Networking in Las Vegas for the Week Ending May 10, 2014 (Laxalt, Leven, Adelson, Harter, Snyder, Med Mixer, College of Science -Dr. Hui Zhang & Tom Thomas)

Adam Laxalt spoke at the Republican Mens Club. Adam is the grandson of Paul Laxalt, former governor, senator and presidential candidate. Adam has an impressive military background as a JAG officer and has served in Iraq. As a JAG officer he was the in-house counsel for a military base which is analogous to a small city - with all of the same problems. Adam is running for Attorney General. He spoke how the attorney general is the top law enforcement person in the state. Their job is to enforce the law, not decide which laws to enforce. He believes that the office cannot slip into picking and choosing which laws to enforce. Everyone must be treated fairly. It's the job of the legislature to correct the laws if they are not serving the needs of Nevada. Over 200 attended the luncheon including a number of candidates, including Joe Lombardo and Robert Gronaur (Bobby G), both running for sheriff.

Michael Leven, CEO of the Las Vegas Sands spoke to a free pubic lecture at the UNLV Artemas Ham Hall at 1 pm to a large crowd of mostly students and some business people. Michael was interviewed by Arte Nathan, the former Human Resource Director of the Bellagio and Wynn Hotels. Mike said that his job as the CEO is to simplify, to bring clarity to complex situations in order to move forward. His job is also to create and meld his leaders into a team. Everyone has a role and must execute it well so that the whole teams succeeds much like a a football team. His advice to the students was to do the right thing all of the time and to work hard. In his first job he leaned that process, a clear system and the discipline to the follow that process was important. He first sales job was for a hotel which required him to arrive in the morning, make sales calls, meet a prospect at lunch, make more calls and visits and write a summary each day. Afterwards, his supervisor would read his summary and talk to him about that day's progress. The system helped him to develop the discipline to be successful. He talked about the time when he was the President of the Days Inn, a job that he really liked. When the new owners came in, they began to act unethically. After telling them several times to clean up their act, he finally had to resign. He said it was tough. The owners ended up in prison but it was the right thing to do. When his subordinates meet with him, he expects them to be ready, to have thought out all of the issues. He expects employees to be upfront and to get to the point quickly. He appreciates people that disagree with him. He uses the Socratic method of asking questions to find out the information he needs to know.

Sheldon Adleson, Chairman of the Las Vegas Sands, also spoke to the same audience at UNLV after a short break at the conclusion of Michael Leven's talk. Don Snyder, President of UNLV and Stowe Shoemaker, Dean of the Hotel College both welcomed Sheldon Adelson. Again, through an interview process, Sheldon talked about growing up poor in Boston, His father moved to the United States from Lithuania and drove a cab for a living. Sheldon first job was selling papers on a corner. At that time you had buy your corner or pay the owner a percentage of the sales. Sheldon decided to buy the corner. He had to borrow $200 from his uncle. His uncle required him to make monthly payments of principal and interest. That helped him develop credit and discipline. When he later bought a candy vending business, he had to borrow $10,000 which his uncle loaned him. Sheldon started over 50 businesses in his career such as a court reporting business, a charter business, a convention business (Comdex) and the hotel business. He believes that if you are going to start a new business, it must be different; it must change or challenge the thinking of the status quo. He believes that risk and rewards go hand in hand. To make the reward, you must take the risk. He said that you have to be determined and be ready to retry your ideas and refine them but not to give up. He saw the need in Las Vegas for a convention center as part of a hotel as part of an integrated resort when he was hosting his Comdex convention at eight different locations. He also believed that rooms, food, beverage and retail could create revenue for the hotel which was the basis for developing the Venetian which had shopping (Grand Canal Shops), a convention center and Chef-based restaurants. Everyone thought that he was going to go bust but he didn't and now every hotel in Las Vegas has convention facilities and shopping. He developed the Cotai Strip in Macau which was mostly swamp or land underwater. Everybody told him that it was foolish. He built up the land which now holds the Venetian Macau and other casinos. It's been one of his biggest successes. He also stressed the notion of critical mass which is that things have to be a certain size to attract people. If things are big enough, people will come. He talked about the Marina Bay Sands Hotel which has achieved tremendous success and has garnered numerous awards. The Marina Bay Sands had, besides the highest and largest rooftop pool in the world, over 1 million square feet of shopping, a risk that has paid off. Sheldon is now looking to build his integrated resorts as iconic buildings - buildings that are so crazy that the architectural  firm has thrown them away. He wants those crazy and unusual designs. He constantly returned to identifying to challenge the status quo and finding ways to do things new and different.

