The Advisory Council membership roster spans the globe, including individuals with expertise in a variety of relevant disciplines, including law enforcement, journalism, academia, and the criminal justice system, as well as an array of business sectors.
ADVISORY COUNCIL
Ellen B. Knowlton served as a Special Agent of the FBI for 24 years, culminating her career as the Special Agent in Charge, Las Vegas Division, and retiring in 2006. She also served in New Orleans and Washington D.C., where she was responsible for hundreds of employees as well as investigative and administrative operations. She was involved in addressing sensitive personnel issues and crises situations following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. While serving as Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Washington Field Office, she was responsible for counterintelligence investigations and operations and led delegations to the Middle East and Europe pertaining to terrorism and counterintelligence investigations. Knowlton also served as Special Agent in Charge of the Washington Field Office and as Deputy Assistant Director/Acting Assistant Director of the National Security Division. She was also the founding chair of The Mob Museum’s Board of Directors.
Michelle “Chelle” F. Adams is currently the Chief Financial Officer for the U.S. Soccer Federation. She previously served as Chief Transformation Officer and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer at SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment. Prior to that, she served as the Chief Financial Officer of The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas from May 2015 to May 2022. She served as the Vice President of Finance and Corporate Controller from May 2014 to May 2015 and the Chief Internal Auditor from August 2012 to April 2014. Prior to her tenure at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Adams was with RubinBrown LLP from 2003 to 2012 serving as the Partner-in-charge of the Hospitality and Gaming Industry Group and the Partner-in-charge of Risk Services for the Business Advisory Services Group. She began her public accounting career at Deloitte & Touche in 1998, serving as a staff accountant for Assurance and Advisory Services and a Manager within the Enterprise Risk Services Group. Adams is a Certified Public Accountant with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting degree from Truman State University.
A successful business owner, seasoned consultant and sought-after public speaker, Amy Ayoub is a lifelong Las Vegan who combined her passion for public speaking and helping others when she founded The Zen Speaker. Possessing over 30 years of professional experience as a financial planner and political fundraiser with numerous turns behind the microphone, she was regularly asked to share her networking talents and storytelling abilities with staff, volunteers and key leaders of nonprofit and community organizations, corporations, academic forums and leadership groups throughout Nevada and the United States. Embracing her strength as a public speaker with an entrepreneurial spirit, she obtained her certification as a World Class Speaking coach and began assisting clients on their journey to share their stories, find peace behind the podium, and move audiences to action. As a result of working with her – utilizing her supportive nature and ability for bringing out each person’s unique voice – clients report remarkable increases in revenue, acceptance as experts in their various fields, and a greater feeling of preparedness, confidence and connection whether presenting to an audience of one or one-thousand.
As a member of the Las Vegas Community, Ms. Ayoub has been active in the fight to better the lives of all Nevadans through her political and community participation for over three decades. In February 2013, she testified before the Nevada State Assembly and Senate Judiciary Committees, using her personal survivor story in support of Assembly Bill 67, which increased penalties for those convicted of sex trafficking. She served as a commissioner on the Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities, as appointed by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), providing a voice for our nation’s youngest citizens. She was honored as a 2016 Distinguished Nevadan Award by the Board of Regents at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She was a featured speaker in the October 2014 television series of MAKERS: Women in Nevada History, a partnership program by Vegas PBS and UNLV’s Women’s Research Institute of Nevada.
Appointed by Governor Kenny Guinn as the first female to the Nevada State Athletic Commission (known as the Boxing Commission) in 1999, she also has been recognized by the National Conference for Community and Justice with the Community Hero award (2000); named one of the women responsible for shaping the city during its first 100 years of growth by the Las Vegas Centennial Committee; and, acknowledged In Business Las Vegas as one of the Most Influential Businesswomen of 2003. In 2012, she was honored as one of the “Women of Distinction” in her field by the Southern Nevada chapter of National Association of Women Business Owners.
Peter Barton most recently served for 15 years as the Administrator for the Nevada Division of Museums and History, overseeing the development, operations and programs of Nevada’s seven state-sponsored museums. Mr. Barton has spent 40 years developing and managing museums and historical organizations. With a special interest in transportation history he has developed numerous railroad museums, including the visitor center at the Horseshoe Curve National Historic Landmark in Altoona, PA and the acclaimed Altoona (PA) Railroaders Memorial Museum, a museum that rather than celebrating advances in technology breaks from tradition and explores railroad life and labor in what was America’s largest railroad community. Barton played a key role in developing the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission, one of America’s early National Heritage Areas. He also served as an organizer and board member of the Allegheny Ridge State Heritage Park, an innovative 100-mile linear park in western Pennsylvania and served a term as president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Museums and Historical Organizations (PFMHO).
Mr. Barton also served years as vice-president of Christopher Chadbourne and Associates of Boston, MA, project managing museum exhibit design projects for a variety of clients including the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry (U-505); Mt. Vernon, the home of George Washington (Donald W. Reynolds George Washington Education Center); the U.S. Marine Corps (National Museum of the Marine Corps, Quantico, VA), and the Smithsonian Institution. For his efforts in developing innovative and engaging museum experiences he is the shared recipient of three internationally recognized Awards of Merit from the Themed Entertainment Association (THEA). In addition to his professional work, Mr. Barton advises on numerous cultural resource and museum development projects, served seven years on the Carson City Cultural Commission (three years as chairman), and served as lead support staff for Nevada’s Sesquicentennial Commission (2012-2015). He retired in 2020 and is staying active and involved in the planning, development, management and operation of museums from his new home along Florida’s Treasure Coast shared with his wife, Nancy, and their two beagles.
Carmen Beals serves as an associate curator and outreach director, Las Vegas with the Nevada Museum of Art. In her role, she curates exhibitions with a focus on African American culture and is responsible for assisting the museum as it increases its offerings of statewide programming. Her latest exhibition, entitled, Janna Ireland on the Architectural Legacy of Paul R. Williams in Nevada is a statewide exhibit that features the designs of trailblazing architect Paul Williams through the contemporary lens of Janna Ireland. This exhibition has been highlighted in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and PBS. She also serves as a committee co-chair for the Nevada Museum Diversity Team. Carmen holds a master’s in museum studies from Harvard University Extension School, completed the UCLA Anderson Management executive program, and has a BS in Civil Engineering from Prairie View A & M University.
Diomedes Raul Bermudez is a Cuban American writer and producer from Miami, Fl, who resides in New York City. Raul’s career began when he collaborated with 50 Cent on a script they co-wrote, Tomorrow Today, that sold to Starz as a television series. The project is currently in development at Starz with G Unit Film and Television producing.
After working with 50 for a couple of years, Raul jumped into the world of entertainment producing three videos for punk rock legend, Iggy Pop, directed by Craig Zobel. He then produced the New York indie, Chronically Metropolitan, starring Mary Louise Parker, Chris Noth and Ashley Benson, Josh Peck and Shiloh Fernandez directed by Xavier Manrique and produced by David Frankel.
Soon after, Raul returned home to Miami, to produce the critically acclaimed Huracan directed by Cassius Corrigan, starring Yara Martinez from Jane the Virgin and UFC superstar Jorge Masvidal that was bought by HBO.
Having learned the ropes of producing, Raul returned to his first love, writing. In 2021, Raul wrote and produced the Brooklyn mob thriller, The Birthday Cake, directed by Jimmy Giannoolous, starring the likes of Ewan McGregor, Val Kilmer, Jeremy Allen White, Paul Sorvino, Vincent Pastore, Luis Guzman, Aldis Hodge, Penn Badgley and Lorraine Bracco. The Birthday Cake was released by Screen Media and Universal. The following year, Raul co-wrote and produced the slasher, Alone at Night, starring Ashley Benson, Pamela Anderson, G Eazy, Paris Hilton, Winnie Harlow slated for release in January 2023 by Vertical.
Raul has a half hour comedic series in development with Fifth Season with Ian Edelman and Luis Guzman producing that he created. He is also in pre-production on a dramatic thriller starring legendary actor Andy Garcia, Luis Guzman, and pop superstar, Camila Cabello. Raul is also producing an MMA thriller starring Melissa Barrera with Mandalay Films that is also in pre-production.
Jan Jones Blackhurst is a long-time political and business leader who has left an indelible imprint on the lives of millions of people. In 1991, she broke the glass ceiling as Las Vegas’ first female mayor. Under her leadership the city experienced tremendous growth, making her one of Las Vegas’ most popular mayors to date. She then joined Caesars Entertainment, where she grew the industry’s first Responsible Gaming practices to include an ambassador model for the gaming industry and the first industry code of commitment and now serves on its Board of Directors. She is also known and respected for her efforts to create a diverse and inclusive workplace, advancing environmental stewardship, advocating for important social issues and giving millions of dollars to individuals, families, and communities in need.
Through her guidance, Caesars Entertainment earned a 100 percent perfect score in the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index for 10 consecutive years. She channeled her passion for charitable causes through her role as Chair of the Caesars Foundation, which strengthens communities through philanthropic activities and corporate gifts totaling $66 million since 2013. She participates extensively in university speaking engagements and lecture series throughout the country and has also helped establish the International Gaming Institution Center of Excellence at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas.
Before joining Caesars in 1999, Jan Jones Blackhurst served two terms as Mayor of Las Vegas. She was re-elected in 1995 by a 72 percent margin. While in office, she presided over an unprecedented period of economic, social and cultural expansion. She spearheaded a massive redevelopment effort in the city’s once-neglected downtown neighborhood and was among the first mayors in the country to advocate for LGBT rights and issues as early as 1991.
She formerly served on the Board of Directors for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Global Fairness Initiative. Additionally, she serves on several boards as chairwoman including the Nevada Resort Association, Las Vegas Stadium Authority, and is also a member of the Women’s Leadership Board at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She has received many recognitions and accolades including the Americanism Award from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Woman of Diversity Award for “100 Years of Influence – Women Shaping the First 100 Years of Las Vegas,” Outstanding Service in a Land-based Industry from Totally Gaming, PR News CSR Professional of the Year and was named by the Las Vegas Business Press as one of its “Women Who Mean Business.” She has been honored by the American Diabetes Association and the “I Have a Dream” Foundation, and named Humanitarian of the Year in 1998 by the Muscular Dystrophy Association. In 2014, she was one of the first women to be inducted into the American Gaming Association (AGA) Gaming Hall of Fame. More recently, she has earned the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Chamber of Commerce, the Dom Pérignon Award of Excellence from UNLVino, the Diversity Hero Award from PR Week and was honored by ACLU for Community Equality.
Jan Jones Blackhurst holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Stanford University and attended the University of Southern California’s School of Food Marketing Management.
Howard Blank has been a member of the entertainment and gaming industry for over 30 years. Howard sits on a number of NPO and public Boards and is proud to give of his time, talent and treasure to a number of philanthropic organizations.
