Transcript of interview with Elaina Blake by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White, September 19, 2016

AN INTERVIEW WITH ELAINA BLAKE An Oral History Conducted by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White The Building Las Vegas Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ©The Building Las Vegas Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2016 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Editor: Stefani Evans and Vishe Y. Redmond Transcribers: Kristin Hicks, Frances Smith Interviewers: Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White Project Manager: Stefani Evans iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of the UNLV University Libraries. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the university for the support given that allowed an idea and the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes 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 accompany the individual interviews. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Building Las Vegas Oral History Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University Nevada, Las Vegas iv Coming from humble beginnings, Elaina Blake grew up in Port Orchard, Washington, where her father was in the logging industry and she involved herself in the love of horseback riding. After becoming engaged at age 16, she married the following year at 17 and moved to Las Vegas where she started as a statistical typist at the Sahara Hotel and Casino. This led to a position her to become an executive secretary at the Thunderbird where she dealt with the rampant sexual harassment that was typical of the executive office environment in the industry at the time. The rejection of those advances led her to start her career in real estate with Roberts Realty where she sold her first group of homes off of Nellis Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue. In 1976, she made the entrepreneurial move by buying into Roberts Realty, becoming an owner, and eventually buying out Young American Homes. v She started giving back to the community through her service as being the first woman elected to president elect for the Chamber of Commerce in 1984 and also served on the Clark County Planning Commission for four years serving as vice chairman and chairman. She did such a wonderful job running the chamber, she was approached to run for Lieutenant Governor. Her involvement with the community increased during this time as she got involved with the United Way, saved the YMCA from closure and started the Focus School Project in 1989 with former superintendent Brian Cram where businesses adopt schools and provide money and volunteer. This project is still in operation today and has given back $8 million dollars to CCSD in volunteerism. During her time with the Chamber, she continued to work with major local builders such as Pageantry Homes, Heers Brothers, and Christopher Homes, which led to her taking another entrepreneurial milestone by taking a small team to create Blake and Associates. In 1996, Blake leveled up to become a developer starting with office buildings. As a champion for the inclusion of women, she never felt held back because of her gender and she always encouraged women in the Chamber to give more of themselves, even if it was for ten minutes because the men did so. In a male-dominated industry, Elaina Blake has been a trailblazer for women in business and the housing industry in the valley. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with September 14, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee D. White and Stefani Evans Preface……………………………………………………………………………..……..iv Pacific Northwest childhood; working at the Sahara; Thunderbird; standing up against corporate sexual harassment; Foxy’s; Roberts Realty………………..…….…………1–10 Young American Homes; Blake and Associates; Clark County Planning Commission; Pageantry Homes; Christopher Homes; Heers Brothers; saving the YMCA; Focus School Project; first women elected to the Chamber; Leadership Las Vegas; becoming a developer………………………………………………………………………..……11–20 Chamber consolidation; Nevada Development Authority; Mark Fine; John Vornsand; Greg Borgel; Pat Shalmy……………………………………..……………….…...…...….21–30 Ronzone’s Department Store; Charleston Mall; Boulevard, Meadows, Fashion Show Mall and Downtown Summerlin; Stripper incident with the Women’s Council; Painted Desert; Country Club Hills, Canyon Ranch…………………….……………………………31–37 vii S: Good afternoon. This is Stefani Evans. It is September 19, 2016, and I am here with Claytee White and Elaina Blake and we are in Elaina's office. Elaina, would you please pronounce and spell your first and last name for the tape please. Elaina Blake, E-L-A-I-N-A, B-L-A-K-E. S: Thank you. As promised, I am going to ask you to tell us about your early childhood and parents and your siblings, and where you grew up. I grew up in the state of Washington, mainly on the west coast, all within about seventy miles of each other. I went to eight different schools, we moved a lot. My father was in the logging industry when we did all the moving, but when I was very young our first location, he was a farmer. Then he got into sawing in a saw mill when I was five years old. After that we followed that around forever. I had two other sisters and ended up going from