Transcript of interview with Helen Naugle by Irene Rostine, October 31, 1996

An Interview with Helen Naugle An Oral History Conducted by Irene Rostine, M.A. ______________________________________________ Las Vegas Women Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas 1996 ii ? NSHE, Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, 1996 Produced by: Las Vegas Women Oral History Project Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, UNLV Dr. Joanne L. Goodwin, Director Irene Rostine, M.A., Interviewer Tamara Marino, Transcription iii iv This interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of donors to the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada. The College of Liberal Arts provides a home for the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, as well as a wide variety of in-kind services. The History Department provided necessary reassignment for the director, as well as graduate assistants for the project. The department, as well as the college and university administration, enabled students and faculty to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the University for its support that gave an idea the chance to flourish. The text has received minimal editing. These measures include the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases, photographic sources (housed separately) accompany the collection as slides or black and white photographs. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Las Vegas Women Oral History Project. Additional transcripts may be found under that series title. Dr. Joanne Goodwin, Project Director Associate Professor, Department of History Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, Director University of Nevada Las Vegas v Preface Prior to 1962, Helen Naugle had only visited Las Vegas once in her life while traveling from Idaho to California for a vacation with her husband and her boss. The group made a quick stop so her boss could interview for a position with EG&G and, as fate would have it, EG&G did not hire Helen’s boss. However, they did extend a job offer to Helen’s husband. A month later, Helen, her two daughters, and her husband became residents of Las Vegas, Nevada. Before moving to Nevada, Helen enjoyed singing in super clubs and performing on her radio show, “Melodies from Meadowland” and working for American Machine and Foundry. Upon her arrival in Las Vegas, Helen went to work for Bonanza Airlines before attending real estate school. In 1963, Helen opened her first office, Bruce Realty, and in 1965, she obtained her Broker’s license. She spent the next ten years selling general real estate. During this period, Helen was an active member of the Board of Realtors, as well as an early participant in the Board’s newly formed Women’s Council. Fate would strike again in Helen’s life while she was visiting her daughter at college in Arizona where she read an article in the Phoenix newspaper about a group of brokers who had formed a networking association to sell hotels and motels across the country. As a result of her initial contact with this association, Helen spent the next four decades selling hotels and motels throughout the State of Nevada, including Las Vegas, Elko, Tonopah, and Wells. She eventually became the first woman President of the American National Hotel-Motel Association. The cultural diversity of hotel and motel buyers would provide Helen with opportunities to travel the world and work with buyers from many different countries and vi cultural backgrounds. It also led to Helen’s membership in the FIABCI (International Real Estate Federation) and her Certified International Property Specialist and Federation of International Property Consultants certifications. Helen was also selected by the Association to represent the Air Force as “Innkeeper Evaluator” for one year. This honor took her to five Air Force bases in the United States and to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. During Helen’s career in hotel and motel real estate sales, she witnessed the transition from “mom-and-pop” American buyers to the influx of international buyers predominately from East India and Asia. The opportunities for helping repeat buyers and sellers gradually went away, as foreign buyers entered the market and tended to resell their properties to friends and family members from their own countries. During the latter part of her career, Helen found time to give back to the Las Vegas community through her volunteer work helping to establish the Scleroderma Foundation of Nevada. She also served on the Board of Directors of the Downtown Las Vegas Partnership where she focused on public safety in the area encompassing the Fremont Street Experience. Her work with both of these organizations allowed her to draw on her career experience for the benefit of others. Whether it was fate, or as Helen put it, she “just lucked into a lot of things,” one thing is certain – Helen Naugle was certainly a trail blazer for women in the hotel-motel niche of the real estate business, not only in Nevada, but across the nation. vii An Interview with Helen Naugle An Oral History Conducted by Irene Rostine, M.A. viii 1 This is an oral interview with Helen Naugle, in Las Vegas, Nevada, by Irene Rostine, on October 31, 1996, at 1:00 p.m. [Tape 1, Side A] Good afternoon, Helen. Before we start our interview, I