Amber Allan grew up in West Virginia and moved to Las Vegas at the age of 16. She entered the gaming industry in 2000 as a change person at Arizona Charlie’s Boulder where she later held the positions of floorperson and assistant shift manager. Allan would eventually move to Santa Fe Station in 2005 as relief shift manager, later to the Texas Station as a shift manager, and then to Palace Station in 2008 into the slot operations and technical manager role. She then returned to Texas Station at the end of 2008 as director of slot operations and then moved to Aliante Station into the same role in 2009. Allan started at Konami Gaming, Inc. in 2012 where she has worked as an analyst, product specialist, and, currently, as technical sales executive. The interview with Allan begins with her discussion of moving to Las Vegas and the experiences and roles she held as she started in the gaming industry. She discusses the various responsibilities she had in those roles, the types of skills required for them, and the kinds of disputes that are handled in certain supervisory positions. Allan also mentions and discusses the topic of hold percentage as it relates to slot and video poker players. She later describes her philosophy on what makes a good slot floor and also what customers are looking for in slots. Allan then provides the details of her move to the manufacturing side of the slot industry, and she gives her thoughts on what makes both a good and bad slot manager. The interview then shifts to the discussion of free slot play; ticket-in, ticket-out; changes in slot management; and the future of slot machines. The interview concludes with Allan’s discussion of her personal gambling as well as her advice for young people who want to go into the slot industry.
In this interview, the cultural power couple recall their early impressions of Las Vegas, their beloved Ninth Street house built by Marion Earl, and the changes that caused them to move when spot zoning destroyed their close-knit downtown neighborhood. Lamar speaks of the founding of public radio KNPR and KCNV, of finding studio space, of obtaining grant money to build on the campus of the (now) College of Southern Nevada, and of acquiring the Peter Shire sculpture that graces the front of the studio. He talks about the vision of Charles Hunsberger, of Hunsberger's fall, and of politically appointed boards of trustees. Pat shares her experience of meeting people in a babysitting co-op and the UNLV Art Department, getting her UNLV Master's degree in public administration, and her work in cultural programming with the City of Las Vegas and with Clark County. She speaks of creating gallery, classroom, and performing space at the City's Reed Whipple building and the Charleston Heights Art Center; of founding the Rainbow Company Youth Theatre; of developing Clark County's Desert Breeze Park, Flamingo Senior Center, and the Wetlands, among others; of placing exhibits of the Clark County Museum at McCarran International Airport; of the Public Arts Commission, the Airport Arts Commission, the Allied Arts Council, and of developing Community Development Block Grant programs for the City of Las Vegas and Clark County. Throughout the interview, Pat and Lamar Marchese exemplify why Southern Nevada got lucky in 1972. As the duo grew in their knowledge of and passion for the arts, they also honed their skills at bringing the arts to the public. And we, the Southern Nevada public, continue to benefit as their legacies live on through public radio, community arts programming, and useful and accessible parks.
Fourth-generation Nevadan, Las Vegas native, and great grandson of Mormon pioneer Edward Bunker, Richard W. Bunker knows Southern Nevada as few others do. For example, when Richard Bunker speaks of water, he talks about his father's family leaving their home after the completion of Hoover Dam because their little town of St. Thomas was submerged in the rising waters of Lake Mead; he recalls swimming at the Old Ranch pool, the Springs, and the Mermaid pool; he shares stories of hiring Pat Mulroy, mentoring her, and encouraging her to apply to lead the Las Vegas Valley Water District; he mentions the Dunes and its two fresh-water wells, the Sanitation District and wastewater treatment. Few others have actively shaped Southern Nevada as Richard Bunker has through his lengthy career as a lobbyist (1973–2000); assistant manager for City of Las Vegas (1973–77); Clark County Manager (1977–79); member and Chair of the Nevada Gaming Control Board (1980–1982); executive director (1988-1990) and
Valerie Wiener is an accomplished state senator, business owner, president and founding member of the Public Service Institute of Nevada and the Valerie Wiener Foundation. She was born October 30, 1948 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her service as senator for 16 years and her role as a public servant led her to become the first woman assistant majority leader of the state senate in Nevada. She graduated with a bachelor degree of Journalism at the University of Missouri/Columbia within the School of Journalism earning a Masters of Arts in Broadcast Journalism and a Master of Arts in Literature at the University of Illinois in Springfield while attending law school at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento in the 1970s. Her generosity is also seen through scholarships and activities at the Louis Wiener Jr. Elementary School. In addition, Valerie is a professional speaker, consultant, and internationally published author. She is the recipients of many awards, such as: ?Women of Achievement Award? in Media; ?Healthy Schools Heroes?; ?Public Affairs Champion Award?; ?Legislator of the Year?, and the Nevada Secretary of State?s recipient of the ?Jean Ford Participatory Democracy Award.? She stays active through her commitment to the Nevada Senior Olympics for both Fitness and Weightlifting earning 17 gold medals from 1998 to 2007. In this interview, Wiener discusses her childhood and being raised in Las Vegas in the 1950s as well as the academic path that led her career into politics. She shares memorable insight into the life of her father, Louis Isaac Wiener, Jr., an accomplished attorney and business man who represented the infamous Benjamin ?Bugsy? Siegel during the construction and opening of the Flamingo Hotel and Casino in 1946. Throughout Wiener?s interview, she highlights the traditions of the small, but growing Las Vegas Jewish population in the 1960s. Among the people she recalls most vividly is her grandmother Kitty Wiener. Wiener also discusses her community service work and her life mantra of giving.
