Nevadans can be born and raised in the state, or can come from half the world away to find their home. Once here, Nevada becomes a part of most people’s lives in short order, and many want to give back.
Nevada Business Magazine asked readers to nominate those Nevadans who have had a significant impact on our state. The 12 individuals chosen are leaders in their fields who have weathered our economic storms and worked to diversify and strengthen the economy, to regulate chief industries, to guide Nevada into a healthy future, to provide necessities, improve healthcare or make sure we get from here to there on time – and so that we remember what happens here, stays here.
The following 12 individuals are far-thinking, clear-sighted and pro-Nevada. Each has made significant contributions to our state.
Krys Bart
President/CEO, Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority
Krys Bart has seen the airport through tough economic times, continuing to bring 4 million travelers a year into Northern Nevada even through the downturn. Under her leadership the Air Transport Research Society has twice named Reno-Tahoe International Airport the fifth most efficient in the country, and the Airports Council International has named its aviation education program the best of any airport in North America.
John Farahi, CEO, Monarch Casino & Resort, Inc., was on the airport board when Bart was brought onboard from San Jose International Airport. “Immediately she started making decisions,” Farahi said. For years there had been debate about moving the Air National Guard facility within the airport, a move that would have cost $100 million. Bart came onboard, analyzed the situation and realized the airport didn’t need to spend that kind of money. The facility stayed where it was.
“Very early on [in the recession] we saw a slight downturn and took very aggressive action. We cut programs and eliminated positions associated with those programs, we froze all other vacant positions. We negotiated salary freezes with all four bargaining units at the Airport Authority and the management team stepped up as well so for 18 months everyone had salaries frozen literally two years ahead of the country,” said Bart. But even in good times Bart manages as if it’s bad times – a strategy that’s paid off.
Bob Cashell
Mayor, City of Reno
Bob Cashell moved to Reno two days after his wedding and has made Nevada his home ever since. He’s been successful as chairman of the board of directors of Cashell Enterprises, a hotel/casino company.
He started in public service in 1979 when he was elected to the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents and promptly elected chair. In 1982 he became Governor Richard Bryan’s lieutenant governor and while working with Governor Bryan they created the Nevada Commission on Economic Development and the Nevada Commission on Tourism. Cashell served as chairman of both commissions. He’s also served as chair of the Nevada Comprehensive Health Planning Board and NevadaV Museum of Art.
Cashell was elected mayor in 2002 and again in 2006. Despite the economic downturn that’s stalled redevelopment in downtown Reno, Cashell said he’s seen a lot of success in Reno in the short time he’s been mayor. “We’ve got the white water rafting course, we’ve addressed homeless issues and seen a new courthouse built.” About Reno he said, “I love the people here. I’ve been here since I got married 46 years ago. I fell in love with the area and the people – as long as you work hard and are honest with the people here, they’ll step up and help. If you lie to them, they’ll run you down the street.”
Oscar Goodman
Mayor, City of Las Vegas
One of the most recognizable mayors in the country, Oscar Goodman’s been working for Nevada since 1964. He and his wife arrived in the city with $87 between them and went on to live the American dream in the entertainment capital of the world. Goodman’s had the alpha and omega of criminal defense, he said, representing reputed mobsters, judges and alleged murderers in his practice before becoming the 19th mayor of Las Vegas.
The mayor has served as chairman of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and started Oscar’s Political Action Committee to promote and protect Las Vegas’ interests. But his biggest influence, he believes, has been on downtown Las Vegas redevelopment.
“It was critical in the sense that when I was first elected it was beginning to resemble a war zone,” said Mayor Goodman. “The first signs of blight were becoming evident with boarded up windows in downtown office buildings and professionals like lawyers and bankers were moving to the suburbs.” With the help of Mayor Goodman, the city is building Symphony Park which will include the 350,000-square-foot Smith Center for the Performing Arts and The Lou Ruvo Brain Institute.
Samuel McMullen
Partner, Snell & Wilmer, LLP
Sam McMullen is a fourth generation Nevadan from a ranching family who says Elko is in his blood. A lawyer and lobbyist, he graduated from UNR and has a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. McMullen has a 30 year career here working in legislative advocacy, policy development and project implementation in Washoe and Clark Counties. He’s also worked on water issues around the state.
Over the years McMullen has worked on healthcare issues, the foreclosure crisis, energy and telecommunication reform, economic diversification and workers’ compensation issues. In addition he’s been president of the Northern Nevada Gaming Industry Alliance and chair of the Greater Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce Public Policy Committee.