would like to read our Deed of Gift Agreement, which states, [agreement read]. That’s fine. That’s ok? Yes. Thank you. Helen, could you tell me why you first came here? Were you looking for work? What where the circumstances that brought you here? To Las Vegas? Yes, to Las Vegas. We were on vacation. We had been at Mountain Home Air Force Base. My husband was based there as a base education officer. My boss and I worked for American Machine and Foundry. We all went to California on vacation. When we came through Las Vegas, my boss had an interview and EG&G. My husband drove him out to the interview. During the interview, they said the really needed a technical writer. [My boss] said my husband was a writer and they sent them out to talk to my husband. He said, “No. I have a job and I’m not interested.” To make a long story short, they sent us an offer and, within a month of the first time I saw Las Vegas, we were living here. My husband said the only reason we moved was because it was the first time in his life that anybody offered to move our furniture. He was in public school work in Montana and we always moved ourselves. He was a writer then? 2 Yes. He wrote several things and he was in Base Educational Services at Mountain Home Air Force Base. Prior to that, he had been superintendent for the schools for a number of years in Montana. What year was that, Helen? 1962. Where did you live when you first came here? In the Harvey Phillips duplexes at Sahara and Maryland Parkway. You were married when you came here? Yes. Did you have children at that time? Yes, two children. One older girl and one at Fremont Junior High. A boy and a girl, or two girls? Two girls. Did you have previous work experience before you came here? Oh, yes. I had always worked. Were you in real estate before you came here? No. I first went to work for Bonanza Airlines when I came here. What were your duties there? I was just a mileage clerk. I kept track of where the airplanes flew. How did it happen that you went into real estate? Our boss who got Carl the job didn’t get hired by EG&G. He was older and commanding quite a high salary. They didn’t need that level of safety and security in that job. He wasn’t able to 3 find work. We had been talking about real estate. We decided just to go to real estate school, which we did at UNLV. We got our license and opened an office. You and your husband? No. My husband worked for EG&G. You said “we”? My boss and I. You went to UNLV and obtained your education? Yes, in real estate. What did that entail? It was so long ago. It was 1962 or 1963. We opened our office in 1963, but we went on Saturdays and evenings and took the 90 hours or whatever it was you had to have. I can’t remember. Then we were licensed and we opened an office that was called Bruce Realty. I had that for ten years. We did general real estate, you know, everything. You got your broker’s licensed right up front? No, I didn’t. Your salesmen’s? Yes, my salesmen’s. He got his broker’s license. The two of you worked together at Bruce Realty? Yes. When did you get your broker’s license? In 1965. You got your first real estate license in 1963 and then, three years later, you got your broker’s license? 4 Yes. What was the first test that you took for the State like? The first test that I took was not really difficult, but when I took my broker’s license [test] it was six hours of essay. It was the first time we did that. There were only five brokers who passed that time. It was a lengthy test? Yes, it was. You had to write, and write, and write because everything was essay. What was it before that? It was multiple choice. That was the only year, as far as I know, that they did that. A very small portion of the people who took it that year passed it. I was the only woman and I was so pleased. Roberts Realty called me and said, “We have your license here.” I said, “What license?” They said, “Your broker’s license.” It had gotten in the wrong envelope and they sent it to them. I was so excited that I didn’t look at their address on Paradise Road. I got clear out Paradise Road and realized they were back at Paradise and Sahara at that time. I was so excited about having passed. [Laughing] When you first went into real estate and you and your partner were working at Bruce Realty, what was the day like at that time? You had a family to take care of. How many hours of the day did you work? Not only that, my daughter came home shortly thereafter with her two children to live with us and work at the Test Site. I had to get two babies up that were eighteen months apart. When she came home, one baby was three weeks old and one baby was eighteen months old. I had to get those babies up, bathe them, feed them, and take them to the nursery. Then [I would] work all day, pick them up, and then come home and get them dinner. She worked at the Test Site 5 and left at six o’clock in the morning and didn’t get home until six o’clock at night. So, I did that for quite a while, six months or so. You day was not structured 8 to 5? It was. It didn’t have to be, but it was. I worked a full day. What was the day like? What would you do? We would go to the office and wait for phone calls. Then we would go out and knock on doors. Neither of us having worked for a real estate office before, [we] spent a lot of wasted time. I think that we could have