Howard serves as ambassador for the Cerebral Palsy Association of BC, past president of Variety BC, and current Board member of Variety International and Vancouver Police Odd Squad Production Society. Howard is a passionate fundraiser and has raised over $950,000,000 for organizations across Canada and the United States.
Howard is CEO of Point Blank Entertainment Ltd.; a company that produces films, concerts, and special fundraising events. Howard also serves as technical director on many feature films and is an avid collector of movie memorabilia. Howard is proud to have his two figurative slot machines on display in the 2nd floor “Open City” exhibit.
Howard is recipient of the Governor General’s Volunteer Medal, The BC Community Achievement Medal, and HRH Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee medal as well as other distinctions from Variety the Children’s Charity, Rotary International, The Canadian Gaming Hall of Fame, and NW 911 Committee.
Howard is proud to serve on the Mob Museum Advisory Council and is a passionate advocate for the Museum, its programs, events, and contributions to the local communities, nationally, and internationally.
Scott M. Burnstein is an author, journalist, historian and organized-crime expert, based in the Midwest. He’s written extensively about various forms of mob activity in Detroit, Chicago, New England and Philadelphia, published six books on the subject of organized crime and produced three documentaries. He founded the Gangster Report web magazine in 2014, which quickly became a leading media outlet for American underworld news. His work appears weekly in The Oakland Press and he’s written for The Detroit Free Press, The New York Daily Post, Ambassador Magazine, Chicago Magazine, The Huffington Post and CBS.com. His podcast, The OG (Entercom/Radio.com), which explores the nexus between crime and pop culture, launched in the summer of 2019 and was named one of Radio.com’s Top True Crime podcasts last December.
Over the past 10 years, Burnstein has been featured on various local and national television shows (including multiple episodes of the History Channel’s ‘Gangland’ series and Bio Channel’s Gangster: America’s Most Evil series), radio shows (BBC, CBC & NPR’s “Fresh Air” and “All Things Considered”), films & TV docuseries discussing a variety of topics related to organized crime in North America, both past and present. The documentaries he’s produced include the critically-acclaimed White Boy (2017), Detroit Mob Confidential (2009) and Rollin: The Fall of the American Automotive Industry & the Rise of The Drug Economy (2011). White Boy is currently running on the Starz network and is available on Netflix.
Between 2015 and 2018, Burnstein was employed by Sony Pictures as a technical and script consultant for the Hollywood movie White Boy Rick starring Matthew McConaughey. The screenplay for the film was partially sourced from his newspaper articles on the case the movie was based on. He has consulted for other film and TV projects at the Discovery Channel, NatGeo, BET, HBO and Starz as well as for Eminem’s Shady Entertainment and John Legend’s Get Lifted production house shingle. In 2019, he consulted for Sony Classic’s The Traitor, an Italian film put forth as the country’s Academy Award entrant for Best Foreign Film. Burnstein is also a frequent public speaker, giving talks around the United States on mob and true-crime history. He is currently working on two scripted television projects in Hollywood, one with Sylvester Stallone and the other with the producers-writers of the hit Netflix show Ozark.
Su Kim Chung received a MLIS from UCLA with a specialization in archives and preservation in 1998. She has been immersed in the history of Las Vegas since she began work in the UNLV Libraries’ Special Collections Division in 1999. As head of public services, she is in charge of reference, outreach, and instruction for archival collections and photographs about Las Vegas and southern Nevada history. Ms. Chung also serves as curator of the UNLV Libraries entertainment collections where she works on documenting the history of the showgirls and the Las Vegas production show. As part of this work, she has conducted oral history interviews of former dancers and showgirls and moderated community panel presentations on the history of the Las Vegas showgirl and production shows. In 2015, she received her doctorate in information studies from UCLA. She is the author of the popular photo book Las Vegas Then and Now, now in its fifth edition.
Captain Jeff Clark is a 4th generation Las Vegas native who has been with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for over 18 years. Clark currently serves as the Captain of LVMPD’s Southeast Area Command (SEAC), which also includes Laughlin.
Prior to his current assignment, Clark was the Lieutenant of LVMPD’s K-9 Section, the country’s oldest and longest running K-9 unit. Prior to that, he was the sergeant in the Office of Public Information, where he served a pivotal role in pushing out information during high-profile incidents.
In his time with Metro, Clark has worked as a Field Training Officer, an Organized Crime Detective and a Field Training Sergeant.
Clark graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science in advertising with a media emphasis.
Laurae Clifford is the Executive Director of Sales at Dreamscape Companies. She previously served as the Senior Director of Convention Sales for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, where she oversaw business development for the meetings and conventions industry in Las Vegas. As a native Las Vegan, she is driven by a passion for the city and has worked in hospitality for over 20 years. In addition to marketing business travel to Las Vegas, her passions include giving back to the community that her family calls home. Laurae is a Leadership Las Vegas class of 2018 graduate and serves Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Nevada.
Christine Cole works on community safety and policing across the nation. She was most recently the executive director of the Crime and Justice Institute, a division of Community Resources for Justice, Inc., a nonprofit based in Boston. As executive director she oversaw the team of about 50 working on policy reforms and implementation activities driven by data, research, and a goal of achieving greater equity in the justice system. Christine has over 30 years of experience in the safety and justice sector — in policing, institutional and community-based corrections, victim advocacy, community organizing and prosecution in the US, Africa, Europe, Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean. She has extensive experience as a collaborator and facilitator with practitioners, community members, and academics working as a change agent across a variety of topics and levels of government. Christine has contributed to research and writing on reports and publications about police management, leadership, and oversight, as well as the organization of first responders to mass casualty and active shooter events. Her current focus is on police reform that emphasizes community participation; improving accountability, oversight, and transparency; and increasing trust and confidence in the police. Christine holds a MPA from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, a MA from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and a BA from Boston College. Christine is currently a Fellow with the Program on Crisis Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Ash Center.
Former director of the City of Las Vegas’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
Scott M. Deitche is a scientist, author, and organized crime expert based in St. Petersburg, Florida. His books include Cigar City Mafia: A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld, Garden State Gangland: The Rise of the Mob in New Jersey and Hitmen: The Mafia, Drugs, and The East Harlem Purple Gang. He has written extensively on organized crime for local and national magazines and has contributed to books on sustainability and environmental justice.
Scott has been interviewed in true crime documentaries on The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, American Heroes Channel, Fox News, A&E, C-SPAN, and Oxygen. He has appeared as a guest on numerous news and radio shows as well as true crime podcasts.
In addition to his writing, Scott also runs the Tampa Mafia Tour, the #1 crime walking tour in Florida.
Before collecting and advising on Contemporary Art, Ralph DeLuca specialized in rare and important 20th Century Art and Design, with a focus on photography, prints, film posters, and graphic design. DeLuca has one of the world’s premier private collections of posters and entertainment memorabilia and is currently the largest private buyer in the industry. Areas of concentration include Contemporary and Vintage Photography, Russian Constructivism, German Expressionism, Pop Art, Music Posters, and more. He has spent the last 20 years working with consultants, collectors, dealers, museums and institutions internationally and has been highlighted in numerous high-profile publications, including the Wall Street Journal and BBC News, for his expertise and collecting achievements. All pieces in the collection are hand-selected with a focus on acquiring the best examples. His core clients are celebrities and accomplished collectors, in addition to private and public museums world-wide. As the leading expert in his field, DeLuca acts as a consultant to various institutions such as LACMA and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Over the years he has also built and placed dozens of archives with museums and colleges, focusing on the following areas: African American, Asian American, Latin American and Movie and Theater History.
Currently DeLuca builds museological private collections with a focus on living artists. His extensive knowledge in this field allows his work to be curatorially driven, market savvy and very well respected among clients, galleries and museum personnel globally.
Author, journalist and newspaperman Anthony M. DeStefano has covered organized crime for over four decades. He has specialized in criminal justice and legal affairs. He has covered a number of major trials, including those of subway gunman Bernhard Goetz, The Happy Land Social Club Fire, reputed Gambino crime boss Peter Gotti, former Bonanno crime boss Joseph Massino, and the so called “Mafia Cops.” He also covered the case against Wall Street Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff from 2008 through 2014. His books on organized crime include Gangland New York, King of the Godfathers, Mob Killer, and Vinny Gorgeous, The Big Heist: The Real Story of The Lufthansa Heist, The Mafia and Murder, Top Hoodlum: Frank Costello, Prime Minister of The Mafia, The Deadly Don: Vito Genovese Mafia Boss. He was part of a team of reporters who won a Pulitzer Prize for spot news in 1992 and among a group of reporters who won an Emmy in 2021 for a report on the Gilgo Beach serial killer case.
Richard serves on Fennemore’s six-person management committee and is the managing partner of the Las Vegas office. He works in the business litigation practice group, where he focuses primarily in the areas of labor and employment law, administrative law, and general commercial litigation, including construction. With more than two decades of experience as a business litigator, he has guided a broad range of clients through traditional labor matters such as Title VII defense, ERISA claims, wage and hour disputes, OSHA proceedings, collective bargaining, and representation of employers before the National Labor Relations Board. Formerly a deputy attorney general in Nevada, he has prosecuted regulatory infractions by professional licensees and served as board counsel during hearings and in appellate proceedings before the Nevada district and Supreme Courts. Rich was elected to the State Bar of Nevada board of directors in 2013 and is a proud liaison to the state board of continuing education. He also serves as the Vice-Chair of Nevada Public Radio, KNPR.
Weysan Dun was a Special Agent of the FBI for 30 years. He consecutively served for nine years as the Special Agent in Charge, or chief executive, of three FBI field offices: the Springfield, Illinois office; the Newark, New Jersey office; and the Omaha, Nebraska office. He also served as an Inspector, leading internal reviews of FBI investigative and administrative operations nationwide. He was named a Presidential Rank Meritorious Executive in 2008, a designation conferred by the President on the top five percent of federal executives based on sustained performance and achievement. During his FBI career, he conducted or oversaw high profile public corruption, organized crime, counterintelligence and counter terrorism investigations. He is an FBI certified Intelligence Officer and an FBI certified Undercover Agent who worked under deep cover for two years.
After retiring from the FBI in 2012, Mr. Dun was appointed as a Commissioner of the Nebraska Crime Commission by the Governor of Nebraska and he continues to serve in this capacity. He is also currently on the Board of Directors of the Omaha Police Foundation and a Regional Vice President and member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. He served for eight years on the University of Nebraska Medical Center Board of Counsellors and chaired this board for four years. He is an American Red Cross Community Volunteer Leader Team Lead and the Volunteer Partner to the Regional CEO of the American Red Cross Nebraska-Iowa Region. He is a U.S. Army Veteran, a lifetime member of the American Legion FBI Memorial Post 56, and a lifetime member of the FBI Agents Association.
