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Included in this oral history are reminiscences of Sonja Saltman's personal non-Jewish heritage in Austria, the importance of her grandmother in her life, and how she recalls becoming part of the Jewish community.
Sonja Saltman is a psychologist and philanthropist in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is executive director and co-founder of the Existential Humanistic Institute, a non-profit organization based in San Francisco, California that offers training in existential-humanistic therapy and theory. In 2003 Sonja and her husband Michael Saltman founded the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) William S. Boyd School of Law. The Saltman Center is focused on research, teaching, and public service related to "the advanced study of the nature of conflict and how to resolve it." A native of Austria, Sonja Saltman also serves as the Honorary Consul for Austria in Las Vegas. The Saltmans are involved with multiple charitable organizations and initiatives, both locally and abroad. Sonja Saltman has served on the boards of the Anti-Defamation League, Nevada Women's Philanthropy, and the Black Mountain Institute. Projects that the couple has supported include the rebuilding of homes and bridges is Bosnia, and Streetball Hafla, a basketball program to improve relations between Jewish and Arab teenagers in Israel. In 2014 Sonja and Michael Saltman were recognized as Distinguished Nevadans by the Nevada System of Higher Education. Included in this oral history are reminiscences of her personal non-Jewish heritage in Austrian, the importance of her grandmother in her life, and how she recalls becoming part of the Jewish community.
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Jerry Engel was born in 1930 in New Jersey and spent most of his early life in Long Beach, New York until the family moved westward to Las Angeles. Jerry is a retired Certified Public Accountant and loves to talk about the history of Las Vegas that he observed since arriving in 1953. That was the year that he moved to Las Vegas to join his older brothers, Morris and Phil, in their accounting firm. Their major client at the time was Desert Inn. Another personal connection with local history: the Engel brothers? mother, Esther Katz Engel, was among the early investors in the Moulin Rouge hotel/casino enterprise. Jerry graduated with honors from University of California, Los Angeles in 1951. His accounting career in Las Vegas is highly regarded and he continues to maintain a consulting practice. He remains active within the community and enjoys doing presentations based on his memories of Las Vegas history. Within this interview, Jerry highlights people, casinos and other observations of local history that he came into contact with over the decades. He provides insights about the role of an accountant in the gaming industry. He also discusses the influence of Jewish business leaders in and array of local gaming and non-gaming issues, including the retail world, Jim Crow era segregation, and the astonishing growth of the valley over six decades.
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In this interview Glenn Tredwell talks about his business ventures since moving to Las Vegas in 1976. He is able to address the many nuances of technology on the global gaming industry.
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Interview with Jean Tobman and two of her daughters, Marilyn (Tobman) Moran and Janie (Tobman) Moore by Claytee White, November 5, 2013. In this interview, Jean Tobman recalls coming to Las Vegas with her husband and two young children in the 1950s, and the life they established in the Pinto area of the Westside. Her husband, Herb, owned City Furniture and a cab company near downtown. Marilyn and Janie discuss their youth and the enjoyable time they had growing up in Las Vegas. Marilyn talks about how the city has grown and her time on the planning commission. Janie also discusses the growth of Las Vegas and her nostalgia for old Las Vegas.
In 1953, Jean and Herb Tobman moved from New Jersey to Las Vegas. The Tombans settled in the Pinto Palamino. Upon moving, Jean initially assisted her mother at her rooming house, and Herb worked with Jean's father at City Furniture. Herb bought his first cab soon thereafter, and grew one vehicle into Western Cab Company, which is still family-run. After a large fire closed City Furniture, Herb worked as the general manager at Moulin Rouge, jumpstarting his career in the gaming industry. Marilyn, Janie and Helen are the children of Jean and Herb and all still live in Las Vegas. The girls grew up keeping horses, as did many other neighbors in the Pinto area. Marilyn married John Moran, the sheriff's son, who served as a police officer himself. She sat on the planning commission for a decade, during the city's growth spurt. Janie spent a semester at Arizona State University before returning to Las Vegas to work at Stardust Hotel, a property co-owned by her father, who also served as the its president.