“I have a long track record of working on tax and revenue issues and working on the budget, basically trying to make sure that there is some sense of how we fund and control the budget in terms of things we can do and things we can’t do given various circumstances we [are experiencing],” said McMullen.
“Nevada is in my blood. I think it’s got wonderful potential. I’ve watched it grow and I believe it can become so much more. If we look at what we’ve created just within the space of my lifetime, we’ve really built something beautiful and powerful here and I think we can do good things in Nevada for a lot of people.”
Jim Miller
President/CEO, Renown Health
Jim Miller actually came to Nevada because he knew he could make a difference here. In healthcare for 30 years, he’s been with Renown for 20, and was named CEO in 2000.
“When I came to Reno I came because I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to make a difference in the community,” said Miller. “When I took the role as CEO here, I felt the same way. There was such potential to make changes, like finding ways people could stay in town for care.”
Miller’s working to find ways that people facing serious illness can remain in town, with friends, family and the support system they need. “More than 50 percent of people who wind up at a hospital arrive there as the result of an emergency,” Miller said. “They don’t expect it, it needs to be done – and it needs to be done here.”
Toward that end he’s been driven to put together services that allow people in Reno to stay in Reno for their care, including the enhanced chest pain center and TomoTherapy Hi-Art® and Da Vinci® Robotic Surgical System which allow state-of-the-art cancer treatment without ever leaving Northern Nevada. The hospital has also initiated a healing garden, a child’s healing garden and the children’s ICU.
Patricia Mulroy
General Manager, Southern Nevada Water Authority
Some Nevadans come from far away. Patricia Mulroy came from Germany to get her masters at UNLV. Southern Nevada became her home. “I love its vitality, I love its energy and I love its positive outlook,” she said.
Mulroy became general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority in 1989. She was principal architect of the Water Authority, which has served as a model for other western water authorities since its creation in 1991, and oversees Las Vegas Valley Water District operations.
Mulroy has chaired the UNLV College of Sciences Advisory and Board and served on the Nevada Public Radio Board of Directors, she’s the original chair of the Western Urban Water Coalition and she served on the Colorado River Water Users Association board of directors.
Looking ahead, Mulroy anticipates Nevada will share resources with the Colorado River community and work with Mexico to build desalination facilities. She believes solutions to water shortages in the west require rethinking how water resources are moved around. She also believes in creative thinking: perhaps one area’s flood control project is another community’s water resource.
“I’ve always felt water’s the issue that rises in the state of Nevada very quickly. Water resources in a dry state are an added burden. Leadership and education are needed in this field. That’s what will make the difference between Nevada having a future and Nevada not having a future.”
Julie Murray
President/CEO, Three Square Food Bank
The newest food bank in the Feed America Network is Three Square which opened its doors in December 2007, just as the recession fully hit. Unemployment was still at 4 percent in the Southern Nevada community so there was time to gear up before the food bank distributed 10 million pounds of food in the first year and 17 million in the second, under Julie Murray’s guidance.
Murray’s lived in the valley since she was six, graduated from UNLV with a masters in communications and raised her children in the valley. “It’s important to me to contribute to the [community] and it’s upsetting to see Nevada ranks top in unemployment, suicide and home foreclosures and at the bottom for philanthropy and volunteerism and collaboration.” For her part, Murray is co-founder and co-sponsor of the Las Vegas “I Have a Dream” Foundation and serves on the board. She’s also past president of the board of Las Vegas Fire and Rescue Foundation, which she also helped found.
“I’ve got deep roots in the valley and I feel our community has so many inspirational and creative thinking business and nonprofit leaders, I believe we just need to connect a little better across the valley to help one another and support each other so we can get off the lists of highest unemployment and foreclosures and lowest in philanthropy and volunteerism,” said Murray.
William J. Raggio
State Senator
Senator Raggio feels privileged to have served both as Washoe County District Attorney for 18 years and on the Nevada Senate since 1972. He’s worked tirelessly through all the changes in the state as Nevada developed, straight through the period where this was the fastest growing state in the nation.
Some changes have driven him to work even harder. The last few legislative sessions he’s worked to try and pull lawmakers together.
“I never wanted to get into politics. I didn’t intend to get into politics. No one in my family was in politics. Then I became DA because I enjoyed that aspect of the criminal law process and as a result of that I got into politics,” Sen. Raggio said. During his tenure he’s seen the process change from spirited elections of the 1970s to a partisan and uncivil process full of venom and hate. Treating compromise like a four letter word gets in the way of seeing other points of view, he said, and he continues to try bringing both houses together.
What drives him to work for Nevada is that it’s home. “I was born here so I’ve got deep roots,” he said. “Some of my family go back as far as the mid-1880s. It’s the love of the state that drives me and I want to see us grow and prosper and see development taking place.”