James Dzurenda is the Director of the State of Nevada Department of Corrections. His distinguished career began in 1987 as an officer in a local jail in Connecticut. As he rose through the ranks, Dzurenda developed expertise at every level of corrections, broadening his experience by collaborating with local, state and federal agencies and serving as Liaison for the Office of the Attorney General working on litigation for cases in state and federal courts.
After his promotion to Warden, Dzurenda consolidated the state’s chronic mentally ill population to one facility, developing programs which were later used as a national model. After his appointment to Commissioner, he managed all custody and operations for 18 facilities and a $350 million dollar budget, while serving on multiple state commissions.
Dzurenda also served as First Deputy Commissioner for the New York City Department of Correction overseeing the city jails in each of the Five Burroughs, District Courts and Rikers Island. Director Dzurenda brings to the Silver State exceptional experience, invaluable perspective and has pledged his commitment to the continued success of the Nevada Department of Corrections.
T.J. ENGLISH is a former New York City taxi driver who has gone on to become one of the foremost writers on the subject of crime in America as both a social history and a contemporary phenomenon. He is the best-selling author of seven nonfiction books. Four of those books – The Savage City, Paddy Whacked, Havana Nocturne, and Where the Bodies Were Buried – have been New York Times Bestsellers, with Havana Nocturne rising to lucky No. 7 on the list. That book is currently in development as a major motion picture. The Savage City is in development as a television mini-series with the FX network. English’s latest book, The Corporation: An Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld, was published in March 2018 by Harper Collins and is also in development as a feature film, to be produced by Leonardo DiCaprio’s company, Appian Way, with Benicio Del Toro in the lead role.
Over the past 20 years, English’s journalism has appeared in many national magazines, including Vanity Fair, Esquire and Playboy, to name a few. His articles have covered a variety of topics relating to organized crime, the criminal underworld, and criminal justice in America.
He has also written episodes of the television crime dramas NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Streets. His writing on Homicide was awarded the prestigious Humanitas Prize for humanitarian writing in the arts. With the mini-series The Savage City, he will be serving as both a writer and executive producer.
English has frequently been interviewed in crime documentaries seen on the History Channel, the Discovery Channel and on CNN. Twice he has appeared as a guest on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Jerry Epstein is founder, president and CEO of Engaged Nation, an innovative company that delivers online loyalty reward platforms and business enhancement programs for the gaming industry. Prior to founding Engaged Nation, Epstein spent 25 years working with companies in strategic positioning, brand development and marketing communications as one of the leading authorities in the public relations industry. He served as president and chief operating officer for Zeno, a boutique agency that specialized in research-driven marketing communications campaigns for its clients. Epstein also spent 17 years with Fleishman-Hillard International, Inc., serving as regional president and a member of the operating committee.
Stefani Evans is an oral historian and project manager in the Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries, where she led the Building Las Vegas oral history project and Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. Daughter of a U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot, she lived on both U.S. Mainland coasts before completing kindergarten and first grade in Iwakuni, Japan; growing to adulthood in Santa Ana, California; working as a typist/“Americanizer” in London, England; teaching elementary school in Queensland, Australia; marrying and moving to Las Vegas with her husband in 1980, where they raised two fabulous, Las Vegas-born daughters. She briefly taught at R. Guild Gray Elementary School in Clark County School District (1980–1981) and was a Trustee for the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District (1982–1990), terming out after two terms during a period of rapid community and Library District growth.
She has a bachelor’s degree in English, a Lifetime elementary teaching credential in California, and master’s degrees in Educational Administration and U.S. History, the latter from UNLV. Her 2011 master’s thesis examining fifty years of community formation, homeownership, and mobility in Santa Ana was awarded Best Thesis by the History Department and the College of Liberal Arts. At the Oral History Research Center and two years following the trauma of the Route 91 shooting, she co-edited Healing Las Vegas: The Las Vegas Community Healing Garden in response to the 1 October Tragedy (released 1 October 2019) and penned the chapter, “The Las Vegas Community Healing Garden: Placemaking and the Death of ‘Sin City,’” in Vegas Strong: Bearing Witness 1 October 2017 (2023).
Regarding “families,” Evans is also the sole Nevada genealogist certified by the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG); first certified in 2005 with renewals in 2010, 2015, and 2020, she is working on her 2025 submission. She served three consecutive three-year terms on the BCG Board of Trustees, 2011–2020 and its Executive Committee (2012–2018) as Member at Large (2012–2014) and Vice President (2014–2018). She also served on the National Genealogical Society (NGS) Board of Directors 2010–2014 and chaired the NGS Annual 2013 Family History Conference at The Westgate in Las Vegas; with more than 2,100 attendees, it was then the largest-ever NGS conference. She has had several journal articles published, composed an award-winning weekly genealogy column for The Sun group of neighborhood newspapers (2006–2010), and wrote the chapter, “Critiques & Reviews,” in Professional Genealogy (2018).
Alan Feldman is one of the world’s leading experts on responsible gaming.
As Distinguished Fellow in Responsible Gaming for UNLV’s International Gaming Institute, Feldman develops programs and policies to advance related knowledge and capabilities within the industry and regulatory community.
Feldman spent nearly 30 years in the gaming industry with MGM Resorts, where he recently spearheaded the launch of GameSense, an innovative, player-focused responsible gambling program that encourages players to adopt behaviors and attitudes that can reduce the risk of developing gambling disorders. This landmark program is now available at all of MGM’s U.S. properties.
A frequent speaker on responsible gaming at conferences, universities and media events around the world, Feldman serves as Chair of both the National Center for Responsible Gaming as well as the Nevada Advisory Committee on Problem Gambling. He also serves as a member of the Gambling Research Advisory Committee for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.
In 2002, the Casino Management Association honored Feldman as the Gaming Professional of the Year and in 2009, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Gaming Communications from the American Gaming Association.
After serving as Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor, Judge Donna Congeni Fitzsimmons was the first woman appointed as Special Attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice, Organized Crime Strike Force in Cleveland – work which later led to an appointment as Deputy Counsel to President Reagan’s Commission on Organized Crime in Washington, D.C. She then entered private practice before taking the bench and now serves on the Rocky River Municipal Court.
Betsy has over 30 years of experience working in leadership roles in both the public and private sectors in Southern Nevada. Her wide-ranging experiences as a public-sector CEO/City Manager and as a private sector executive notably position her to provide valuable leadership in a variety of settings. She has a unique understanding of the intersection of government and private sector activities. She is widely recognized as a business, community and civic leader and has served in a variety of leadership roles on non-profit boards in Southern Nevada and on State appointed committees. Fretwell is a published author in several professional journals and is a sought-after speaker, moderator, and panel participant.
Betsy is currently Chief Operating Officer of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Betsy recently established C4WARD STRATEGIES LTD, an independent consulting firm, specializing in management, government, and technology consulting, executive development, business development, program management and strategic advisory services.
She worked for Switch (an IT infrastructure ecosystem and data center company) for over 5 years. Betsy served as Executive Vice President of Strategy leading efforts in government affairs, public sector business development, mergers and acquisitions, strategic initiatives, and emerging technologies. She joined the Switch executive team when the company made its IPO with a value of approximately $3.5B and was a contributing executive as the company valuation steadily grew to $11B until Switch was taken back private in late 2022.
Prior to working for Switch, Betsy retired from the City of Las Vegas, the nation’s 25th largest city, after 17 years and served as the second-longest serving City Manager in the city’s history, from 2009 to 2017. As a nationally recognized leader, she oversaw a complex organization of more than 3,300 employees with a $1.3B annual budget. Fretwell led the city through the Great Recession eliminating the operating shortfall of $115M and $400M structural deficit while maintaining the City’s AA bond rating. She also served as the Executive Director of the Las Vegas Redevelopment Agency charged with the economic revitalization of downtown Las Vegas. Under Fretwell’s leadership, the city built a new City Hall, attracted the corporate headquarters of Zappos.com, Inc. to downtown, completed The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, completed the MOB museum, and attracted the new UNLV Medical School to the City’s Medical District.
As a change leader, Betsy developed the Innovation District in downtown Las Vegas to test game-changing technologies in a live environment, hosting the first real-time autonomous shuttle in the U.S. The city also achieved a 4-Star community sustainability ranking by converting all city facilities to 100% renewable energy sources, improved the city’s equality index score to 100, and open data ranking to 1st among the nation’s cities during her time as City Manager.
Betsy’s prior work experience includes providing government relations, lobbying, strategic planning, organizational development, process improvement and special projects management at both the City of Henderson from 1998-2000 and Clark County from 1991-1998.
Fretwell is a graduate of the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in public administration. She completed the Harvard University Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program in 2007. She is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Betsy serves on the Board of Directors for The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, Nevada Grant Lab, Mountain View Hospital, Desert Research Institute Foundation, Las Vegas Events and the Board of Directors and Executive Committees for both the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance and the Vegas Chamber. She is an emeritus board member of Nevada Public Radio. For fun Betsy enjoys playing golf, hiking, biking, gardening, and cooking.
Professor Mark Galeotti is an expert on Russian organized crime and espionage. Educated at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics, he is now a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague and the principal director of the consultancy firm Mayak Intelligence. Previously, he was Professor of Global Affairs and departmental chair at New York University and Senior Lecturer in International History at Keele University in the United Kingdom. His books include the edited collections The Politics of Security in Modern Russia, Russian & Soviet Organized Crime, and Spetsnaz: Russia’s Special Forces.
Joaquin “Jack” Garcia is considered by his peers and leading FBI experts to be among the most successful undercover agents in the history of the FBI. In his 26 years of service and as an undercover agent in over 100 undercover operations, Mr. Garcia is best known for his undercover role as “Jack Falcone,” a self-described Sicilian jewel thief and drug dealer from Miami who infiltrated the Gambino crime family. The case resulted in the arrest and conviction of 35 mobsters, including the top members of the Post-John Gotti Gambino crime family.
Jason Ginoza, Principal, Veterans Tribute Career & Technical Academy (VTCTA), has served the students of the Clark County School District since 1998 as a teacher, counselor, partnership coordinator and administrator. Mr. Ginoza has been with VTCTA since 2009 and has worked tirelessly to develop positive working relationships with local, state, and federal public service agencies. Mr. Ginoza is a proud graduate of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Las Vegas Class of 2015.
Kristin Grammas is the Crime Scene Investigation Section Director at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. She has worked for LVMPD for 20 years where she has supervised numerous CSI field squads, the Photographic section, and the CSI Academy Training Section. Grammas graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from the University of Oklahoma. She has been certified through the International Association for Identification as a Bloodstain Pattern Analyst. Grammas is featured in the Crime Lab experience.