done better. Then too, there had been a real estate boom in the early 1960s and then the bottom had dropped out of everything when we got in the business. We didn’t know that so it took us a while. We went into repossessions because there were many of those at that time. We became repossession specialists. We looked at every property that came on the market and we sold a lot of them during that time. Was that when they overbilled and First Western had all the problems? Yes, when First Western had all the problems. When you first started out, you didn’t work for another broker? What about your training? How did you learn all the tricks of the trade? I think we just stumbled into it. When we opened our office, you had to have an office before you got your business license. We couldn’t find a place. In those day there were very few places for rent. We found a place in the Industrial Arts Building out on Industrial Road on the second floor. If we tried to hide, we couldn’t find a place that was less exposed than that place. [Laughing] You rented that office and just started to sell? You didn’t have a broker over either of you? He had just started out too? 6 No, we didn’t. As we look back, we did things that were kind of foolish. It took us awhile to realize what we should do. I think the thing that saved us was that, because there had been such a boom previous to that, a lot of the brokers refused to do property management. We got some properties to manage and that kept us in business the first year. At this point, did you join the Board of Realtors? In 1965. You don’t have to belong to the Board, but in 1965 I joined the Board. You didn’t join when you first got into real estate? No. Did you feel that it was more beneficial after you joined? Oh, yes. I did because there were not too many people in the business. There was no education at that time for real estate personnel. I felt comradery with the people we met. We were responsible for starting a multiple listing service. We did a lot of things. The Women’s Council of Realtors really started the educational process with Nevada brokers and salespeople. Could you tell me a bit about Women’s Council and how it got started? [I sent a letter to California and got all the information about the Women’s Council there.] Then I let it sit on my desk. One day, I spoke to Jessie Emmett and she said she was going to try to start a Women’s Council. I said, “I have all the information for you and here it is.” She was the first president of Women’s Council. Then, several of us who were in the same group took our turn along the way. Women’s Council is the [way the courses] started. In 1967, the National Association of Realtors [had] their first course called “How to Run a Real Estate Office Successfully.” I didn’t tell anyone I was going. It was in Portland, Oregon. I got over there and Chuck Ruthe and Bill Schwartz were in the class. That was the first entry into 7 education that I had. From that, I took an awful lot of courses. I enjoyed every one. It was very good. How do the men react to women in real estate at that time? Did they ever intimidate or try to get you out? Oh, yes. One thing they did was when we would go to National conventions, there were so many states that would have hospitality rooms and open them to the women. We finally got the men to have a Nevada suite and they wouldn’t let anybody in if they weren’t members of the Nevada group. In the beginning, it was almost like “Joe sent me.” [Laughing] They just didn’t seem to understand. We met people, men and women, from other groups and we learned so much about what they were doing in their states because they were really far ahead of us in many ways. The men took a very dim view of that. They did not want to socialize at that time, but that changed in later years and they got so they really appreciated the other states, also. When you joined the Board of Realtors and there was no Women’s Council, how did the men receive you at that point? They were very nice. Did they accept you whole-heartedly and welcome you in to the organization or were they restrictive? I think so. I think they did. Well, I think they were polite. I don’t know how they felt about us being in the business, but I didn’t really feel any stigma being a woman. After you formed your Women’s Council, then the Women’s Council started the education in Las Vegas? Right. How did the men react? 8 Some of the men joined Women’s Council. They did? Yes, they did. That was the place to be? It was education and there were things to do. What it did was make for a lot of comradery within the group because we always had speakers and things. Did the women network with each other or help to promote each other’s businesses so they could be more successful? I don’t know that that happened other than if you formed a friendship with somebody. I don’t know that they networked because it was very competitive. When you had Board of Realtor meetings, was it the women’s responsibility to take care of refreshments or did the men do their share? I think, probably, in those days the women did it. The women really were the ones that got education? Up until that point there was nothing? Nothing. That’s amazing. There wasn’t even anything in the National Association of Realtors. As I said, the first course that they provided was in 1967. Did the state give any kind of training other than the test? Not to my knowledge. In those days we had nothing. You got all that training in your licensing procedure. You opened Bruce Realty in 1963? 