In this interview, focused on the John S. Park neighborhood of Las Vegas, Arne Rosencrantz discusses his childhood growing up in Las Vegas. He talks about local businesses, including his father's furniture store, as well as schools and churches in the neighborhood.
Arne Rosencrantz remembers living on Beverly Way from 1954 to 1970. Like so many others from that era, he attended Fifth Street School, John S. Park Elementary School, John C. Fremont Middle School and graduated from Las Vegas High School. As a Jew, he was in a small minority, but fondly recalls growing up in the dense Mormon population of John S. Park Neighborhood. As a youngster, life in Las Vegas was filled with fun. The desert provided opportunity to hunt lizards and rabbits. Kids walked to school without concern. They played ball and found the Strip casinos welcoming to locals. He tells how the social issue of segregation of the 1960s did not affect him personally, but how local movie theatre owner Lloyd Katz fought to make his Huntridge and Fremont theatres integrated. He also reminisces about his father opening Hollywood Furniture and later Garrett's Furniture, which Arne operated until retiring in 2001. During the interview, he lists other furniture companies and the strong assortment of other retailers and restaurants that served the neighborhood.
Interview with Henry Kronberg by Barbara Tabach in two sessions, February 26 and April 13, 2015. In the first session Kronberg talks about his childhood in Germany and Poland and his experience being imprisoned by the Gestapo, and transported to a concentration camp. He survived the Holocaust and met his wife, and they moved to the United States in 1946. He discusses being reunited with his sister in Las Vegas after decades of searching, and moved his family to Las Vegas in 1962. Kronberg talks about becoming involved with Jewish life here, and his wife, Lillian's involvement at Temple Beth Sholom. In the second session, Kronberg discusses purchasing Stoney's, a loan and pawn shop, including some of the clientele and merchandise. He also discusses other social and environmental concerns like anti-Semitism and water resources in Southern Nevada.
Henry Kronberg was born in 1920 and spent his early childhood in a town on the border of Poland and Germany, about 40 miles from Krakow. For years he felt uncomfortable telling his story of surviving the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. Today his name is linked to the Sperling Kronberg Mack Holocaust Resource Center in Las Vegas. And in his soft-spoken manner, Henry recalls his ordeal of loss of family and survival during this most heinous of situations through backbreaking labor and ingenuity. At the end of the war, Henry met the love of his life, Lillian, also a survivor. The two married in 1946 in Frankfurt and immigrated to New Jersey where she had relatives. He describes their difficulties and the various jobs he held until becoming an excellent baker. Then in 1962 an interesting choice took him to a bar mitzvah in Canada. While there the dinner conversation lead him to a great discovery?his sister Lala had survived and was living in Las Vegas. Soon he moved his wife and daughter to Las Vegas. His first foray into business was with his brother-in-law. However, soon it was important to be independent and to control his own destiny. He purchased a going concern, Stoney's Pawn Shop, from Dr. Alexander Coblentz, one of the city's first doctors. He became the fourth owner of Stoney's and operated it until selling it to Steven Mack in 1998. Henry and his wife were active in the Jewish community. They joined Temple Beth Sholom and became fast friends with many of the early leaders of Las Vegas and became a respected member of the secular and Jewish communities.