Ioan Grillo is a journalist and writer based in Mexico City. A native of Brighton, England, he has been covering Latin America, with an emphasis on drug cartels, since 2001. His work has appeared in Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, and The Associated Press, along with being featured on CNN. He is the author of Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields and the New Politics of Latin America and El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency. In addition to reporting on drug-trafficking empires, he has covered a number of other issues crucial to Latin America and the Caribbean, including natural disasters, political conflicts, and emigration.
Daniel W. Hamilton is currently a professor at George Mason University School of Law. Previously, Daniel was the fourth dean of the UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law. He assumed the deanship in July 2013 and joined the Boyd School of Law faculty as the Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law. He joined UNLV from the University of Illinois College of Law where he was the Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Professor of Law and History.
Daniel Hamilton received his Ph.D. in American legal history in 2003 from Harvard University. He was a Golieb Fellow in Legal History at New York University School of Law during the 2003-04 academic year. He received his J.D. from George Washington University and his B.A. from Oberlin College.
Before coming to UNLV, Daniel taught property law, legal history, and constitutional law at the University of Illinois College of Law and the Chicago-Kent College of Law. He is the recipient of multiple teaching awards, including Professor of the Year at both institutions.
Daniel researches and writes primarily on American property ideology and the legal and constitutional issues raised by the Civil War. He has written numerous articles and reviews on American legal history, including works in Civil War History, the Chicago-Kent Law Review, the Journal of Supreme Court History, the Journal of American History, the Journal of Southern History, the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, the Journal of National Security Law, and the Law and History Review. His book, The Limits of Sovereignty: Property Confiscation in the Union and the Confederacy During the Civil War, was published by the University of Chicago Press.
Daniel is past-president of the legal history section of the American Association of Law Schools and serves on the Board of the American Society for Legal History. His research presentations include talks at the law schools at New York University, Northwestern, Stanford, the University of Texas, and Harvard University as well as multiple presentations at the American Society for Legal History.
Dean Hamilton is past-president of the legal history section of the American Association of Law Schools and serves on the Board of the American Society for Legal History. His research presentations include talks at the law schools at New York University, Northwestern, Stanford, the University of Texas, and Harvard University as well as multiple presentations at the American Society for Legal History.
Heather Harmon works with artists, galleries and museums on strategy, capital campaigns, long-term planning and problem solving. In addition to her support of gallerist Ales Ortuzar and Ortuzar Projects, she works with clients in sourcing artworks for commercial and residential purposes. Recently she served as Director of the Nevada Museum of Art, Las Vegas helping lead the effort to establish an art museum in Southern Nevada. Previously she worked as director of Regen Projects, Los Angeles before joining the firm KCM Fine Arts to build and manage Art Projects Ibiza and execute large-scale projects for the Lune Rouge Foundation. She also served as Director of Development for Artists Space in New York, heading the fundraising effort for the non-profit’s strategic planning and building campaign. Since 2008, Harmon has been building a museological private collection representing the most powerful female, social and political voices throughout the 21c. She serves on the board of the Black Mountain Institute and is a member of Nevada Women’s Philanthropy. With over 20+ years of experience in the field of contemporary art, her encyclopedic knowledge and passion drive every endeavor.
Miguel Hernandez is a Las Vegas based artist, originally from Los Angeles. Miguel began his artistic career as the Zappos Resident Artist. His work has brought him to create in several states, but also can be found at the Zappos campus, local businesses, schools, music festivals, and various charity events. His areas of concentration are fine art and murals, and are created through mediums ranging from all types of paints, chalks, recycled materials, and even dirt! On May 16th, 2016, along with the Mob Museum mural unveiling, Mayor Carolyn Goodman dedicated the date as “Miguel Hernandez Day”. We celebrate the work he’s done in our community and the mural that lives at The Mob Museum.
Clint Holmes is a singer-songwriter and Las Vegas entertainer. He was raised by his father, a jazz musician, and mother, an opera singer. Holmes enrolled as a vocal music student at Fredonia State College before joining the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War for a three-year enlistment with the United States Army Chorus. He moved to Las Vegas in 1999 when Steve Wynn offered him a showroom at the Golden Nugget. Holmes has held residencies at Harrah’s, Palazzo, The Smith Center, and is now back performing at the Golden Nugget. He has co-written two original shows, “Comfortable Shoes” and “Just Another Man” and recently released a jazz album, Rendezvous. Holmes has been inducted into the Casino Legends Hall of Fame, the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame, and has received the Sammy Davis Jr. Foundation Award. Holmes serves as a spokesman for the American Cancer Society, following his own brief battle with colon cancer. He has been involved locally with several nonprofits, including Candlelighters, ROB Reachout, Shadetree, and St. Jude’s. Holmes mentors young people with goals of becoming entertainers through his work with the Las Vegas Academy of Performing Arts and launched the Clint Holmes Foundation for the Performing Arts in 2005.
Mike Howard, Former Chief Security Officer (CSO) for Microsoft Corporation, held global responsibility for vital security functions including operations, investigations, risk mitigation, crisis management, executive protection, security technology, strategy, intelligence, and employee awareness. Mike was the CSO of Microsoft for 16 years.
Mike led development of Microsoft’s interconnected Global Security Operations Centers (GSOCs), which oversee Global Security monitoring and response, and have become well known in the security field as a leading model for conducting operations globally. Looking to the future, Mike has steered Microsoft Global Security in the transition to a Virtual Security Operation Center (VSOC), leveraging the power of mobility and the cloud.
The GSOCs, which were based in the United States, the UK and India, became well known in the security field as a leading model for conducting operations globally.
As a security leader, Mike contributed to the field through key roles in numerous industry organizations: CSO Roundtable Advisory Board, Past President; International Security Management Association (ISMA), Past President; Security Industry Association (SIA), Board of Directors (former); and U.S. State Department Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), Technical Threats and Risk Committee (Former Head)
Mike spent 22 years with the Central Intelligence Agency, finishing as a Chief of Station. Mike also worked in the CIA’s Office of Security and served on the security staff of the Director of Central Intelligence. He worked in the Counterterrorism Center, ran global programs, and served in assignments around the world. He was executive officer for the Office of Military Affairs and a special investigator for the Office of Inspector General.
Mike also served as a law enforcement officer with the Oakland, California, police in the late 1970s. He holds a BS in criminal justice administration from San Jose State University with a minor in Sociology.
Mike speaks regularly as a subject matter expert on security and leadership while using his extensive security background to help drive industry innovation. He has been profiled in the security press, including Security Technology Executive and Security magazines. And was named one of the most influential people in security by Security 500 in 2010 and 2013, and the #2 Most Influential person in Fire & Security in 2013 by IFSEC. Mike received the Don Walker Award in 2018 from the ASIS Board of Directors for Enterprise Security Executive Leadership. Mike is also enthusiastic about mentoring the next generation of security leaders and is currently doing so in various capacities. Post Microsoft, Mike is President of Howard Consulting Services, LLC, a security consulting, and mentoring firm based out of Las Vegas, Nevada. Mike also currently serves as the President of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Foundation Board of Directors, is a member of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and, he and his wife Janice have started the Michael and Janice Howard Foundation which provides resources for disadvantaged youth in the Las Vegas metropolitan area.
In 2021, Mike published a book on leadership –“The Art of Ronin Leadership – Strategy, Execution, Sustained Success.” In 2022, Mike published his second book on leadership, “The Art of Executing Ronin Leadership Strategies” which was an Amazon bestseller in five countries. Mike is currently working on his third book which will be a fiction thriller which should be out Spring 2023.
Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) Johnson was born in Ohio where he attended both The Ohio State University undergraduate and graduate schools, as well as Capital University Law School. For the nearly ten years before his bureau career, ASAC Johnson served as a police officer with the City of Worthington, Ohio as well as The Ohio State University Police departments. Along with his police experience, he ran the Johnson Law Office, a practice dedicated to representing law enforcement personnel and their families in civil and domestic situations.
ASAC Johnson entered on duty in 2004, working violent crimes, violent gangs, and supporting all programs as the Associate Division Counsel for nearly 11 years in the Atlanta field office. During his tenure in Atlanta, he served as the A/SSA over the violent gang and violent crime squads and serving as the A/Chief Division Counsel both in the Atlanta and Springfield divisions as well as a member of the Chief Division Counsel Advisory Committee working on significant policy and operational updates for all FBI operations, including the DIOG rollout. He collaborated extensively with domestic and international partners, receiving multiple awards for his investigations and administrative support of all bureau programs.
In September 2014, he was selected as an Assistant Inspector/Team Leader in the Inspection Division, leading comprehensive assessments of field office operations, national program analyses, and shooting incident reviews.
Following his term in the Inspection Division in October 2015, ASAC Johnson became the SSA over the Violent Crime Task Force in the Detroit field Office as well as the program coordinator for violent incident crimes throughout Michigan. He collaborated with multiple partner agencies throughout the state promoting inclusive government approaches to address the expansive violent criminal threats throughout the region.
He is currently serving as the ASAC in the Las Vegas field office leading the Criminal, Administrative, and Critical Incident Response Programs.
Nadine Jones currently serves as Senior Vice President of People & Culture for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). In her role, Ms. Jones is responsible for the strategic direction, management and oversight of the people and culture elements of the LVCVA including: Talent Acquisition, Talent Development, Culture, Compensation, Diversity & Inclusion, Performance Management, and Labor Relations.
Prior to joining the LVCVA, Ms. Jones was the Chief Human Resources Officer at the Clark County School District where she oversaw talent acquisition, compensation, performance management and diversity and inclusion efforts. Prior to that, she held various roles in the hospitality and gaming industry progressing in both operations and human resources functions at Marriott International and MGM Resorts International.
Ms. Jones has an extensive Human Resources and Operations background where her focus and contributions are on meeting or exceeding organizational goals and objectives by building a culture of service, performance, and accountability through the effective management of people.
Originally from Toronto, Ontario in Canada, Ms. Jones holds a degree in Hospitality and Tourism Management from Ryerson Polytechnic University and a Masters of Tourism Administration from George Washington University. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family.
Erin Keller has spent 20+ years raising funds for worthy causes. Focusing her time in higher education, Erin became Vice President of Advancement at Nevada State College in July, 2022. Her role includes leading the Advancement office, which includes private fundraising, alumni relations, marketing, communications, events, public and community relations, and the Nevada State College Foundation Board.
She was promoted to her current position from the role of Associate Vice President, where she led the development and alumni teams to record breaking fundraising years as well as creating the first ever network board for alumni of the college. Prior to this position, she worked for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for nine years; six as Director of Development for the Lee Business School. She worked for the College of Liberal Arts at UNLV and the UNLV Foundation’s Annual Fund as well.
When she’s not leading her dynamic team at Nevada State, you can find Erin listening to live music, going on adventures with her sons, or running.