Randle, Washington, where I was virtually born, out to Tacoma to Bremerton to Port Orchard, then I ended up back near Tacoma in a little place called Fife. That is where I went to the seventh grade in a four room school, two grades to a room, didn't learn anything. There were thirteen kids in my class so going through the classes in all the other schools I had moved to, was simple for me, I didn't have any problems. But boy, you get to that seventh grade and everybody had already befriended each other, but then I made friends with a gal that I am still close friends with today. Then I went to the high school there at Fife and I was very active in classes doing things. I was a majorette and that was my big thing I liked to do there because I twirled a baton since I was a little tiny kid. That was just a fun thing. Then in my senior year my folks moved away, back to Port Orchard, but I stayed there and lived with my older sister who had just gotten married and drove my boyfriend's car at the time, quite a ways to school. We didn't have any money so my friends, who I picked up, and they would all give me a dollar for gas. This was back a long time ago and gas wasn't 2 that expensive. So that is how I got through my senior year. I was engaged at sixteen and got married at seventeen. That took me up to my adult years. Now my mother and father were extremely active with horses. I started riding horses at the age of two. I continued riding until I was seventeen. Horses were a big part of my life, but after seventeen it wasn't a big thing. I was a rodeo princess, you get to do all that fun stuff, ride into the Grand Entries. As a young child I was not frightened of any kind of animal, particularly horses. So when I was seven we were on this farm that my folks had purchased and we were boarding horses. Somebody brought us a little Shetland pony to board. They said she can ride it all she wants. They put it out in the little stable and the next thing my folks knew I was flying down the driveway, bare back on that horse with the halter. They go, "What are you doing?" That just was me. Right after that we went into the parade in Bremerton, Washington. My mom and dad were on their horses with their group, the Silver Spurs it was called. Then here I am following them with this little Shetland pony. I will tell you, all the old Super 8 movies they took back then were all pointed towards me. I guess I was the hit because I was on the front page of the Bremerton paper. We rode into the Grand Entry, my folks are in front of me and they have big horses. We are riding in and the announcer is going, "Here they come." We are riding in full blast and my folk's horses are throwing up dirt all over me. My little pony’s legs were flying, but she could keep up with them. They were going, "Watch that little thing." It was hysterical. I could stick to a horse without a problem. That was a really interesting time in my life. My dad was in the sheriff's posse and wherever we would move he would ride with the Tacoma sheriff's posse. They drilled and they got to ride with the police sometimes as backup. They carried a badge and a gun. The sheriff's posses would compete against each other, from all counties. This was Pierce County. We would go to their meets all across the state. It was very exciting. My mother was in a group called the Tacoma Lariettes and she was in it for probably sixty-some years. They performed 3 under black lights at night. Everything was shut off and these black fluorescent lights would pick up the cuff, the yoke, the horse's saddle blanket was outlined with lights that would pick up, they had leggings, stockings on the horses and the tailpiece and then the bridle. So when you saw them you saw just the horse outline of those things, you couldn't see the horse. Then the people, all you saw was the outline of their hat, their yoke and cuffs. It was incredible and they did a drill. Then they started square dancing on horseback and they performed all over the state. It is amazing that it wasn't taken up bigger because it was something back then, when they were doing it in the 1950s, 1960s. My mother, when she got to be older, always called the square dance herself. She did it even when she was in her eighties. She went to the Washington State Fair calling the square dance, the others are doing the horse back. She was up there riding in her Western outfit. It was very cute. S: How wonderful to have an activity like that that sustains you all your life. Yes. They loved it. My folks were good, wonderful people. We mainly lived in places where we could have flowers and a garden. Mother would put it in. We lived out of the garden, most of the time. To this day I miss that a lot. Always the fresh vegetables, but that is how you lived then. Food was incredible. We always had a clean house, we always had enough food, we didn't have any money, but they had their horses. That is how I grew up. S: How did you end up coming to Las Vegas? I got married at seventeen and we decided to head to Vegas. He got work down here. I arrived in Las Vegas to live in an apartment. The sun was out and this was December. I am looking at this sun and going, "Wow! And there is a pool at the apartment." I am in my bathing suit and I am down sunbathing in December. And everyone is thinking, "What is wrong with that person?" I didn't