9 Yes. What kind of a financial outlay did it take at a time like that? I can’t remember, but I don’t think at that time we didn’t know enough about real estate to know what it was going to take. I can tell you what it took later on when I opened my other office. At that time you thought about the rent and you didn’t really think about what it was going to cost you to travel or the social events. I don’t think we even considered that. It was very hard when we first started. You had advertising and things like that? Yes. At that point you were selling mostly houses? Yes. We sold one or two motels, I guess, during the time we were in business together, but mostly it was houses. When did you start your hotel-motel business? That was in 1972. My daughter was in Arizona State University and I went down to visit her one weekend. I picked up the Phoenix paper and read an ad about Motel Brokers Association of America. That sounded like something I would be interested in. I really never enjoyed selling houses. When somebody came to me and said, “I want to be in that location. I want this kind of a house,” I would search it out and worked very hard. Then they’d buy clear across town something they said they wouldn’t do. Or, I’d be in a house with a couple and the man would say, “This kitchen bugs me,” and I just wanted to say, “Well, how much time do you think you’re going to spend in a kitchen.” [Laughing] Or, if they would be in the bedroom and they would say, “I don’t like this blue bedroom,” I would think, “God, I am spending time with people who don’t realize a can of paint could change that.” I just wasn’t too happy dealing with 10 these little things that seemed to be important to them that were petty. I was more interested in the bottom line, I guess. When I saw that ad in the paper, I called the broker. He had been one of the ones who, in 1959, had started Motel Brokers Association of America. [Tape stopped due to phone ringing; Tape resumed.] Before we stopped the tape, Helen, you were telling me about the hotel-motel? Yes. There was a national furniture convention and he and his wife came. I sat down and met them and he told me about the organization. In 1959, nine brokers throughout the United States had gotten together to see if they could form a group and handle hotels and motels across the United States. If they were dealing with people who understood the business, it would be so much easier for them and for the buyers and sellers. So, they formed this organization. It took me a year to decide. This must have been in 1971 because in 1972 I decided to join. One thing I did do that I would not do again [is] I gave up all my old business, all my referrals. I didn’t ask for any money. If I sold an apartment house and somebody wanted one, I would call another broker and say, “I have somebody who wants that and your welcome to these people.” So, I got nothing from my referrals, but I was so thrilled with this business that I just didn’t have time and I wanted to learn everything I could about it. In other words, you just started from scratch again, just like you had in 1962? Yes. I remember I took $15,000 to open my office. I decided that that was a lot of money. The salesman that I hired, I had to subsidize him and, right after we started in 1973, there was a gas crunch. Nothing was selling. Probably a year later, I had to close my office and I went to work for another real estate firm as head of their real estate division. I sold a motel and stayed there three months because they were somebody I didn’t want to be working with. Then I reopened my office. 11 What were some of the early hotels and motels that you sold, Helen? There were many, many of them. I sold them here, in Tonopah, in Elko, and Wells. In this town, I think the first one we sold was the Bonanza Lodge downtown. I sold the Safari and the Sky Ranch. The Las Vegas Inn. One of the first ones was called the Eastward Hall and then it became the Lotus Inn. We sold that. Then we sold several out-of-state through our brokers there, too. Where you the only woman hotel-motel broker in Las Vegas? Actually, no. Mary Bartus sold a lot of hotels and motels during that time and all the time she was in business, actually. You were in a minority then? Yes, but I was the only one in a nation-wide organization that handled only hotels and motels. In this nation-wide organization, you talked the language the hotel-motel language? You weren’t mixing with people that were selling houses and land? No. they only handled hotels and motels. That made a good living? It did, but when we started out, this organization was so new. I shouldn’t say “new.” It was started in 1959, but they didn’t have that many members. We had a part-time executive officer who lived in Virginia. All the national officers of that organization had to do the actual work. They didn’t have anybody doing it for them. When I started, there were no standardized forms. I would have to write the brokers and say, “May I see your listing form?” or, “May I see your data sheet?” or, “What do you do with this?” or, “What do you do with that?” Then I had to travel throughout the state and meet every motel owner or hotel owner