Kara J. Kelley has proven expertise in organizational leadership, business and political strategy, and marketing. As president of The Kelley Company, she advises companies and individuals on branding, business strategy and organizational development. TKC also offers consulting and training in the following areas: leadership; culture change; non-profit management and governing boards; executive coaching; government & community relations; and retreat facilitation. Ms. Kelley served as executive director for the Nevada Sesquicentennial Commission, overseeing the State of Nevada’s 150th anniversary of statehood, raising more than $1.5 million in non-tax contributions.
Ms. Kelley is a former, and the first female, CEO of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce (LVCC), Nevada’s most influential business association and the recognized industry leader. Under her leadership LVCC became the third largest metropolitan chamber in the nation. Her initiatives earned the Chamber acclaim including “Best Places to Work in Nevada” (In Business), “Most Respected CEO” (Nevada Business Journal), and top industry honors for website and other programming.
Ms. Kelley is a noted public speaker and has authored numerous opinion columns, hosted a business radio show and conducted hundreds of media interviews internationally, including interviews for The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Travel Channel. Included in her awards and recognitions: “Top 100 Most Influential Women in Las Vegas History” (Las Vegas Centennial Committee), “Most Influential Businesswoman of the Year” (In Business), “Executive of the Year” (Western Association of Chamber Executives), and “UNLV Alumnus of the Year” (College of Liberal Arts).
Sara Lautzenheiser earned a B.S. in Microbiology from Michigan State University and both a M.Ed. and a M.A.S. in Biology from UNLV. She has been a Clark County School District teacher for the last 14 years. For most of those years she has taught Forensic Science and AP Biology to high school students. For the last four years, she has been a faculty member of Veterans Tribute Career and Technical Academy.
Scott Lautzenheiser holds a B.A. in Anthropology and Master’s Degree in Education from UNLV, and teaches forensic science classes at Veterans Tribute Career & Technical Academy with his much better half (Sara Lautzenheiser). He also has been a medicolegal death investigator, and fingerprint examiner, for the Clark County Coroner/Medical Examiner’s Office since 2005.
Joel D. Lieberman is a Professor and Chair of the Criminal Justice Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Arizona. His work involves the application of social psychological theories to criminal justice issues. More specifically, his research focuses on jury decision-making, inter-group conflict, and public reactions to surveillance technology, including police use of aerial drones. He is a founding member of the Forensic Crime Scene Investigation Consortium, which is a group working to develop national training standards and techniques for the analysis of crime scene evidence, and the presentation of that evidence in court. Dr. Lieberman has experience in professional consultation, has authored numerous publications, and is a member of the editorial board for leading journals in his field.
Sylvia Longmire is a former officer and Special Agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and worked for four years as a Senior Intelligence Analyst for the California State Threat Assessment Center, specializing in southwest border violence and Mexico’s drug war. She is an award-winning writer and contributing editor for Homeland Security Today magazine and American Military University’s InHomeland Security blog. Ms. Longmire has consulted for the producers of the History Channel and National Geographic Channel, and is regularly interviewed by national, international, and local media outlets for her knowledge and expertise on drug war and border security issues. She is the author of Cartel and Border Insecurity, and she has written for numerous peer-reviewed academic journals and online publications.
Ralph Lux served with the FBI for over 40 years in the Sacramento Field Office as the Automotive Fleet Manager. His primary duties included identifying division vehicle requirements, vehicle acquisition, specification and modification. The overall fleet responsibility was to ensure vehicles fit the investigative mission of the FBI and served as an effective investigative tool. Acquiring and providing vehicles through multiple sources to fit into any investigative scenario either overt or covert was his specialty.
Mr. Lux routinely attended meetings and conferences offered by vehicle manufacturers and private organizations to stay abreast of new vehicle technology, design and market trends. These meetings included test drives where Mr. Lux assisted FBIHQ personnel with selection of vehicles to be purchased by the FBI to support all investigative functions including full time surveillance units. Mr. Lux established an effective liaison with new vehicle manufacturers. This relationship provided information on new vehicle specifications such as popular make, model, trim level and common exterior color choice. This information was used to match official vehicles and surveillance units to cars operated by the general public.
Modification of vehicles for use by the FBI included vehicle cosmetic changes to fit neighborhood demographics, surveillance vehicle modifications to effectively gather intelligence and determining specifications and vehicle configuration of undercover vehicles. Large vehicles such as command posts, SWAT tactical operations units, evidence command posts and any other specialty vehicle to support investigative functions were procured and designed by Mr. Lux.
Vehicle modifications also included the specification and procurement of emergency equipment and lighting. Warning lighting installation, function and location were a high priority. Equipment on Federal cars matched local allied law enforcement agencies as these devices, when activated, are familiar to the public increasing the level of safety to Federal employees and the public. The installation of emergency equipment was accomplished without having a negative effect on vehicle ergonomics or OEM passenger safety systems.
Mr. Lux advised on the installation of covert devices and monitoring equipment on vehicles of special interest to the FBI. Covertly procuring vehicles for use by covert operatives to be directly inserted in special operations or vehicles used for operation practice. These activities required backstopping all financial and DMV transactions to conceal the true owner and vehicle destination.
Mr. Lux served as a Certified Crime Scene Investigator as a member of the FBI Evidence Response Team (ERT). In this capacity Mr. Lux was responsible for searching, seizing, impounding and transportation of vehicles used in a wide variety of crimes and violations that fall under FBI jurisdiction. These duties included assistance to allied law enforcement agencies who requested FBI assistance in major crimes or ongoing local investigations. In addition, Mr. Lux was cross trained in all ERT skills. A partial list of specialized training includes; Post Blast, latent finger prints, human scent transfer, crime scene sketch, crime scene management and Haz Mat protocol, evidence collection and packaging.
In this capacity, Mr. Lux, in addition to traditional crime scene investigative functions, was routinely tasked with locating, reverse engineering and documenting the presence of hidden compartments in vehicles designed to conceal and transport contraband. His expertise was sought out by other FBI divisions and allied law enforcement agencies. He was available to travel with representatives of those agencies to participate and be on site during search warrants executed by those agencies.
Mr. Lux continues to stay abreast of changes in the automotive industry. In addition, Mr. Lux serves on museum advisory boards, participates as an advisor to movie and TV production on FBI history and official vehicles and equipment utilized by the FBI.
Dr. Dan Manson is Professor Emeritus for Computer Information Systems at Cal Poly Pomona and a Lecturer in the UNLV Masters in Cybersecurity program. Dr. Manson led the effort for Cal Poly Pomona to be designated an NSA/DHS National Center of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (CAE-C) in 2005, 2008 and 2014. Dr. Manson mentored University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) to become a CAE-C in 2019.
From 2008 to 2017 Dr. Manson led the Western Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (WRCCDC). Dr. Manson is a co-founder of the National Cyber League and is Chairman of NCL, Inc. Dr. Manson has been Principal Investigator or co-Principal Investigator on seven National Science Foundation grants to support workforce, curriculum, and professional development in cyber security. Dr. Manson served as founding president for the Information Systems Security Association Inland Empire Chapter and President of the Southern California Chapter of the High Technology Crime Investigation Association.
Dr. Manson leads competency development and documentation of competitions for the NSA CAE-C Program Office grant for the Careers Preparation National Center.
As Chief Executive Officer of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC), M.J. Maynard leads the only agency nationwide that is responsible for a region’s public transit system, traffic management, roadway and construction funding, and transportation and overall planning efforts – all under one roof.
M.J. joined the RTC in February 2007 and served as Assistant General Manager of Administrative Services and later as Deputy Chief Executive Officer prior to leading the agency. During her 14-year history with agency, she has launched several groundbreaking initiatives including on-demand mobility options; the rideRTC smartphone app; and a massive transit safety expansion project encompassing the replacement of more than 3,000 bus shelters and amenities.
M.J. worked in Las Vegas’ hospitality industry for more than 25 years prior to joining the RTC, where she served as Vice President for Hard Rock Hotel and Casino for more than a decade. In this role, she oversaw a culturally diverse staff of more than 750 employees and was responsible for managing a multi-million dollar annual budget that included capital expansion projects.
Considered a national leader in public transit management, M.J. was recently appointed to serve on the American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) 25-member executive committee; has served on its Board of Directors since 2018; and is a member of its CEO Coordinating Council. APTA leads efforts to ensure public transportation is available and accessible in communities around the country. M.J. is also a board member of the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus Council, an organization that works to protect the HFC bus market via legislation and regulation.
Active in the community, M.J. serves on a number of nonprofit boards, including Three Square, a community food bank serving four counties in Southern Nevada; FirstMed Health and Wellness Center, one of only two federally qualified public health centers in the region; and the Advisory Council of the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, also known as the Mob Museum.
She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Hotel Administration from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
For 15 years, Dutch went undercover for the federal government in hundreds of cases all over the country. Dutch began his career in law enforcement as a beat cop, working his way up to an elite undercover agent who infiltrated outlaw motorcycle gangs, white supremacist groups, human trafficking rings and even the Mafia, sometimes operating with three different undercover identities at the same time. For example, while Advisory Council member Giovanni Rocco was undercover in the DeCavalcante crime family, he worked closely with Dutch to help establish his own story. Dutch has worked in extremely dangerous, often life-threatening scenarios and left the undercover life with an endless number of stories.
Greg McCurdy is a retired Law Enforcement Executive, whose career spanned over 30 years with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He spent his last nine years as a Senior Executive, serving as the Assistant Sheriff responsible for Homeland Security and Law Enforcement Investigations, as well as Deputy Chief assignments leading both the Homeland Security Division, Special Operations Division, and Chief of Detectives. Upon retirement, he was selected to be the Vice President of Corporate Security for sbe Entertainment. A part of his responsibilities included being on the opening team for the SLS Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, where he built and led the Security and Surveillance Teams. He is a graduate of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, FBI National Academy Class 197, Harvard’s Kennedy School’s Senior Executives in State and Local Government Executive Education Certificate Program and Harvard’s National Preparedness Leadership Program. He is a Lifetime Member of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, The International Association of Chiefs of Police, The Police Executive Research Forum and a member of ASIS International, the largest Professional Security Organization.
Jenn Michaels, Sr. Vice President of Public Relations for MGM Resorts, oversees media relations for many of the world’s most iconic and beloved hospitality brands. In her 30-year career she has either led or been part of the executive teams that developed and opened Treasure Island, Bellagio, Beau Rivage, MGM Detroit, ARIA/CityCenter, Borgata, MGM National Harbor, MGM Springfield and Park MGM, as well as consulting on the opening of MGM Macau and MGM Cotai. Jenn has overseen strategy and execution for the launch of dozens of entertainment venues and shows (T-Mobile Arena, eight Cirque du Soleil productions, countless headliners, comedians, residencies), as well as promoting the company’s more than 400 restaurants, nightclubs, bars, lounges, wedding chapels, spas, attractions and pools.
