Shawn Peterson parlayed his world-class collection of thousands of PEZ dispensers into a dream job with the company. He's the first collector to work for the company.

"It's just the novelty of it all," he says, when asked why he started collecting the classic candy dispensers. Peterson oversees the . Part museum and part interactive exhibit, it's an ode to PEZ's foothold on nostalgia and its plans for the future. Some of the highlights include a towering PEZ dispenser, a timeline on the company's unlikely trajectory, and a look at the factory that goes through 100,000 pounds of sugar a week.

The hundreds of dispensers on display are from Peterson's personal collection. Sports teams, Disney characters, Santa Claus and many others iconic faces and themes are represented as plastic heads on the candy dispensers. New PEZ Products

In addition to his work at the visitor center, Peterson sits in on marketing meetings to discuss future product lines. "It's hard to predict what the hottest film in two years is going to be," he says, but it's a gamble the company has to make. Once a product line is determined, it takes about a year to go to market.

The company has been making the cartoonish plastic heads for 60 years now, representing everything from Star Wars to U.S. presidents to the Geico chameleon. A collector's set of the musicians from KISS are on the horizon. Peterson said Disney characters have always been the most popular, but superheroes are also lucrative.

"That's been a staple forever. People love it. It'll probably be around forever, too."

Peterson, who lives in Waterbury and has written several "field guides" on PEZ dispensers, is often asked if he could keep only one, which would it be. He doesn't have an answer. "It wouldn't be one. If it had to be just one I'd let them all go," he says. "Why just keep one?"