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In this interview, Milton Schwartz discusses his life in Las Vegas and his business investments. He worked at the Flamingo Hotel right after World War II, and he started Valley Hospital as an investor in 1970. Schwartz has a Hebrew academy named after him in Israel, and owned the Yellow-Checker-Star Cab Company. He was active in the Republican Party.
Milton I. Schwartz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He enlisted in the Army the day after Pearl Harbor (age 20) and did a five year stint in the Pacific as a repeater specialist. After the war he returned to his job as a refrigeration mechanic in Brooklyn and was soon offered a job out in Las Vegas at the Flamingo Hotel, which was owned by Bugsy Siegel. After three months in Las Vegas, during which time he had several conversations over dinner with Beldon Cattleman, Milton returned to New York to work with his father in the fixture business. After ten years he sold that business and bought into Design Equipment Construction, which brought him back to Las Vegas. Milton started or bought many businesses over the years, but the one he's proudest of is Valley Hospital. He and his partners brought the first medical helicopters into Nevada and he feels that many lives were saved because of that. He also invested in Yellow-Checker-Star Cab Company, which he still owns. Two on-going concerns that are important to Milton are his involvement with the Republican Party and the Milton I. Schwartz Hebrew Academy in Israel. Of the many awards and plaques he has earned over the decades, he is proudest of the birthday acknowledgements from the Academy. He believes strongly that the most important achievements of his life revolve around his religion and the children being educated in it. Milton shares many stories, facts, descriptions, and anecdotes about Las Vegas in the decades since 1946. He built a house in the Scotch 80's, contributes to UNLV, and approves of city growth and the proposed changes in the downtown area. He has contributed much to the growth and stability of the Las Vegas valley.
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In this interview, Stuart Mason discusses his family's construction business, Taylor Construction Co., and his involvement with building various Las Vegas Strip hotels including Caesars Palace and the Riviera, and remodeling the Flamingo. He talks about working within a "social contract" with the various unions, and other aspects of construction.
Stuart Mason was born in Columbus, Ohio, and moved with his family to Miami, Florida, when he was two years old. He received his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Miami in 1958. Shortly after graduation, he married his wife, Flora, and started working for Taylor International, the family business. He came to Las Vegas in 1964 to start work on Caesars Palace as the assistant project manager and eventually took over the management of the business. Mason has contributed greatly to the city of Las Vegas over the years through his contributions in the development and construction of the Las Vegas Strip and his commitment to the community. He and Flora started the Nevada Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in 1970. In addition, they made donations to the UNLV University Libraries to benefit the Undergraduate Peer Research Coaches program, which helps undergraduate students obtain their college degrees. In addition to his work on Caesars Palace, Mason worked on the original and new MGMs, The Rivera, The International, the Stratosphere, and the Desert Inn, along with remodeling work at the Flamingo. Other company projects can be found in Miami, Jamaica, Aruba, the Grand Bahamas, Melbourne and Puerto Rico. His two sons took over the family business in 1997, the same year that Mason started as the Vice President of Development for the Venetian Hotel Casino.