From the movies Oceans 11, Last Vegas and Jason Bourne; to Modern Family, travel pages and broadcasts across the globe; from awards shows, major boxing events and a fountain show that only needs a singular image to be identified, MGM Resorts has become part of our world’s culture and Jenn has been involved in every moment, orchestrating communications for more than two decades. Jenn has also been an emotional leader for her company and community, helping to navigate public relations through tragedy and economic hardship. Those events range from the current pandemic that effectively shut down Las Vegas tourism and left its hospitality workforce largely unemployed, to the $9 billion CityCenter resort development coming online in the eye of the Great Recession, to helping manage communications when Roy of Siegfried & Roy was tragically attacked by one of his tigers. Jenn was also there leading the effort to help the world get comfortable traveling again after 9/11 and supported MGM Resorts 81,000 employees and the Las Vegas community at large after the mass shooting of October 1, 2017. A breast cancer survivor, she has been recognized as a top-40 businessperson under 40, was named to PR News’ inaugural list of Top Women in PR in 2017, was inducted into PR Week’s Hall of Femme in 2019 and is a graduate of the Metro Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Las Vegas program.
Distinguished as the longest serving governor in Nevada history, 1989-1999, Bob Miller has held several public offices including Lieutenant Governor and Clark County District Attorney, 1979-1987. He served as the Chair of the National Governors Association (NGA), 1996-1997, Chair of the Western Governors Association (WGA), 1993-1994, and during his tenure as District Attorney he served as the President of the National District Attorney Association, 1984-1985, and was one of nine individuals President Reagan selected to serve on a Presidential Task Force on victims of crime in 1982. He owns Robert J. Miller Consulting and he presently serves as a board member of Solar Alliance. He has previously served on several other public boards including America West Airlines, Newmont Mining Corporation, Zenith Insurance Company, International Game Technology and Wynn Resorts. He has received civic and charitable awards, including honorary doctorates from Santa Clara University in 1991 and UNLV in 1998, the Breaking Glass Ceiling National Award from the Women Executives in State Governments in 1997, Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Organization of Victims Assistance in 1999, Inaugural National Award for State Art Leadership from Americans for the Arts in 1997, as well as the Distinguished Nevadan award from the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents in 2012. USAID (United States Aid to International Development) has sent him on several foreign missions to provide tourism advice, including Russia, Georgia, Poland and Bulgaria. He served as Co-Chair of the Russian Heritage Highway with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev from 2004-2007. He has served as an Honorary Consul General of Bulgaria since 2005. A Las Vegas resident for over 60 years, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science at the University of Santa Clara and a Juris doctorate from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He is a member of the Clark County Bar Association and the State Bar of Nevada.
Kimberly Murga is currently the Director of Laboratory Services for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. She oversees all forensic-related operations of the full-service laboratory to include Firearms, Toxicology, Latent Prints, Biology/DNA, Trace Materials, Seized Drugs and Quality Management. Ms. Murga has been in the field of forensic science since 1996 and was formerly employed by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory. She is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Chaminade University, a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from Chaminade University, and a Master of Forensic Science degree from The George Washington University.
Patricia Naughton is a 27-year law enforcement veteran. After graduating from Indiana University in 1974, she started her career as one of the first female police officers in the state. She graduated from the Indiana State Law Enforcement Academy as its first female class president. In 1978, she joined the Drug Enforcement Administration as part of the one percent of female agents. Her first assignment was investigating illicit drug labs. She went on to work undercover in outlaw motorcycle gangs and the mafia. In 1985 she became the first female weapons instructor for the DEA and a repeat instructor at the FBI training center at Quantico where she taught both FBI and DEA agents.
Jeff Novitzky is the Senior Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance at UFC, the world’s premier mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion. Prior to joining UFC, Jeff was a United States Federal Agent for more than 22 years, first with the IRS-Criminal Investigation Division and next with the Food and Drug Administration, Office of Criminal Investigations. During his federal agent career, Jeff worked some of the highest profile, performance-enhancing drug distribution criminal investigations in history, including serving as the lead investigative agent on the federal criminal investigations of BALCO Laboratories, Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, Roger Clemens and Lance Armstrong. Based on this work, Jeff was named the IRS Criminal Investigation Division Special Agent of the Year for 2004 and 2005.
In his current role with UFC, Jeff oversees what is widely recognized as the most comprehensive, progressive and independently administered anti-doping program in professional sports. Since its inception upon Jeff’s arrival at UFC in 2015, the UFC Anti-Doping Program has conducted more than 25,000 unannounced tests on UFC athletes residing across more than 50 countries. UFC athletes are subject to no notice testing 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.
Jeff has testified before Congress on the topic of performance-enhancing drugs in sport and has been the subject of numerous media articles, publications, television pieces and short films. Upon graduating high school, Jeff was the recipient of an athletic scholarship at the University of Arizona for track and field (high jump) and later an athletic scholarship at San Jose State University for basketball, where he earned a business degree with an emphasis in accounting.
Frank Panessa was a Drug Enforcement Administration agent for 28 years. He had numerous undercover roles in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Central America. He infiltrated the Sicilian Mafia in the infamous “Pizza Connection” case that resulted in the conviction of high-level Sicilian wholesale distributor of heroin. He retired from the DEA in 1995 as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia Division where he was responsible for the day to day activity of 300 law enforcement personnel. He also served in the U.S. Embassy in Rome as the government’s chief liaison to Italian police agencies on narcotics and organized crime. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Award of Honor from the International Narcotic Officers Association. He testified before the President’s Commission on Organized Crime as an expert witness on the Mafia. He is Trustee Emeritus of the Sons and Daughters of Italy in America having served for the past 20 years in various positions including National Treasurer and National Financial Officer. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland.
Nicholas Pileggi is an American author, producer and screenwriter. Pileggi began his career as a journalist and had a profound interest in the Mafia. He is best known for writing Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family (1986), which he adapted into the movie Goodfellas (1990), and for writing Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas and the subsequent screenplay for Casino (1995). The movie versions of both were directed and co-written by Martin Scorsese. Pileggi also wrote the screenplay for the film City Hall (1996), starring Al Pacino. He served as an Executive Producer of American Gangster (2007), a biographical crime film based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas. He also authored Blye, Private Eye (1987).
Retired special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Joseph Pistone was an organizing expert of the FBI’s Undercover Program and spent 22 years of his career as an undercover agent. He is best known for his success during six of those years when he infiltrated the Bonanno and Colombo crime families-two of New York City’s Five Families-as Donnie Brasco, between 1975 and 1981. His testimony eventually led to over 200 indictments and over 200 convictions of mafia members. To commend his success as an undercover agent, Pistone was awarded the US Attorney General’s J. Edgar Hoover Award and the FBI Medal of Valor. He is also the recipient of the Joseph Petrosino Award, the International Homicide Investigators Award, and numerous FBI Letters of Accommodation. For the last 26 years, Pistone has worked as a police training consultant and instructor for multiple foreign countries on undercover and organized matters. Pistone is a New York Times bestselling author and his life and undercover work were depicted in the 1997 crime drama Donnie Brasco, which starred Al Pacino and Johnny Depp.
Sam Quinones is a journalist, storyteller, former LA Times reporter, and author of four acclaimed books of narrative nonfiction.
His most recent book is The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth, released in 2021. The book follows his 2015 release, Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Bloomsbury Press.
Both books are critically acclaimed. In January 2022, The Least of Us was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) award for Best Nonfiction Book of 2021.
Dreamland won a National Book Critics Circle award for the Best Nonfiction Book of 2015. It was also selected as one of the Best Books of 2015 by Amazon.com, the Daily Beast, Buzzfeed, Seattle Times, Boston Globe, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Entertainment Weekly, Audible, and in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Business by Nobel economics laureate, Prof. Angus Deaton, of Princeton University. In 2019, Dreamland was selected as one the Best 10 True-Crime Books of all time based on lists, surveys, and ratings of more than 90 million Goodread.com readers. Also in 2019, Slate.com selected Dreamland as one of the 50 best nonfiction books of the last 25 years. In 2021, GQ Magazine selected Dreamland as one of the “50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century.”
Quinones’ career as a journalist has spanned 35 years. He lived for 10 years as a freelance writer in Mexico, where he wrote his first two books. In 2004, he returned to the United States to work for the L.A. Times, covering immigration, drug trafficking, neighborhood stories, and gangs.
In 2014, he resigned from the paper to return to freelancing, working for National Geographic, Pacific Standard Magazine, the New York Times, Los Angeles Magazine, and other publications.
Columbia Journalism School selected him as a 2008 recipient of the Maria Moors Cabot prize, for a career of excellence in covering Latin America. He is also a 1998 recipient of an Alicia Patterson Fellowship, one of the most prestigious fellowships given to print journalists.
For several years, he taught Tell Your True Tale writing workshops at East LA Library, the stories of which he posted on his storytelling webpage of the same name.
Quinones grew up in Claremont, California, and graduated from Claremont High School in 1977.
He attended U.C. Berkeley, studied economics and American history, and lived in the legendary, now-defunct Barrington Hall coop. There, he also produced punk rock concerts of bands such as the Dead Kennedys, the Dils, the Zeros, the Mutants, the Offs, Black Flag and Flipper, and wrote a senior thesis on the bebop jazz revolution of the 1940s.
He lived for a year in Europe, where he supported himself playing guitar on the streets and teaching English.
In 1987, he found his first journalism job at the Orange County Register. In 1988, he moved to Stockton, California, where for four years at the height of the crack epidemic, he covered gangs, dope and murder as a crime reporter for the Stockton Record.
In 1992, he moved to Seattle to write about county government and politics for the Tacoma News-Tribune.
In 1994, he left Seattle for Mexico, intending to study Spanish for a few months.
He spent his first week in Mexico in the village of Jaripo, Michoacan, which revealed to him the stories of Mexican immigration.
Hankering to stay, he then went to Cuernavaca, where while studying Spanish, he lived with the last Trotskyites in town. Their tiny apartment had the complete works of Lenin and photos of Che and Fidel throughout. Their son was Leon Ernesto — named for Trotsky and Guevara — and he was enamored with Michael Jordan and Budweiser models.
A couple months into his stay, Quinones found a Mexico City reporting job at an English-language magazine called Mexico Insight, which was his introduction to Mexico.
A year later, though, Mexico Insight folded and he became a freelance writer. For the next nine years, he covered the country, as Mexico went through its historic political transformation. (He was the first foreign reporter to walk through the halls of PRI headquarters after the party lost the presidency to Vicente Fox in 2000. The mood was grim, but not that grim, as the PRI had really died years before and had been pretending to know the country ever since.)