Later that afternoon, UNLV held a reception for former UNLV President Carol Harter. Carol was the first UNLV president to begin research programs at UNLV which at the time was controversial (might still be). The bottom line is that research brings money into the university, helps subsidize the school and engages the students in work that they will be doing in the real world. Research is a win-win for the university - for the money and teaching opportunities and it's a boon for economic development for a community. Congresswomen Dina Titus spoke on behalf of Carol as did many others. Over 100 attended the event, including a number of the regents.

Don Snyder, President of UNLV spoke to Joe Brown's 1st Wednesday Luncheon at the Las Vegas Country Club. Prior to Don speaking, Father Max Oliva, a Jesuit Priest, as is the custom of this group, talked on the value of ethics. Don believes that every great community has a great university and for Las Vegas to become a great community, we need to develop UNLV into a great university. That path to greatness is becoming a Tier 1 university. Don talked about his four detailed action strategies that he had for the university. Number 1) is to develop a Medical School at the university. He announced that Medical School Dean had been hired. Her name is Barbara Atkinson and she is from the University of Kansas. Number 2) is to develop the research at the university. It needs to increase to $100 million and ultimately to $400 million to be a Tier 1 university. Number 3) is to focus on students and improving their success and helping them graduate on time. Number 4) is to create more of a residential campus for students, to increase the number of students living on campus. He sees the stadium as a critical part of creating an improved campus environment. It is all part of the campus master plan. He wants to add another 500,000 square feet of research (currently UNLV has 650,000 square feet and is bursting at the seams). He sees a great partnership with UNLV and Switch. Switch has been working on developing more fiber optic core. Switch has a strong relationship with Intel. Intel is talking about developing a Cherry Creek Super Computer at UNLV which would be 10 times faster than the current Cray Super Computer that's on campus. Don sees a great future for the UNLV and Las Vegas. At the end of the meeting, Dr. Jack Brown, an expert in body language, gave 5 minute talk and presentation on body language. He said that what you are thinking and feeling will be projected onto your facial gestures and body language. Over 100 attended the lunch.

Attended the Las Vegas HEALS monthly medical mixer at the Palazzo's Dal Toro Restaurant and Exotic Car Showroom. The mixer was sponsor by Roseman University of Health Sciences and Comprehensive Cancer Centers. Doug Geinzer, President of Las Vegas HEALS made a few quick announcements; otherwise, the rest of the evening was available for mingling. Over hundred attended the event including a number of doctors, medical personnel, assistant sheriff, Joe Lombardo; Barbra Coffee, Economic Development Director of Henderson, Kevin Gullette, Clark County Economic Development and many others.

Attended the UNLV College of Sciences Advisory Board meeting.  Russel Frank attended who had just returned from Israel. He had spent time at a number of he universities including Technion. Google, Intel, Facebook and numerous companies have research centers at these campus. Israel recycles over 80% of their water which is better than other country, the next best is 19%. Russ plans to work with the UNLV College of Sciences to duplicate some of successes at the universities in Israel. As Chairman of the Board, I opened the meeting. Dean Tim Porter talk about how the school is starting a math day for high school students in October in which the students will meet professors, listen to presentations and engage in activities. The college is also supporting with its funds a project started by Dr. Martin Schiller to create a database of markers for diseases based on genetics. Tim also talked about meeting the new Medical School Dean, Barbara Atkinson, and how he was impressed with her vision and energy. The college is also actively working on Quantitative Health Sciences to create data around clinical trials. The project dovetails nicely with the medical school and is

funded by the State of Nevada's Knowledge Fund. Tim then introduced Dr. Hui Zhang who is now part of the college of sciences. He was previously at Harvard University and moved to Las Vegas to continue his research at the Nevada Cancer Institute. Hui talked about cancer stem cells. Cancer can be killed with chemotherapy and radiation but if some of the cancer stem cells survive, the cancer will return. Hui has developed an anti-cancer stem cell treatment by targeting LSD1 and Sox2 regulatory pathways. He has several patents around this process, some of the patents are shared with Nevada Cancer Institute and UNLV. This treatment could help with many cancers including lung cancer which had taken the life of Hui's father.