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Interview with Mark Fine in two sessions, November 18 and December 2, 2014. In the first session, Fine begins by talking about his sons and their business interests, then discusses his own childhood growing up in Cleveland. Fine moved to Arizona as a teenager and attended the University of Arizona for college. After college, he moved to New York city, and describes his employment at Chemical Bank, and then at the investment firm Loeb, Rhoades. He was married and started a family in New York City, then moved to Las Vegas to assist in his in-laws' (the Greenspuns) business ventures, which included real estate development and Sun Outdoor Advertising. Fine talks about Las Vegas in the 1970s and building Green Valley and Summerlin, the "social engineering" aspects of developing a community and the importance of building incrementally. In Part II of the interview, Fine discusses his family history and raising his children in Las Vegas. He talks about the growth of the Jewish community and ph
Mark Fine was born in 1946 in Cleveland, Ohio, and was raised with a strong Jewish identity. When Mark was in fourth grade, his parents moved the family to Shaker Heights, and again moved to Arizona during his senior of high school. Upon graduation, Mark enrolled at the University of Arizona and became a member of the ZBT fraternity; determined to graduate in four years, he finished in 1964 with a degree in business administration with an emphasis in real estate. Though never having been, Mark took his degree to New York City and established a career on Wall Street, first working for Chemical Bank. In 1969, Mark married Susan Greenspun, and soon after, the couple had their first child. By this time, Mark had taken a new position with Loeb, Rhoades and Company, and worked there for nearly five years in their corporate finance department. In 1973, Mark moved to Las Vegas to assist his father-in-law, Hank Greenpun, with his nonnewspaper business operations, largely under the auspices of American Nevada Corporation. Mark soon capitalized on this passion for real estate and community development, leading several integrated real estate projects to create the Green Valley area, the city's first large-scale master-planned community. Mark went on to launch a similar project in Summerlin, and at one point, he was leading the development of the country's two fastest selling planned communities (Green Valley and Summerlin). Ultimately, Mark became one of state's prominent real estate developers, and continues to lead significant projects positively impacting the city's growth and appeal. His fundamental goal has always been to create a sense of place, to develop thriving communities with generational stamina. His success in this endeavor is recognized, in part, with the naming of Mark L. Fine Elementary School. Over the years, Mark has also been an important member of the Jewish community, among the "second generation of pioneers," coming after those heavily involved with the hotels during the 1950s and 1960s. He served on the Temple Beth Sholom board of directors, and initiated events to bring older and younger generations of the Jewish community together in meaningful ways. Mark has five children?Alyson Marmur, Katie Erhman, Jeffrey Fine and Jonathan Fine and Nicole Ruvo Falcone?and is married to Gloria Fine.
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Craig Palacios was born on November 1, 1971 and grew up in the Paradise Palms neighborhood in Las Vegas, Nevada. His family lived close to him and he remembers playing with his relatives up and down the Maryland Parkway Corridor. His first job was in construction where he poured and finished concrete. His talents for design became apparent and he began a new job as a swimming pool designer. Craig’s first company was a concrete company, but he later had to close its doors. After that, Craig decided to attend college and graduated with degrees in Architecture and Art History from UNLV in 2005. He worked for YWS Architecture for a few years before opening his own studio in 2011. Since then, BunnyFish Studio has worked on the Downtown Project and the Maryland Parkway Project.
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In 1990, Las Vegas became home to Ellis Landau and his attorney wife, Yvette. They moved from Phoenix, Arizona when Ellis accepted a position as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer with Boyd Gaming. The relocation also included a desire to become active in the local community. Temple Beth Sholom was one of their first connections. For Ellis the Jewish community of a newer city like Las Vegas differed immensely from his childhood upbringing in a more ethnic Jewish community outside Philadelphia. Nevertheless, Ellis soon became active on the Temple Beth Sholom board, and is a past Treasurer and President. The couple are among the founders of the Warsaw Memorial Garden at the synagogue. In 2006, Ellis was honored as Temple Beth Sholom’s “Man of the Year.” The Landaus have been significantly involved with other local organizations such as Nathan Adelson Hospice and the Las Vegas Philharmonic. Ellis’s dedication to the Anti-defamation League, both on a local and regional level, is a beacon of inspiration to others. The Landaus are sponsors of ADL’s “No Place for Hate” program. Ellis is a graduate of Brandeis University in economics and has a Masters of Business Administration from Columbia University School of Business. His former career steps include Ramada Inc. and U-Haul Corporation.
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