During his years in Mexico, he spent time in 25 of the country’s 31 states. He traveled heavily to the major immigrant-sending states, spending time with gang members and governors, taco vendors, popsicle makers, and Los Tigres del Norte. He wrote about soap operas; about ranchos and valientes, about white elephant construction projects; about Nezahualcoyotl, the massive slum suburb east of Mexico City, after it elected its first non-PRI government.
He lived briefly in a drug-rehabilitation clinic in Zamora, while hanging out with a street gang. He lived with drag queens in Mazatlan, hung out with merchants in the Mexico City neighborhood of Tepito, and with the relegated PRI congressmen known as the Bronx.
On the border, he spent time with the last apostle of a splinter group of polygamous Mormons, Fernando Castro, who lived south of Ensenada, with three of his six wives, and some of his 42 children and 128 grandchildren.
Quinones followed the promoters of Tijuana’s opera scene and visited the yeseros, makers of plaster statues of Mickey Mouse and Spiderman in that city’s Colonia Libertad.
In 1998, he was awarded the Alicia Patterson Fellowship, one of the most prestigious fellowships in U.S. print journalism, for a series of stories on impunity in Mexico, including a story of a lynching in a small town.
During his years in Mexico, he wrote two collections of nonfiction stories.
His cult classic, True Tales From Another Mexico: The Lynch Mob, the Popsicle Kings, Chalino and the Bronx (Univ. of New Mexico Press, 2001) are nonfiction stories about people on the margins of contemporary Mexico – drag queens, Oaxacan Indian basketball players, valientes, gang members, and popsicle vendors.
His second book of non-fiction stories, Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration (Univ. of New Mexico Press, 2007) tell of the lives of Tijuana opera stars, velvet painters, soccer players in southwest Kansas, narco-Mennonites, immigrants who return to run for mayor, a town southeast of L.A., and a young construction worker bent on finding a new way for himself.
Nancy B. Rapoport is a UNLV Distinguished Professor, the Garman Turner Gordon Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and an Affiliate Professor of Business Law and Ethics in the Lee Business School at UNLV. After receiving her B.A., summa cum laude, from Rice University in 1982 and her J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1985, she clerked for the Honorable Joseph T. Sneed III on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then practiced law (primarily bankruptcy law) with Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco from 1986-1991.
Nancy started her academic career at The Ohio State University College of Law in 1991, and she moved from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor with tenure in 1995 to Associate Dean for Student Affairs (1996) and Professor (1998) (just as she left Ohio State to become Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Nebraska College of Law). She served as Dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law from 1998-2000. She then served as Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center from July 2000-May 2006 and as Professor of Law from June 2006-June 2007, when she left to join the faculty at Boyd. She served as Interim Dean of Boyd from 2012-2013, as Senior Advisor to the President of UNLV from 2014-2015, as Acting Executive Vice President & Provost from 2015-2016, as Acting Senior Vice President for Finance and Business (for July and August 2017), and as Special Counsel to the President from May 2016-June 2018. In 2022, UNLV’s Alumni Association named her the Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year.
Anthony “Tony” Ricevuto started his law enforcement career with the Chicago Police Department and worked as a task force officer assigned to high crime suppression with a special operation group. In 1973, he became a special agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration, investigating international drug traffickers and money launderers. He was the senior inspector in charge of the DEA’s Office of Professional Responsibility and retired as the assistant special agent in charge of the Los Angeles DEA office. He traveled extensively throughout Latin America conducting sensitive investigations involving government personnel. Upon retirement, he worked for the Los Angeles METRO as a senior investigator with the Office of Inspector General investigating management and contractor fraud. He was a teacher at the University of Phoenix/Chaffey Community College and a lecturer for various colleges and organizations. Ricevuto is a member of the Association of Federal Narcotic Agents and a board member of the Las Vegas Italian American Club. He lives in Las Vegas.
Giovanni Rocco was the FBI undercover at the epicenter of several federal undercover operations. His most recent assignment in Operation Charlie Horse ultimately brought down several high-ranking members and associated of the infamous NJ DeCavalcante Mafia family, the organization known as “The Real Sopranos”.
Giovanni’s successes have been covered in dozens of newspapers, television and social media channels/platforms throughout the world and is now told in his critically acclaimed book “Giovanni’s Ring: My Life Inside The Real Sopranos”.
Giovanni’s Ring is not just simply a chronicle of Giovanni’s heart stopping adventures in the murky and dangerous criminal underworld he inhabited, but also a fascinating window into the psychological and physiological struggles that such a life inevitably entails.
The culmination of Operation Charlie Horse and many other operations resulted in successful criminal prosecutions, but ultimately resulted in Giovanni’s sudden and unplanned retirement from law enforcement as well as the government having to relocate him and his family to an undisclosed location for fears of criminal retaliation.
Giovanni has decades of experience as a case investigator building cases against some of the most violent offenders. Some of those cases include homicides, violent street gangs, international narcotics cartels, and human trafficking organizations.
Giovanni’s successful infiltration of several criminal organized crime cultures including outlaw bikers, domestic and international terror groups, and extremists, as well as political corruption figures and white collared criminals.
Having received extensive training in human interaction and covert intelligence/operations, as well as through his participation as a member of the elite FBI National Covert Operations Unit, Giovanni’s survival depended on his ability to access the resiliency skills and focused thinking he now brings to his workshops, training modules, and mental and behavioral health programs he helps design.
Giovanni continues to share his experiences and provide training to law enforcement agencies, as well as military and intelligence branches within the United States and internationally in the fields of Leadership & Management, Effective Communications Skills, De-escalation, Conflict Resolution, and Implicit Bias. Past attendees have consistently described his presentations as enlightening, career motivating, characterized by his raw humanistic approach and unique ability to connect and maintain participants’ interest throughout his training sessions. Giovanni’s unique ability to connect with individuals and deliver insightful instruction all with uncompromising principles proves to be a tremendous value in both the public safety and private sectors.
The insight and strategies Giovanni brings to his lectures and trainings were acquired over decades of exemplary service with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. As a decorated investigator, a subject matter expert, as well as a husband and father, Giovanni brings a realistic outlook and insightful understanding as to what first responders are experiencing in today’s work environment and the solution focused steps needed to resolve the inner conflicts prohibiting those front-line guardians in attaining maximum personal performance.
Aaron Rouse retired as the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Las Vegas Division. Mr. Rouse began his career with the FBI in September 1996, and was first assigned to the Washington Field Office where he worked violent crime and was on both the Joint Fugitive Task Force and the Violent Crime/Reactive squads. In January 2005, Mr. Rouse became a Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) in the Counterintelligence Division at FBIHQ and worked as a Program Manager for Counterespionage matters. He has also served in roles in the Tampa and San Antonio Divisions of the FBI. Prior to entering the FBI, Mr. Rouse was a state trooper in the New York State Police.
Gus Russo is a veteran investigative reporter, documentary producer, screenwriter and author. His books have included The Outfit: The Role of Chicago’s Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America, Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and his Criminal Associates Became America’s Hidden Power Brokers, Gangsters and Goodfellas,” Boomer Days, and Live by the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK. Mr. Russo is also a musician, having played with The Byrds, Poco and Phoebe Snow, as well as an actor.
His first book, Live By the Sword: The Secret War Against Castro and the Death of JFK (Bancroft, 1998), was praised by the New York Times as “compelling, exhaustively researched and even handed.” Kirkus Reviews called Sword, “Probably the last book on the Kennedy assassination you will need to read.” The book was a Book of the Month Club and History Book Club Featured Alternate. Sword was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1999, and has been scripted for a mini-series by Showtime Networks.
Russo next authored The Outfit: The Role of Chicago’s Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America. The Outfit was also nominated for the Pulitzer and was optioned before publication by USA Networks. Gangsters and GoodFellas, published in 2004, was a collaboration with former gangster Henry Hill, a sequel to his 1985 biography Wiseguy, which was the basis for the hit 1990 movie GoodFellas, starring Robert De Niro.
Russo followed with Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America’s Hidden Power Brokers. Supermob film rights were sold before publication to CBS Paramount, and is being developed as a television series.
In January 2006, Russo, as co-writer with Wilfried Huismann, produced Rendezvous with Death, a 90-minute documentary for the German public television network WDR. The film clarifies the relationship between Cuba’s intelligence service and JFK’s killer.
Russo’s fifth book, with Steve Molton, was Brothers in Arms: The Kennedys, the Castros, and the Politics of Murder. Brothers received the 2008 History Prize by the New York Book Festival. In 2009, Russo produced and co-wrote Generation 9-11, a documentary feature film on religious intolerance, for Academy Award-winning director Nigel Nobel.
Russo released his sixth book, a memoir entitled Boomer Days, in May 2011, and has had three screenplays optioned in Hollywood. In November 2013, Russo co-produced a two-hour television special to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination, hosted by Tom Brokaw, for NBC News, as well as writing the companion book, Where Were You? In 2015, Russo was among the voice-over narrators in Academy Award winner Alex Gibney’s HBO special, Sinatra, All or Nothing at All.
Russo’s next book, The Best of Enemies was optioned for a feature film before publication by a partnership of Robert de Niro and Ron Howard. In 2017.
Previously, Gus Russo has worked an investigative reporter for PBS’ Frontline series, as well as ABC News Special Reports with Peter Jennings, Dan Rather’s CBS Reports, and Jack Anderson Specials. He has consulted on such programs as Sixty Minutes, Sixty Minutes II, and Eye To Eye with Connie Chung; as well as documentary productions based in England, France, Germany, Japan, and Mexico.
He has written for The Baltimore Sun, Variety, Baltimore Magazine, The Nation, The Washington Post, Book Forum, American Heritage, The Huffington Post and Mother Jones.
David G. Schwartz directs the Center for Gaming Research at UNLV, a hub for scholarly analysis of gambling and gaming issues. The center is part of University Libraries and boasts the largest repository of English-language materials on gambling and has an unparalleled repository of books, journals, and primary materials for gaming research. The center also maintains casino corporate archives including the Harrah’s Entertainment, MGM Resorts, and Boyd Gaming Corporate Archives, gaming-related manuscript collections such as the Sands, New Frontier, and Binion’s Horseshoe collections, and a growing number of collections obtained under the Problem Gambling Pioneers initiative, which collects and preserves the papers of the pioneers of the problem gambling treatment and advocacy movement.
In addition to his work at UNLV, David Schwartz is an active consultant. As vice president of research and analytics for Santo Gaming he assists the Las Vegas-based gaming management and consulting firm with a range of projects.
Schwartz is the author of three books about gambling, including Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling, Suburban Xanadu: The Casino Resort on the Las Vegas Strip and Beyond, and Cutting the Wire: Gaming Prohibition and the Internet. He currently writes the biweekly Green Felt Journal column for Vegas Seven magazine and was named gaming and hospitality editor of Vegas Seven.