The Las Vegas Downtown Project has a free weekly meditation class for business people that's on the beginning level. It meets each Thursday evening at 6 pm in Trailer 1 at the Learning Village. The group is led by Angi Covington of the Art of Attunement.  She works with corporations and other groups to improve one's thinking. Over twenty people attended. Meditation is one of the best ways to clear the mind and to relieve stress.

The BYU Management Society Lunched featured Tom Thomas who is part of the Thomas & Mack Development Company. Tom has a law degree from University of Utah. Tom's father was called Mr. Las Vegas for his prominent role as the Chairman of Valley Bank when he was the first banker to finance casinos, including a young Steve Wynn. Tom gave an impressive talk on the

importance of entrepreneurship in creating jobs and sustaining a competitive economy in the world. Tom talked about the 4 things that entrepreneurs do that make a difference. He used Switch and Rob Roy, founder and President of Switch, as an example. Tom is on the board of Switch and is one of the early investors in Switch. Number 1) is to challenge the norms. Rob decided that data centers could be built better. Most data centers were cooled from a raised floor. Rob believed that there are inherent problems from cooling from the floor and began developing his center with a different cooling systems. Most of Switch 200 patents are on cooling - the biggest problem with data centers. One of the other innovations was to build a large open shell of a building for the data center so that portions of the center could be built when demand increased but all of the costly delays from building approvals, licensing, design could all be done up front - this method made Switch better at expanding quickly and gaining market share. 2) Take Risks. Rob Roy first risk was to set up a the data center. He also showed up in bankruptcy court in New York to bid on the assets of Enron's data center (he was the only one). Once he opened the data center, he constantly expanded, so much that his investors began to worry. However, Rob knew that Moore's law dictated that computing speed would double every 18 months and that it would require more storage. 3) Bring the innovation to the market. Rob Roy and Switch had a novel way to reach the market. Switch never advertised but what it did do was work with engineers in the industry. Pretty soon the engineers would talk about Switch and their innovations and through word of mouth, Switch has constantly had more business than it could handle. 4) Never hear the word no - it's just not yet. Rob Roy never saw an obstacle. It was always matter if not now, then it will be later. He never gave up (sounds like Sheldon Adelson's description of entrepreneurs - never to give up). Tom's broad point is its entrepreneurs that have helped the United States lead the world's economy and as a country, we need to do everything to encourage entrepreneurs and reduce the amount of regulations and obstacles. Over 50 attended the luncheon, including Dan Hamilton, Dean of the UNLV Law School, and Jim Crockett, candidate for judge.

Attended the National Atomic Testing Museum Board of Trustees meeting. The museum attendance and exhibits have been growing. The museum is a stop for several tour busses. The museum director has a weekly show on Saturday, KXNT, 840, in which he talks to guests about Area 51, UFOs and the Atomic Testing Museum. The museum is looking for ways to involve students and student field trips into the museum. The members believe its a great way for students to get excited about STEM education. This Saturday (May 17th) the museum will have half priced admission, speakers, radio interviews for the celebration of the re-opening of the Area 51 exhibit.

Interviewed on the Las Vegas International Press Club radio program on 1230 AM (KLAV) by Frank Spady, President of the Press Club and Leonard Wright, CPA of the Financial Fridays radio program, on the various events that take place in Las Vegas that are mentioned on the NevBio calendar. Frank Spady, is also president of the Canada Nevada Business Council. He envisions the press club as an opportunity to create a national press club in Las Vegas in which prominent business luminaries and politicians will hold press conferences and briefings. The radio program is the part of the process to making that vision happen. The program is every Friday at 4 pm to 5 pm on KLAV 1230 AM.

John Laub