "fluff"; If it's not a necessity to have a lighted table, it can be cut from the budget. Also, in this economy, we learn of changes in quantity and event schedules at the last minute.

q: Do you stay in touch with any other UCF hospitality alums?

a: Dr. Mary Jo Ross, who had a big influence on me. After I took her Introduction to Hospitality course, I changed my major to hospitality.

q: Outside work...you're most likely to be seen?

a: At the golf course or a sporting event.

q: Your biggest accomplishment since graduating, outside your career?

a: Co-producing the 2009 WOW Awards, and also being nominated for the Rising Star Award for Event Solutions magazine.

q: How did UCF prepare you for what you do?

a: It gave me contacts and resources, and the co-op work experience is incredibly valuable. Without that, graduates would need to start out as bellmen or busboys. After interning here at Ice Magic, I was hired on full-time after graduation.

q: How could the hospitality program have been better?

a: Not having to drive so much! If the location were closer to Main Campus, it would have been more convenient for the students. At the time I went to UCF, there wasn't on-campus housing at Rosen.

q: A UCF memory?

a: The friendships, contacts and relationships I made.

q: Favorite meal in Orlando?

a: The sea bass and chocolate soufflé at HUE.

q: On your iPod?

a: I don't have an iPod. I listen to Country and Sports Radio.

q: Little known fact about you?

a: I'm a Fifth Generation Tampa Native.