Retired Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky spent 30 years as an educator in the Clark County School District serving as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, academic manager, assistant superintendent, associate superintendent and deputy superintendent. His final 5 years were as the Superintendent of Schools. He retired from that position in June of 2018.
During his tenure as Superintendent, he oversaw the following: a graduation rate increased from 59.3% to 85.2%; the training of over 40,000 employees in Cultural Competency; an addition of 10,200 seats in the Magnet/Career and Technical programs; implementation of autonomy of school staffing and budgeting through site-based organizational teams; an increase of 28% of students participating in Advanced Placement (including all minority subgroups) and in increase of 26% of students passing Advanced Placement (including all minority subgroups).
Mr. Skorkowsky is an active member of the community and serves on the Mob Museum Advisory Board and the national board of Jobs for America’s Graduates. He has received the following recognition: Nevada Superintendent of the Year, 2018; Magnet Schools of American National Superintendent of the Year, 2017; President of the Nevada Association of School Superintendents, 2016-2017; Clark County School District Excellence in Education Hall of Fame, 2016; Jobs for America’s Graduates (JAG) National Superintendent of the Year, 2015; National Speech & Debate Association District Communicator of the Year Award, 2015; University of Nevada, Las Vegas TriO & Gear UP Educational Pioneer Award, 2015; Nevada State Parent Teacher Association (PTA) President’s Award, 2014, 2017; University of Nevada, Las Vegas College of Education Alumnus of the Year, 2013.
He grew up in a small town in central Oklahoma, received his bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Oklahoma State University and a master’s degree in Educational Administration from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
William Sousa is the Director of the Center for Crime and Justice Policy and Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The focus of his research is on crime and disorder reduction policies implemented by police agencies. His current projects involve police order-maintenance practices, policing technologies, and community crime prevention in Las Vegas neighborhoods. He is the author, with Kenneth J. Peak, of the book Policing America: Challenges and Best Practices. His recent publications appear in Police Quarterly, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, and The Journal of Experimental Criminology. He received his B.A. from Stonehill College (Easton, MA), his M.S. from Northeastern University, and his Ph.D. from Rutgers University.
Brian Spellacy is the Director of Security at Resorts World. A native of Springfield Massachusetts, Mr. Spellacy is a 26-year veteran of the Secret Service, having served in protective and investigative assignments in New York, Chicago, Houston and Washington, D.C. Mr. Spellacy began his career with the Secret Service in 1991, serving as a Special Agent in the New York Field Office. He was subsequently assigned to the Presidential Protective Division, as well as the Counter Assault Team. Entering the agency’s supervisory ranks, Mr. Spellacy was assigned to the Presidential Protective Division. He then was assigned to the Chicago Field Office where he oversaw the Counterfeit Squad as well as the Financial Crimes Squad. Mr. Spellacy returned to Washington, D.C., and served as an Assistant Special Agent in Charge in the office of the Assistant Director of Protective Operations, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Special Operations Division, Airspace Security Branch before being assigned as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Houston Field Office. He served as the Special Agent in Charge of the Las Vegas Secret Service Field Office, with responsibilities including the daily management of the agency investigative and protective mission in the Las Vegas metropolitan area as well managing the resident office in Reno, Nevada. Mr. Spellacy holds a Bachelor of Science Degree as well as a Master of Education of Education Degree from Springfield College.
Roy Student is the founder and president of Applied Management Strategies (AMS). A long-time gaming and hospitality executive, Student utilizes his key expertise and experience as a sought-after consultant and speaker to the international casino and gaming industry from his base in Las Vegas. Student has traveled throughout the world and has extensive gaming contacts and relationships within the various global regions.
Student has been the force behind the successful market entry for companies expanding as well as coming from Asia, Europe and South America. Listed in the “Who’s Who of Casino Gaming,” Student is a member of the International Association of Gaming Attorneys and has participated in casino gaming on five continents.
He currently sits on the board of Win Systems and Global Gaming Business Magazine, the Advisory Council at UNLV Hospitality College, and the Advisory Board for Mars World. He also serves as the Executive Advisor to Royal Wins in Sydney, Australia, the Oddin Corporation in Prague, and Clarion Gaming in the United Kingdom for all ICE Events. He has been honored as a recipient of the annual Global Gaming Business Gaming and Technology Award.
While president of Cyberview Technology, now part of IGT, Student crafted the plan for this small and unknown software and systems developer and hardware supplier to being acknowledged as the pioneer of server-based, downloadable gaming for the U.S. casino industry. Previously, Student was chairman and founder of Gaming Systems International (GSI), a leading developer of casino management systems, later sold to a Monaco company.
During his distinguished career, Student has been an executive with Sulcus Hospitality Group, where he developed the company’s mega-resort strategic casino plan. He honed his skills during an eighteen-year stint with General Instrument Corporation, as Vice President of the Business Systems division and as Vice President of Gaming Operations. He also held the positions of Hospitality Business Unit Director for Siemans Nixdorf, President of Dirson Enterprises, a Las Vegas based gaming communications company, President of Intermark Gaming, a slot machine and keno systems provider and operator of casinos. During his two-year tenure at Intermark Gaming, he transformed the company from a money losing organization into a profit generating enterprise in the first nine months.
Tara Sullivan is the Acting Deputy Director of Strategy, ERM and Finance and formerly the Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation (CI), in the Las Vegas Field Office. She began her career with IRS Criminal Investigation in 2000 as a Special Agent Student Trainee in the Las Vegas Field Office. She graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with a degree in accounting and was subsequently converted to the Special Agent position in 2002. As a Special Agent, Ms. Sullivan worked in both the Las Vegas and New York Field Offices.
In 2010, Ms. Sullivan joined CI’s leadership team as Supervisory Special Agent in the New York Field Office, Bronx Post of Duty. In 2011, she was one of four selected into the IRS’ Accelerated Senior Leadership Program, which was a special program to identify individuals with strong leadership potential and provide them with the training and resources to progress to a Special Agent in Charge position.
In 2013, she was assigned to Headquarters where she worked as a Senior Analyst in International Operations. In 2014, she was selected as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Boston Field Office and later served as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Tampa Field Office.
James Taylor is the Director of Corporate Security & Investigations of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. Mr. Taylor recently retired as the Chief of Enforcement for the Nevada Gaming Control Board. He worked for the GCB for over 27 years and supervised the board’s organized crime squad for more than fifteen years where he was responsible for criminal, financial and intelligence investigations of organized crime activity and major casino cheating groups. During his career with the GCB, Mr. Taylor has worked on numerous local and federal investigations and task forces involving sophisticated cheating devices, bookmaking, drug trafficking, credit card fraud, money laundering, terrorism and major criminal organizations.
Charlene Thornton is a retired FBI agent and former Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Honolulu, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Birmingham field offices. During her 30+ year career, she also served as Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Inspection Division where she oversaw comprehensive audits of FBI investigative and administrative operations worldwide. In 2005, she was awarded the Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive in recognition of her sustained high level of achievement in managing demanding and multifaceted FBI operations. She retired from the FBI in 2010.
David Uslan began his career as an intern with D.C. Comics, Walter Cronkite’s production company, and Wild Brain Animation Studios. After graduating from Indiana University, Mr. Uslan joined International Creative Management (ICM), one of the leading international talent agencies. Armed with a passion for comic books, history, and creative development, Mr. Uslan went to work for his mentor and father, Michael Uslan, originator and Executive Producer of the Batman movie franchise. Alongside his father, David assisted in developing films including the upcoming Lou Gehrig biopic being produced alongside the Steinbrenner family and the New York Yankees organization. Uslan’s producing credits include Valentine’s Day Massacre (National Geographic) and the AMC Mob Week documentary series.
Erica Vital-Lazare is a professor of Creative Writing and Marginalized Voices in Dystopian Literature at the College of Southern Nevada, and has received grants and awards from the Zora Neale Hurston Foundation, the Hilliard Endowment, and the Nevada Arts Council. Erica is also co-founder of non-profit and urban farm, The Obodo Collective. Her work has been published in Sojourner, Thrice and Callaloo II, A River Underground, The Citron Review, and The Baffler. Vital-Lazare served as co-host for the Black Mountain Radio podcast and is editor of the series Of the Diaspora with McSweeney’s Press.
From April 2012 to June 2017, Richard served as the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Division for the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service (IRS-CI). Richard led a worldwide staff of nearly 3,500 employees, including approximately 2,300 special agents, who investigate crimes involving tax, money laundering, sanctions enforcement, Bank Secrecy Act violations, public corruption, cyber, ID theft, narcotics and terrorist financing. Before joining IRS-CI, Richard was the Deputy Chief of the Investigation Division and Chief of the Major Economic Crimes Bureau in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Richard has previously served as Chief of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. He is the recipient of the 2015 Presidential Rank Award – the highest civil service recognition that is given in the Federal government – and a two-time recipient of the Attorney General’s John Marshall Award, the highest honor for Justice Department lawyers.
A California native, Darcel has amassed a diverse career in the field of Criminal Justice spanning back to the early 1980s. Her public service positions include Deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Youth Correctional Counselor with California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Division of Juvenile Justice (CDCRDJJ), Parole Agent assigned to Los Angeles County Street Gang Unit where she served as a member of an interagency task force consisting of agents and officers representing Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Agency, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and Los Angeles Police Department with the focus of reducing gang violence during the turbulent 1980s and 1990s. She has served as a Gubernatorial appointed Commissioner to the State of California Board of Parole Hearings presiding over adult Life Term Inmate parole suitability hearings, associated parole reconsideration and rescission hearings all of which were conducted at prisons statewide, investigated requests for Gubernatorial pardons, reprieves and commutation of sentences.
Darcel recently retired after a 24 year career as an educator and education administrator. During those years she held positions as a Tenured Professor in Correctional Science, Educational Coordinator for the Public Safety Department (2008-2011), Department Chair (2003-2013), faculty and student advisor/mentor for professional development, academic and university matriculation at Chaffey College located in Southern California. She also held a management position at a Regional Occupational Program where she was Director for Cal WORKS, Welfare-to-Work, Workforce Development programs, and a multitude of community collaborative projects such as the Success Project which provided both pre-release and post-release correctional reintegration continuum of care services.
Since retirement, Darcel completed a short term assignment in 2018 with the State of Nevada’s Department of Public Safety Parole and Probation Division conducting presentence investigations, and has now begun research for the development of programs, systems and public enlightenment to address special topics of interest such as Coherent Restorative Justice, Deterrence Driven Community Based Prevention Programs, Justice System Reform (4C), Restructure of Sentencing Statutes and Examination of Guidelines.
She holds a Masters in Public Administration from the University of La Verne, and received her Bachelor of Arts in Music Education at California State University Fullerton.