Frank Schreck
Shareholder / Partner, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
Frank Schreck is a native Nevadan with gaming in his blood. A lawyer at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, he’s a Yale graduate who attended Bolt Law School and who has worked tirelessly in Nevada on gaming issues through a nearly 40 year career.
Schreck’s also been involved in Nevada politics for most of his career. After taking government and history in high school from Michael O’Callahan, he wound up working with Governor O’Callahan who appointed Schreck to the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Not only was Schreck the youngest person ever appointed to the board, at that point he was the only Democrat appointed. At the time, Schreck, then 27, was also working pro bono civil rights cases in Southern Nevada, working to integrate schools and working with cases that eventually resulted in the Nevada ‘s fair housing act. Schreck’s stayed involved with politics, working with campaigns for governors Bryan, Miller and Guinn. He’s also helped craft many of the state’s gaming laws.
“I love Nevada and there’s nowhere else I care about living,” said Schreck, whose activities also include community service. He’s on the board of the Hospice Foundation, and has held leadership roles in the International Association of Gaming Attorneys.
Billy Vassiliadis
CEO / Principal, R & R Partners
What happens here, stays here. It’s a logo that’s been riffed and repeated since the day it was first heard and it’s been effective for Las Vegas. Created by R&R Partners, a statewide Nevada advertising, public relations and government affairs company, it’s the accomplishment Billy Vassiliadis is most proud of. It’s a lasting impression he’s made on Nevada and he shares it wholeheartedly with “an awful lot of smart, talented people doing smart, talented research” at R&R Partners. Vassiliadis has worked as a lobbyist with the Nevada Legislature, representing gaming as well as health care providers, mining, homebuilders – the Nevada array – and R&R Partners has worked with the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority for several years.
What keeps Vassiliadis working for Nevada? “For a long time Nevada has been a canvas on which anybody could paint their own dreams, chalk full of opportunity. For someone coming from where I come from [Chicago], that is a more hierarchal place, where you pay your dues and go through your paces. Nevada is a place where anybody willing to work hard and invest themselves can get ahead. It gave folks like me who didn’t have the benefits of personal or family wealth or connections, the opportunity to go forward by my wiles and skills. That’s why Nevada stands apart for me and I think why it has stood apart for many people for many, many years.”
Dana White
President, UFC
How did Nevada become headquarters for the mixed martial arts organization Ultimate Fighting Championship? Because Nevada is home to Dana White, one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, who’s working to create a sport at the same time he brings events and money into Las Vegas’ economy.
White’s childhood friends Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta purchased the struggling UFC organization in 2001 and named White president. White had been involved in organized fighting all his life, was representing and managing mixed martial arts fighters, owned and managed gyms and was just heading into the promotional side of fighting at that time.
UFC has spread throughout the UK, Germany, Australia and of course the U.S., and White, who moved to Nevada in the third grade and had moved to Boston as an adult, moved back to Las Vegas to run UFC.
“I love Las Vegas. I travel all over the world and I’ve seen lots of other places, but everything is open here, you can do anything 24 hours a day and there’s lots of energy and young money. People can come from anywhere and make it big here and you don’t get that feeling in New York or Boston, that young people can make good money.”
Stephen A. Wynn
CEO, Wynn Resorts, Ltd.
One of the best known resort owners in the world, Steve Wynn worked his way up in Nevada’s gaming industry. He started in 1967, wearing the hats of part owner, slot manager and assistant credit manager for the Frontier Hotel. Over the years Wynn worked in an imports business, and finally, through a real estate transaction with Howard Hughes in 1971, was able to buy the Golden Nugget Casino.
From his start with the Golden Nugget Wynn moved on to build the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino, a 506-room Atlantic City boardwalk hotel and following the sale of that property, he went on to develop the Mirage in Las Vegas, which opened in late 1989. Treasure Island followed, a Southern Nevada theme resort complete with battleships and pirates. Five years later Wynn opened the Bellagio, followed by the Biloxi, Mississippi, Beau Rivage, a Mediterranean theme resort. In 2000, after the sale of Mirage Resorts, Inc., Wynn purchased the Desert Inn Resort and Casino, redesigning it into Wynn Las Vegas. At the same time, Wynn Resorts was developing a casino resort in Macau, China.
Wynn’s contributions to Nevada aren’t solely in the gaming world. His extensive art collection which includes a Picasso, Vincent van Gogh’s Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat (1890) and works by Renoir, Manet, Matisse and Gauguin has been shown around the state and has been on display in Wynn Las Vegas.