know the difference because in Washington you get sun in the summer and if you get sun in the winter you get outside. I will give you an example. There was a lady that was an accounting person and she had 4 her little office that didn't have a window in it. She had a door. I went over to see her one day and she was in her chair, which was pushed back in the open door. She was reaching as far as she could, just barely touching her computer with her fingertips just to get the sun. That is back in Washington. That is how bad it is in the winter. You are going to do anything to get a little sun. Well, I am by that pool and I knew this was the best place I had ever come to. I didn't know you could plan an outing; you couldn't plan them in Washington because it could rain. You didn't know. Down here you could plan things. I said, "320 days of blue skies. I'm here." I never wanted to leave. I had a second home up in the San Juan Islands for 20 years. Now I am a widow, but when my husband was alive, he loved it so much he took early retirement. He loved being up there in the summer so I would commute back and forth. We were right on the water and it was gorgeous but nothing could move me away from Las Vegas, nothing. S: He didn't like it as much as you did? He loved both. We had the best of all worlds, having both. You leave here, it might be a 110 degrees. You can survive in that pretty well; we have air conditioning and it is pretty dry. It doesn't bother me that much. Then you get up there. He would pick me up and it would be 75 degrees, not bad. It was a very nice life. I went to work when I first got here at the Sahara Hotel. I saw that it was close to where I lived in the apartment so I went to the employment office. I had been working up in Washington for just a short time in an insurance agency, being a draft writer. They liked that concept that I could do numbers so I became their statistical typist at the Sahara Hotel and the window was there and looked in on us and I was the one that controlled the button that let me into the auditing department. That was my first job. When the Sahara Hotel purchased the Thunderbird Hotel, which was the popular hang-out, it was where everybody would go after work. It was great. S: The Thunderbird was? 5 Yes, the Thunderbird. Sahara purchased it. I went over as the receptionist, in the executive's office. The minute the new buyer purchased it, it became deader than a door nail. It wasn't a hang-out any longer. C: Why? I don't know. C: Which year was it purchased? Probably 1964. The Sahara purchased it and that was when Del Webb owned the Sahara Hotel. C: Is that Howard Hughes? No. Del Webb was the builder of the original Sun Cities. He was big time. When I was working at the Sahara Hotel, the office people got to eat in the show room. You were able to watch all the people practicing for the big shows. It was wonderful! My lunch hour was spent watching Donald O'Connor do his practice, watching everybody that was going to appear. They would come in and we would be in the side, where we would eat, watching these major stars. It was just incredible. One day someone opened the door to the show room and yells, "Fire! Fire! You need to get out!" So my friend Donna, she taught me how to do my statistical typing, and we always ate lunch together (Donna went on to become my assistant at Blake and Associates finally). We are still friends to this day, and that goes back to 1962. We got up and walked out, not thinking anything is too serious and when we got into the casino part, all the dealers were picking up these big, fancy tables because they were gorgeous. There were still people trying to get their chips and money and play. The dealers are trying to take them outside because now we are starting to smell some smoke. We got out the front and went across the street to where Foxy's use to be. It was Foxy's Firehouse. We were standing there and we can start seeing flames. It was burning. When they finally got the fire out, I remember I went back over and saw the fire had been in the publicity department. The kitchen was downstairs, by the coffee shop, so it went up in flames. It 6 burned up the sales department and the publicity department but the auditing department was saved. I decided I am going in and close the safe up. I have no idea what was in the safe. That wasn't my job, but I went in and closed it anyway. It was dumb. And then I helped man the phones because it burned up part of our phone system so they got us some temporary phones. While I was there Del Webb flew in and I finally got to see who he was. He came in and thanked us all, but we never missed a beat on the phones. We were right back to work the next day. They had to relocate the other departments of course. Being in the showroom we could have been trapped. That was 1963-1964 that the fire happened. [Ed. Note: The fire occurred August 25, 1964.] Working at the Thunderbird was very interesting. I went through a few bosses of the hotel and then they sold it to a group called Lance Incorporated and they were made up of seventeen people. Some were local, a lot were from all around the country, and it was an interesting group. I became their executive secretary. I didn't like what I saw they were doing. I was a young, innocent girl and I approached the one and said, "Your partner is doing