In the seminars, called Disney Keys to Excellence, Walt Disney Co. employees teach participants leadership skills and how to win customer and employee loyalty based on methods the company uses with its 50,000 workers.

According to the Web site for the Disney Institute in Orlando, Fla, the seminars are normally held at Florida's Walt Disney World Resort. But they will do roadshows - for a price.

Sierra Vista chamber President Susan Tegmeyer said it cost $39,000 to bring the program to town Sept. 16. It is also sponsored by University Physicians Healthcare Group.

In 2002, Andree Trosclair and other executives from Little Rock's Arkansas Children's Hospital attended a similar seminar, for three days in Orlando.

It included behind-the-scenes views of Disney applicant interviews, as well as employees being trained, praised and chided (for the infraction of wearing open-toed shoes with a Pluto costume) by managers, she said.

"There are moments when you think if you actually followed all the Disney practices your employees would be like the Stepford Wives," said Trosclair, the hospital's vice president of human resources and a labor lawyer.

But she found most of the seminar "enormously useful" in improving employee retention rates at her hospital.

Trosclair said using Disney's methods, she was able to lower the turnover rate among patient intake specialists from 127 percent to 15 percent. Disney trainers had observed that she had focused too much on typing speed for the jobs where people skills were far more crucial.

Trosclair used Disney's method of giving applicants role-playing exercises to gauge how well they liked working with the public and whether they had a personality that would reassure frightened children and anxious parents.

"Disney said hire by attitude, and you can teach the skills," Trosclair said.

The Disney Institute Web site promises seminar participants that each seminar teacher will be "a true Disney 'insider'; this means that not only are they successful trainers, they have also worked their way up through the ranks of the Disney organization."

The Web site lists trainers' expertise as covering marketing, food and beverage, guest relations, accounting, human resources, entertainment, animal husbandry, transportation and other fields.