Attended the Technology Business Alliance of Nevada (TBAN) luncheon at which Jane Poynter, CEO of World View and President & Chairman of Paragon Space Development Corporation, spoke. Jane was one of the members of the Biosphere 2 project in which a group of eight individuals lived in a enclosed environment for 2 years. The experience led to the creation of Paragon Space Development Corporation to deal with living in extreme environments. A spinoff of that company was World View which uses a high-tech balloon to take people, experiments and payloads up 100,000 feet into the upper atmosphere. Their initial focus is bringing passengers up to space at $75,000 per person which will be less than Virgin Galactic at $250K and SpaceX at $95K. They can also quickly take up telecommunication systems. In addition they are planning to haul up satellites to be launched inexpensively from 100,000 feet. They have an office in Las Vegas and their operations are in Tuscon, Arizona. Tony Hsieh is one of their investors. The meeting was attended by over 60, including several judicial candidates, Jim Crockett and William Horne, two commissioners from Nye County, Jim Marsh, and Steve Curtis. Mike Maier ran the meeting.
Attended the RJ Hashtags & Headlines luncheon featuring Senator Harry Reid. Steve Schorr, Review-Journal, opened the meeting. Steve Sebelius, RJ Columnist interviewed the senator. The senator told the audience that he was going unscripted in his remarks. He was very proud of a number of accomplishments that the Senate under his leadership accomplished. He said in 2008 after the President Obama was elected that they accomplished more legislation and changes since President Franklin Roosevelt. More pertinent to Las Vegas, he talked about how he help the airport with their financing for Terminal 3 during a difficult period for Las Vegas. He also said that he made numerous phone calls to the White House to help Nevada's efforts to secure the UAV testing site designation. He worked closely with Governor Brian Sandoval on that project and others that help Nevada such as the Tesla Battery Plant. He talked about the highway trust fund running out of money which will make it more difficult for the Interstate 11 freeway to Phoenix. He mentioned that they are looking at ways to allow the repatriation of corporate money from overseas to help the economy and that the new patent bill should be heard next week. He also talked about how they are closely monitoring events in Bunkerville. He has talked to Sheriff Gillespie, the FBI, the BLM, the Cattleman's Association and others about the situation. Over 250 attended the luncheon including Dean of the UNLV Law School Dan Hamilton, Tim Cashman, Ray Specht (Toyota Bank), Dr. Lonnie Hammargren, Tony Sanchez (NV Energy), Doug Puppel and others.
Attendedthe monthly (3rd Thursday) Stitch Factory Speaker Series at the Learning Village downtown. The series brings in speakers from around the country. Afterwards, everyone meets at the Gold Spike. This month's speakers were Josh Clark of Global Moxie, a designer who is working on user interface of devices. David VanEsselstyn of Amplify Education & the Brooklyn Robot Foundry. He talked about coming up with the idea of the Brooklyn Robert Foundry and starting the business. Scott Jenson talked about his work with Google which involves devices communicating to cell phones. The last speaker was Liza Kindred of Third Wave Fashion on "The Future of Commerce". Her firm has developed a list of 25 marketing channels. One example of a new channel is a company that she called "Netflix for Nail Polish". The company sends nail polish to people for a month, they send it back and send it out to the next customer, very successful. Another successful company ($30 million) has people voting on the designs for their shirts - Threadless. Another company does ebay for people's closets, a kind of garage sale online. Its sales are over $200 million. Over 50 attended including Adam Zalesny (Hansen Networks) and Daniel Braisted of the Inventors Meetup.
Attended the Chamber of Commerce Eggs & Issues breakfast with Congresswoman Dina Titus. She talked about issues in District 1 such as improving the corridor between Downtown and UNLV, Maryland Parkway, which goes from the University, pass the Boulevard Mall, pass Sunrise Hospital to Downtown Las Vegas. Another issue is bus stops. They are talking to companies such as Lowes, Home Depot and others, to donate land so that they can move bus stops back by 5 feet to prevent accidents. She is also working to support more tourism by reducing the visa restrictions to countries such as Brazil and China. Currently, they can only come once a year. She's pushing funding for Brand USA which encourages more foreign visitors. She worked hard on the UAV project and also on Google's driverless cars. She is focused on the improving the Veterans' Hospital. She also sits on the Transportation Committee and is pushing for the I-11 project.
Over 300 attended the breakfast including numerous legislators and business people.
I attended the UNLV Geoscience Symposium, a full day of presentations, key note speakers, posters and networking. I was able to catch a few of the student presentations on areas such as ancient buffalo fossils in North America to Asbestos sampling around Boulder City and Henderson. Barrick Gold was one of the sponsors. UNLV has a top notch Geoscience department which works with mining and oil & gas companies.
John Laub
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