something while you are gone." He probably knew about it but I was too young to understand. He said, "I'll ask him about it." He came back the next day and said, "He says he swears on his wife and children's lives that he is not doing that." I said, "Then they are going to die." I understand what I felt and I was serious because I saw him doing this. Two days later they gave the hotel back to Webb. C: They gave it back? Gave it back because they were supposed to be paying on it. It wasn't good so they gave it back. It was long enough ago that all these guys are all gone so it can't come back to haunt them now. I didn't know what I was involved in there at the time. It's a wonder that I wasn't buried out in the desert. Then I went and interviewed at a personnel place. I wanted to get a job away from these hotels and casinos because, for me, it just wasn't good. I was in the executive office. Back then men really tried to play games with a lot of the women and I didn't tolerate it even as a young girl. I would be like, "Get away 7 from me." I can remember two of their names. To one of them I said, "I'm just going to call your wife up right now." I was tough enough that I would do it and he couldn't intimidate me because I'm in the executive office. I said, "I'll go tell my boss." It worked out well but I just didn't want any more of the hassle back then. So I was interviewed by this one fellow who was from Roberts Realty and he said, "Well, you are the best so far." I said, "What does that mean?" He wanted me to interview with his partner who was absolutely one of the most wonderful people you could ever meet in your life. He could tell a story about the fish he caught. By the time he was done you knew the fish was that big and you believed it. He was wonderful, Robert Bugbee. He became a second father to me, just a good, good solid person who was a brilliant man. I went to work at Roberts Realty as a receptionist/secretary/bookkeeper. This was in December of 1967. By 1968, I thought, "Isn't there anything else to do?" I had already done all the files. I had nothing else to do. I was approached by Ed Fike's campaign, he was running for lieutenant governor, I think, at the time. He was head of one of the title companies here. They approached me just to work on the campaign because I knew his former assistant quite well. I was going to go do that. I gave notice at my job. We started interviewing people for my position and I would give them this nice person for them to interview. Well, they would find problems. Finally one day Robert Bugbee (Bob Bugbee) came in and sat down and started to tell me about an incredible job. It sounded so good that I took it. It was my own job! He could make things sound so good! The nice part was that they agreed to send me to real estate school. So I went to school, and it was so hard back then because they only gave the test every six months and it was solid essay. You either passed it or you flunked it and you couldn't take it again for six months. Now, of course, it is multiple choice. S: Where did you go to real estate school? 8 Actually, it was above Foxy's on the corner there. It was Bernie D'Oria, and he had the first and the only real estate school, I believe, at that time. I went to school with two people that are still two of my dearest friends to this day. We go back to 1968 and I just really have some longtime friends. The sad part is that as you get older you start losing your friends and that is getting harder and harder. We still have Thanksgiving together, the two of them, one's wife had passed away, and then we have Christmas Eve together. It has turned out very nice. We still all stay in touch. S: Did all of you stay in real estate? Yes. S: So who are the two friends? John Woods and Ron Rierson. C: Tell me about Foxy's. Foxy's was Abe Fox, and he was a land developer too. He was a good friend of Bugbee's. That is how I knew him. They had the restaurant/bar across the street. It was very popular. I don't why that ever closed, maybe it was age or something. He used to have big signs on there. He was selling land in Pahrump. He was one of the ones who sold out there to begin with, or developed. Abe Fox, he was quite a doer here in Vegas at the time. C: Did you realize that his restaurant was the only one on the Strip that would sell to blacks? No. Really? C: Blacks could go in and actually eat. Abe Fox. S: That doesn't surprise you? No. What really surprises me that all of them didn't allow it in the first place. I do understand about the Moulin Rouge happening. That was a shocker to me because in 1967 when I went to the hotels, there was no discrimination at that time. 9 C: Because they had already integrated. Exactly. That is when I came here. I wouldn't understand that in the first place. What is this? Stupid, or something? I grew up with there being no prejudice where we were at all. We had a lot of Indian kids in our school. I learned later that a lot of people around the country really are prejudice against the Indians and we never thought that way, ever. We had a lot of Asians, too. Of course that is a whole other story. Some of their folks had been in internment camps. There are some real heavy stories on that. I didn't know that. We were all good friends. You just don't know things until you look back and start studying history and you