within the state and make my own index of properties because there was nothing like that. 12 You handled all of Nevada? Yes. Twice a year, I would make a trip all around the state and stop at all these motels. Did you go by yourself or did your husband go with you? No. The sales people went with me. You had some sales people that were men? Yes. How did they react to having a female broker? Fine. Fine? There was no resentment? Didn’t seem to be. That was in the 1970s? Yes. How many sales people did you actually have? I have had several over the years. Probably six or seven. At one time? No. Just usually one at a time or maybe two. The inventory is small when you think about it. Everybody doesn’t need a motel. We didn’t have that much business. Usually there were probably two. Did you have a secretary? For a long time I did, yes. Until it got to where I had to think of work to keep her busy. Then it was nerve racking for me because I knew she didn’t want to sit there with very little to do. How often did you sell a motel? 13 I don’t know. The average would maybe be three a year. One year, when the East Indians came in 1977, they came to my office and asked where they could go to get the most for their money. This is the first time I had met them. I said, “Texas at this time.” They said, “Well, we would like to go there.” I said, “Fine. I will call my Texas broker and he will be happy to meet you. He will treat you just as I would treat you.” They said, “We would like you to go with us because we are dark-skinned and we are going south. We don’t know how we will be received.” So I said, “Fine.” I went with them. That was quite an experience because the East Indian people do not eat meat. At least the older ones don’t. By older, the oldest one that went with us was thirty-five. He has remained a very dear friend of mine all these years and he still has a hotel in Las Vegas. In the mornings, the older people would eat cheese sandwiches and then at night we always had pizza. We had meat pizza and cheese pizza. At lunch time, we would go to a gas station. They always brought their own, as they called them, “groceries” with them. They were bajeen and puri and things that they cooked or that their wives would send with them. They would just get some pop and eat it. The first day that we stopped, we didn’t know each other very well. They said, “Would you like to get something out of the machine at the gas station?” I really didn’t want cheese and peanut butter, but that’s what we did. As we got better acquainted, they let me share what they were eating. I just love puri. It’s a little cake and it’s just neat. So, I looked forward to lunch time each day. [Laughing] On that trip to Texas, we sold five motels. That year, I think I sold eleven. Normally, you don’t sell that many. Was that kind of a record for motels? It was for me, but I don’t know if it was for other people. About how large did this group of brokers grow that started? 14 It’s about forty-eight now. You’re still actively engaged? Yes. Have you ever been involved with any of the strip hotels? No. I think the biggest one we sold was to Stanwich. It was 300-and-something rooms. How unusual was that for a woman? It was kind of unusual. One of the nine people was a woman and her husband. There had been a woman preceding me, but there’s never been another National President whose been a woman of the National Organization. Could you explain being President? When I started, I was their Treasurer. The year I was Treasurer, I actually did the books for the whole Organization in my office. It took a lot of time. Then I was the Vice President and then President. That took a lot of time because you had to appear at all the conventions of the various chains and franchise groups. One of the fun things we did the year I was president was name Sam Barshop, from La Quinta, as our “Man of the Year.” The following year, we named Senator Inouye. Because of Watergate, Senator Inouye did not want any publicity about this. That’s why we gave the award. We wanted to have publicity. [Laughing] We were at the Plaza Hotel in New York and Inouye was going to speak. I had arranged with the convention photographer. I said, “When he stops speaking, I am going to go up and shake his hand. I need a picture.” We didn’t publish it, but we had it for our own things. As he was getting ready to stop speaking and everybody stood up to applaud, I hurried up to the top table, the table that was nearest to the stage, and I climb on a chair, on the table, on the stage. I walked out and put out my hand and said, “Senator Inouye, I’ve come 3,000 miles to shake your hand.” They took 15 the picture. It was an outstanding picture, but the Secret Service people were very annoyed. They were looking like, “What’s happening?” Anyway, we got our picture. [Laughing] Do you still have the picture? I have some place, but I don’t have it in with these pictures. At any rate, it was neat that we had put one over on him. [Laughing] Let’s go back in time a little bit to the 1960s when you had your first office at Bruce Realty. Did you have any salesmen working for you at that time? Yes, we did… [End Tape 1, Side A] [Begin Tape 1, Side B] Before we changed the tape, Helen, we were talking about your first office and how many employees you had at that time. You said they weren’t employees, they were “independent contractors?” Yes, independent contractors and there were two. Can you explain the independent contractor concept? The independent contractor is what you prefer to have them be. As employees, you would have to withhold and do all that kind of thing. As independent contractors, they are responsible for all the reporting to [Social Security] or IRS or whomever. Other than just reporting what came in to your office and what you paid them, you don’t have any responsibility about withholding. They work on their own? Their responsible for their expenses? Kind of a contract under us. You are their overseer to make sure they act properly? Yes, and we don’t tell them what time they have to be there or what time they have to leave. 