The state’s new Board of Economic Development has recommended the names of three candidates for the office’s first executive director, including a longtime officer with the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce.
Steve Hill, the interim director of the office created by the Legislature to diversify the state’s economy, is considered by many to be the favorite for the job, a new Cabinet-level post.
Hill, who chaired the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce in 2009 and has led the chamber’s Government Affairs and State Policy Task Force committees, was one of four candidates presented to the nine-member Economic Development board, which was required to narrow the field to three for consideration by Gov. Brian Sandoval.
The other candidates that made the cut were Brad Mamer, president of the Wingfield Nevada Group, which is developing the master-planned Coyote Springs community, and Ari Levin, president and chief development officer for Jolon Productions, which markets and produces a wide range of productions, events and trade shows.
Missing the final cut was Greg Evangelatos, president of Pro-Net, a professional organization that assists people securing employment, changing careers and starting businesses.
The executive director of the office will be responsible for leading the state’s diversification office and will work with the board and an advisory committee of elected officials. The board and the executive director will use a $10 million “catalyst fund” to attract new companies to Nevada and assist existing companies to expand.
The board is in the process of drafting a plan to target specific industries to make Nevada home. The state is refining a list of the types of companies it would like to recruit, but among the categories under consideration for recruitment are aerospace and national defense companies, health science and medicine, information technology, renewable energy, mining, and movie and television production that crosses into the city’s gaming and entertainment areas.
Research groups SRI International and the Brookings Institution will deliver a report next month that will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of other states’ economic development programs for consideration by the board, which next meets in December.
The board also determined today which of its appointed members would serve two-year and four-year terms, using a historic Nevada tradition – drawing from a deck of cards – to make those decisions.
Eliminating all but six playing cards from a 52-card deck – three 2’s and three 4’s – Sandoval determined that Rob Roy, CEO of Switch in Las Vegas; Heather Murren of the Las Vegas-based Nevada Cancer Institute; and Benjamin Yerushalmi of Jewelers of Nevada in Las Vegas would serve four-year terms on the board.
The two-year terms went to William Weidner of Las Vegas investment management firm Gaming Asset Management; Kathleen Drakulich, a lawyer with McDonald Carano Wilson in Reno; and Sam Routson of Winnemucca Farms.
The board also includes elected officials Sandoval, Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki and Secretary of State Ross Miller.
The board operates parallel to the Nevada Economic Development Commission, which will be phased out in June.