Interview with Greg Goussak by Barbara Tabach on May 19, 2015. In this interview Goussak discusses his upbringing in Las Vegas, including his education in the Clark County School District and his experience with bussing to Sixth Grade Centers as the school district attempted to desegregate. As a teenager, he became involved with the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization through Temple Beth Sholom. Goussak talks about his mother's involvement with the Albert Einstein Hebrew Day School, which later moved and became the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Educational Campus, and the kidnapping of Cary Sayegh. He then discusses finding his niche in accounting through taking an accounting course at UNLV as a high school student. Goussak talks about his education, career path as a controller in the gaming industry and public works projects, and becoming a professor.
Greg Goussak is a Las Vegas native, born January 1961, just after his parents moved to the city for his father's work as an accountant. His mother was a dedicated educator, who served throughout the city as a teacher and principal, including as the director of the Hebrew Day School in the 1970s. Greg's childhood was shaped by experiences with Las Vegas' sixth grade centers, challenges with scoliosis, and especially, involvement with B'nai B'rith Youth Organization (BBYO). In 1974, Greg helped start the city's new Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA) chapter for BBYO, and his involvement with this youth organization became a formative part of his junior high and high school years. During this time, he became very involved with AZA at the regional, district and national levels, and made lifelong friends. As a high school student, Greg participated in UNLV's Early Studies Program, earning him college credit, and there he discovered his aptitude for accounting. He began tutoring fellow high school students in accounting, and thus, simultaneously discovered his passion for teaching. After earning his bachelor's degree in hospitality administration from UNLV in 1984, Greg got a job at Dunes Hotel and Casino, then under the leadership of Moe Shenker, working as an operations analyst. Over the next decade, Greg worked as a controller at several properties around town, including Nevada Palace, the Four Queens, Fitzgeralds, as well as a project on Boulder Highway. In 1992, seeking a reprieve from the gaming industry, Greg went back to UNLV to achieve his master's degree, in hotel administration. After graduating, he worked for Riviera Hotel and Casino, and established and oversaw their auditing department as well as box office. During this time, Greg met his wife Cynthia (Cindy) Riceberg, and the two were married in 1996. That same year, Greg took a position with Sigma Game, and soon after became Chief Financial Officer for Manpower Temporary Staffing. In 2002, deciding it was time to work for himself, he bought Haynes and Thomas Printers, which he owned and operated for the next eight years. Greg started teaching in 1989 as an adjunct professor in the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration at UNLV. In 2010, having finished his doctorate the year before, Greg assumed his first fulltime faculty position as an assistant professor at the University of Southern Nevada. The next year he was hired as an assistant professor at Ashford University, where he continues to teach today in the Forbes School of Business. Greg and Cindy have two daughters: Ariel, who is seventeen years old, and Alyssa, who is fourteen years old.
Arne Rosencrantz is the former president and owner of Garrett's Furniture in Las Vegas, Nevada. Rosencrantz was born on September 27, 1947 in Longview, Washington. He moved to Las Vegas in 1952 and attended Nevada Southern University, now known as the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). In 1967, Rosencrantz began working at Garrett's Furniture, and in 1979, he purchased the company and became its president. He was president of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas from 1987 to 1988, and also served as a campaign chairman for the Federation and chairman of its Young Leadership Program. In this interview, Rosencrantz shares his grandparents and father?s immigration story, which took them from Russian to Portland, Oregon. He also talks about moving to Las Vegas, his childhood experiences, especially within the Jewish community, and reflects on the growth of his family?s furniture business in the city. Rosencrantz has been highly involved in the Jewish community over the decades, including the Young Leadership Program, United Jewish Appeal, Temple Beth Sholom, and the Jewish Federation. He is married to Lynn Rosencrantz and has two children, Marcus and Amy.
On March 31, 1977, Patricia Holland interviewed Celia Rivero Grenfell (born 1926 in Las Vegas, Nevada) about her life in Southern Nevada. Grenfell first talks about her family background in Mexico and later describes her family’s restaurant business. She also describes her education, recreational activities, Downtown Las Vegas, and Helldorado. The two also discuss racial segregation and prejudice, the El Rancho Vegas, Lorenzi Park, early churches, environmental changes, early air conditioning, and Grenfell’s early work in a laundry business.
On March 2, 1980, collector Robert F. Darling interviewed state assemblywoman, Karen Hayes (born October 16th, 1935 in Cedar City, Utah) in her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. This interview covers her personal history, the history of Las Vegas, and the local political environment. The gaming industry is also discussed, in addition to the Sagebrush rebellion and future local political projections and trends.