Dr. Robert C. Maxson was president of UNLV for ten years, 1984 to 1994. When he arrived, discussions were already under way about developing an engineering school. Certain elements in the community, such as Summa Corporation, were lobbying for such a program here in southern Nevada. Dr. Maxson began receiving printed materials and phone calls about it, and he started putting his fund raising skills to good use. He believes that civic pride in the young university, as well as a sense that an engineering school would be good for business, led many individuals, hotels, and corporations to open their pocketbooks. Locally, Dr. Maxson found generous support from Tom Beam, Nevada Power, the Summa Corporation, and many other businesses and individuals. Since the legislature only meets every two years in northern Nevada, Robert and others made many trips to Carson City that first year to discuss every nuance of the project. He spent considerable time with Senator Bill Raggio, John Marvel, Bill Bilyeu, and other legislators convincing them that Nevada would get its money's worth. He also gives major credit to Las Vegas civic leaders for their influence and the fact that they had rallied behind this cause. Once the funding was approved, Dr. Maxson insisted on and facilitated the accreditation of the program. Faculty members enthusiastically got behind this push and accreditation was achieved in a remarkably short time. The next order of business was funding an honors program for deserving students. Dr. Len Zane was given this project and began recruiting students. Individuals in the private sector were invited to fund academic scholarships, and they responded generously. Dr. Maxson traveled the state attending high school commencements and recruited valedictorians on the strength of offering those students the honors scholarships. Dr. Maxson greatly enjoyed his time as president at UNLV. He feels he was privileged to be part of its growth and expansion, to have worked with enthusiastic, energetic faculty, and to have encouraged the community's desire to get behind the growth of the university.

The population of Lancaster, New York shrank on Christmas Day 1959. That was the day young Mary McCoy and her eight siblings relocated to Las Vegas. In this interview, Mary recalls highlights of the move to dusty southern Nevada; her family's first plane trip; and what it was like to grow up in a large family. After graduating from Basic High School, Mary immediately enrolled at Nevada Southern University which was in the midst of growing into UNLV. During the summer of 1967 she worked at the university's library moving books into the expanded facility. Though she altered her studies program from education to English, she continued to work at the library and continued the job after graduation. Mary describes some of the dynamic changes that were occurring to UNLV campus at the time. In 1975, Mary and her husband Duncan McCoy moved to Bloomington, Indiana, so that Duncan could pursue his graduate studies and take a Book Mobile librarian job. For the next fourteen years the couple followed a variety of opportunities guided by Duncan's career.[He is a retired director of Boulder City, NV, Library.] In 1989, they returned to Las Vegas. Mary had agreed to the move—as long as it was to a city where she could find a college library position. Mary speaks of her enjoyment of working at the UNLV library until her retirement in 2009. Among her favorite UNLV library memories is a story about a ride in the book lift, as well as how her library roles ranged from acquisitions to Special Collections to documents.

Fred Gibson's family came to Nevada in 1929; moving to Ely, Carson City, and eventually Las Vegas. He went into the Army after high school graduation and then studied Japanese at Yale. After some time in Colorado, Fred transferred to UNR and graduated from the Mackay School of Mines. Fred and his dad organized Pacific Engineering and Production Company of Nevada in 1955. The company merged with American Pacific in 1982 and today, among other enterprises, manufactures drugs at a facility in Rancho Cordova. His brother James Gibson served almost 30 years in the Nevada legislature. As a trustee director of the Nevada Development Authority (NDA), Fred was instrumental in organizing support for the idea of an engineering school at UNLV. Fred worked with people like Robert Maxson, Bob Gore, Jack McBride, Bill Flangas, and John Goolsby. He also teamed with Kenny Guinn to elicit donations from individuals and corporations, and lobbied the legislature to garner support for the school. As a member of the University Foundation, Fred has had a lot of interaction with Georgia Tech, and is trying to get the State of Nevada to approve a Georgia plan. He believes this will help the UNLV College of Engineering reach the level of schools like Georgia Tech and MIT. He also encourages the legislature to allow the university to use unclaimed property funds, but this idea still has not met with approval.