Irene Bustamante Adams believes in the reinvention of oneself as the path to the future. And since coming to Nevada in 1990 she has proven that anything is possible.

She was born and raised in rural California where she worked the fields alongside her family members growing up. Her mother is a native of New Mexico, with family that dates back six generations; her father was born in Mexico.

Thomas J. Schoeman was born May 18, 1949 in Brooklyn, New York, and was the first of his four siblings to graduate high school and attend college. Schoeman attended Nassau Community College and then transferred to the University of New Mexico in the early 1970s, from which he graduated in 1974. After spending his first five years out of college working as an architect in New Mexico, Schoeman received a job offer from Jack Miller and Associates (later, JMA Studio) and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1979.