are just shocked. Anyway, that was wonderful about Abe, what a great guy! S: What was your first job in real estate? Were you with Roberts Realty? Yes, I stayed with Roberts Realty as bookkeeper/secretary until I got my license. Then I moved to be the general manager. When I got my license, of course, I started working nights and weekends to sell and then run everything else during the daytime. So I got used to working seven days a week. I still work seven days a week and I'll work ten hours a day or whatever it takes. That is just part of real estate. We started selling new home projects when they first came out. The Heers Brothers had one of the first ones I saw. Roberts Realty became the sale people on the tract and they had models and they had a furniture package and that was quite interested. I would sell a few of them down there while I am running the overall operation. Young American Homes was formed at that stage because that was Robert Bugbee, Ray Williams, and Norm Peterson. They were the owners of Roberts Realty at the time. They were my bosses. They decided, seeing what the Heers Brothers could do, and they started building houses. I was doing all of Young American's original book-keeping, tracking all their sales, and selling on the weekends when I can. I held the record for a long time. I sold six homes on a weekend at one of their projects. They had great little homes. They had car ports and then garages. 10 S: Where were these houses? The first group started out right off of Nellis, the south part of town, Flamingo, Tropicana, where Nellis comes together, that was the area where we started building several homes and it was big time successful. We ended up in our first few projects of getting a lot of Cuban buyers and they didn't speak English. They always had a person who was their spokesman. I went to Spanish speaking class just to try to learn some. I didn't learn much but I could say "el casa." Then I could call them and say, "Me llamo Elaina. El Casa" and they would know to have the fellow call me. Of course the funniest part was I would tell them to come in to choose their colors. Now we ended up having to put in our colors, red carpet, red counter-tops, blue carpet, and blue counter-tops. Almost every one of them bought either red or blue carpets and counter-tops. That was in the early 1970s. Young America went on to build like you couldn't believe. In 1976 I bought into Roberts Realty, so I was an owner, eventually buying them all out. My assistant Elaine wanted to own her own company and so my goal was to buy all of them out and let her get in so she could own Robert’s Realty because I knew I was going to spin off to Blake and Associates. Back to Roberts Realty, we got to be the third largest in town. We had 75 agents and at that time it was the third largest. There was Al Levy Realty and Ruthe Realty. We were the three large companies. Then Jack Matthews started and Americana split off from there. Then it grew from there on. I started doing a lot of the new home projects for other builders as the sales team. They didn't have in-house sales people at that time. A few had people but they weren't licensed. I would sometimes handle up to six builders at one time. That was my forte, doing that. Young American eventually sold and I continued on doing tracts for a long time and then I became a consultant for a while, on tracts. I spun off to do Blake and Associates in 1989 and I wanted to get where eventually I could just keep down-sizing because I knew I never wanted to have a lot of sales people down the road. So I had tracts and that is what they did. I had an assistant who took care of things. 11 During all of that time frame I got involved in so many things in the community. Once I was president-elect—we did presidents back then in the Chamber—in my year we changed it to chairman and we hired a paid president. We did that because around the country, 50 percent of the Chambers had already gone to paid presidents. They could do a lot more. That was in 1984 I was president-elect. When I became president-elect it hit the news media because I was the first woman ever elected to serve as the head of the Chamber. That was in 1985 and that Chamber had been going on for a long time. Our membership was made up of a lot of women in business. It was a break-through for the women. I was called to be on many different boards. I couldn't do that. I don't believe on being on every one at the same time. I literally would go to certain women I knew were excellent and I would give their names to all these people and it helped. There are so many capable women. Right before I took over the Chamber as president I was on the Clark County Planning Commission for four years. I served as vice-chairman, chairman. I was the one who would drive everything. They relied on me to drive things. We had four meetings a month of the planning commission and two staff meetings. When I would go to the staff meeting they would cover the two meetings for that week and they give you all your booklets, your paperwork and on Saturday and Sunday I would go out and drive all these things that I questioned. Some of them were simple, like extensions. At the same time I would go check on my listings or I would be showing real estate but I would plan that trip around. Of course you had to get out your little