16 Did you give your agents any kind of training? Actually, those agents had more training than we had when we started our business. [Laughing] They could give you some pointers. [Laughing] Yes. We had one, Martha Armstrong. She was just as cheerful and so cute and bubbly. Everybody just loved her. I always remember one time she was talking to somebody about land and they said something about the water. [She said,] “Why it’s just laying there right under the ground.” [Laughing] She’s a super lady and I think now she’s doing a lot of management. What was the ethnic makeup of the offices at that time? Were they all white or were there any minorities like Hispanics or… It seems to me there was one colored man. I am sure there were some Spanish people. You came in in 1963? 1963. That was just about the time they were doing all the Civil Rights Legislation. Did that have any impact on the business at that time? It did not impact on our business at all, I don’t believe. Was it any easier for a single female to get a house or a loan because of the legislation? I suppose it would have been. You wouldn’t have been in the business long enough at that time to know the before and after effect? Yes. How are agents paid? How do real estate people get their compensation? They get paid when the escrow closes. They don’t get salaries or anything? 17 No. Although, my first sales person in my motel-hotel office did because I realized we were both learning it together and it might be quite some time before we had any money coming in. So, I did subsidize him. Even though you weren’t making anything, you paid him? Yes. [Laughing] When you opened this motel-hotel office, was there a large financial outlay? Larger than your first office, would you say? No. I don’t think it was too much larger other than the fact that it cost, at that time, $1,000 to join the National Organization and then you had to pay a monthly fee to belong. Each person in the office? No. The office paid a monthly fee. The salesperson just paid a yearly fee. Did you belong to the Board of Realtors at this point, also? Oh, yes. You continued to put this office into that also? Yes. During the time I was in Realtors, I had served as Secretary-Treasurer locally, and chairman of a lot of the committees. Then, I also was the first woman from Las Vegas to be State Secretary-Treasurer. I held that two years. This is in the Board itself, not Women’s Council? No. This was is in the Board of Realtors and it was the State Board of Realtors. State Board? Yes. Was it unusual for women to hold office in the Board of Realtors at that time? 18 There had been a State Secretary-Treasurer, Matt Gibbons, prior to my having that office, but I don’t believe there were too many women in the Board who served as Officers. At that time, it kind of started and then there were a lot of them. Since that time there have been several Presidents. You ladies were the early pathfinders? Yes. You paved the way for others to come? Yes. In fact, we wrote to the National Association of Realtors and asked them who had the best MLS in the country. They said, “Scottsdale Arizona and Anchorage Alaska.” So, four of us went to Scottsdale. The Scottsdale Board was so good to us, but when we came back we must have been a pain to everyone because we would say, “In Scottsdale, they do it like this.” I know that they must of have gotten so tired of hearing that, but we were so enthused about everything they were doing. I remember when we used to get our listings in color in a book. We were so thrilled when that happened. We just evolved and it was a real, I think, “board” in those days. I am sure it still is for the people who sell houses. I quit the Board three years ago because for commercial brokers I don’t think they offer a service. When we started Multiple, we were trying to help the salespeople and the brokers. We said, “We will charge you what we need to charge to cover the expenses, but if we find we are collecting too much money, we will repay it to the members.” Now they charge a lot more. Of course, it’s wonderful they have been able to build the building and I commend them for that, but the personnel in the office, as far as I am concerned, is not working to help the group. The group has to work to help the Board. For example, I had a salesperson who was Croatian and, during this Bosnia thing, he went home to see his family. His family had taken in refugees and his family had people 19 sleeping in hallways and everything. He couldn’t come back as soon as he should. The Board insisted he join the Board. I told them he wasn’t here. They wouldn’t accept that. They were g