maps and program it. Now, things are so different. GPS. I could go anywhere now. When I would go into the staff meetings on Mondays I would be so much more knowledgeable because nobody is usually going to spend their time driving most of the items, but I was interested. The first night I went on the board, you didn't know if you were going to do the right things or what. The chairman knew my partner Bob Bugbee. He introduces me that night to everybody, "This is Elaina Blake. She is new to this." I'm thinking, "OK. Why did you point that out?" That was Tuesday 12 night. On Thursday night he introduced me again as new. They all go out to a little place to get pizza afterwards and I'm sitting across from him and he said, "Well, how is it working for Bugbee?" I said, "I don't work for him. He is my partner and don't you ever introduce me as new again. The first night I let you get away with it." We became really good friends. That was funny but it was like, "don't point me out." It made me uncomfortable. Then they stare at you. C: You mention tracts, are those the developments? Yes. Those are the new home sub-divisions with models. We have a sales office. I handled probably about 150 different projects over the years. S: What builders did you work with? Young American, Pageantry Homes, Heers Brothers, Christopher Homes. The Heers Brothers were really pioneers in building tract homes. There were a few, and I can't remember this one fellow, because we bought, well my partners from Young American bought his land. His last name was Kenny, but that was so long ago. That was in the early 1970s so that is forty something years ago. They bought some of his land when they started that first one, Terra Linda, off of Tropicana. In fact there is a street, right off of Tropicana, that says Elaina. I said, “Why did you have to choose the 235i program?” because that was a government program, and it was successful except nobody took care of the exteriors of their properties. They didn't believe in mowing. And that is on Elaina Street. There was a fellow in my office called Dwight and they named the street that ran into Elaina, Dwight Street. We went out one day and we took a picture, we each had our Corvettes, I was driving a Corvette back then, and we parked our Corvettes right there, together. I had Elaina on my license plate and I think he had Dwight and there was our sign up there. It was very cute. We made the newspaper on that one. Involvement in community things, United Way. I went up to be vice chairman and I realized I didn't want to do more. You just get to the point where you don't have any more time. The YMCA, I did my 13 job in help raising to save the Y. That was very important to us. We almost lost the Y. Bill Heinrich was the real saver of that. Of course he passed away from kidney disease a long time ago, but he was Fairway Chevrolet, a good man. My involvement in other things was the school partnership program and one day, back in early 1989, I am sitting there in one of our meetings and Dr. Cram was the superintendent and he said, "I'm really getting concerned. We are about to lose some of our schools, they are real at-risk." I wanted to know what "at-risk" mean. How they identify at-risk is the hot-lunch program because the parents have to qualify, that means the children don't have as much. We decided to start the Focus School Project back in 1989. I was Mamma Focus and he was Papa Focus is basically what we said. This program was inside the School Partnership Program. It has gone on, still, it is out there today, where businesses adopt schools. They either can give volunteers, money, or in trade. This past year I believe they told me the value on just that Focus School program, gave back $8 million to the school district in volunteerism (so much per hour), in money, and in-trade. We learned, right off, that there were 23 at-risk schools, now there are a hundred and some of them in our district, in Clark County. We thought we were these do-gooders going in and you think you are going to make this big difference. When you get in you learn there are more problems facing a lot of the schools. Number one, they don't have the extra funds to re-build some of these schools. My company sponsored John S. Park School and we really went after it. There were some drinking fountains that didn't work, there was inferior lighting in some of the rooms. There just isn't enough money. People fault the school district, but there is not enough money to do the things you want to do. S: Especially when the town is growing and you have to build new schools. Exactly. In fact I was one of the people on the school building fundraising, where I brought everybody down to my office because I had all these phones and we had to raise the funds for the first bond project because the school district can't pay for the advertising. So we had a private group and I was on 14 that private group and we came down, and I had people like Kenny Guinn and Mark Fine and all these top people in my office, all calling for money, working the phones. That went back to that first bond issue. I still have my little “thank you” they gave out, but Monty and Linda Latell, who were with the school district at that time, were the ones who got me into it. They were good friends and we really got it on that first year, we raised the m