Please check the Calendar of Events at:

tmaofnevada.com/calendar

to see what's on the agenda!

Mark A. Cenicola
Bill Granda
Michael Mazur
Bob Olson
Mary Peterson
Pamela Joy Ring - President
William J. Stieren - Treasurer
Dave Taketa
Patrick Wisman

Jane Lubarsky
TMA Nevada Administrator
jane@tmaofnevada.com
702-403-3162

CASE STUDY: THE TURNAROUND OF LAS VEGAS: MEET MATT CROSSON, THE NEW PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE LAS VEGAS CHAMBER HE LEAD THE TURNAROUND IN LONG ISLAND, NY, AND IS READY TO HELP LAS VEGAS

Date:	July 21, 2010
Time:	5:30pm to 7:30pm
Location:	Ruth's Chris Steakhouse 3900 Paradise Road Las Vegas, NV 89101

Many TMA Nevada members have discussed wanting to make a difference in the challenging economic times facing Las Vegas. When you take the resorts and gaming out of the mix, Las Vegas is a small business community that is hurting. Many of us have discussed how can we help small business, how can we create a dynamic and responsive educational system and how can we help guide the legislature to create a budget that provides for growth and fiscal stability. We also have agreed that, in order to plan for a positive future, we need to create a community where diverse businesses will want to locate, and where their employees will want to settle and grow families.

So, how can we help? Well, perhaps timing is everything...

The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce recently hired an executive from New York, Matt Crosson, as its new president and CEO. For the previous 16 years, Matt provided vision and leadership to the Long Island Association, Inc. With over 5,000 members, the LIA is the largest business and civic association in New York. Matt is credited with leading the turnaround of the Long Island economy in the face of challenging economic times, when a major downsizing at Northrop Gruman Corporation resulted in a loss of more than 100,000 jobs in the area.

Please join TMA Nevada as we meet Matt Crosson and learn what he did for Long Island, and what he plans to do in Las Vegas. Perhaps, in his thoughts, those of us who want to make a difference will find an opportunity to do so.

This exciting evening will be Wednesday, July 21, 2010, at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, 3900 Paradise Road, Las Vegas, NV, 89101 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. The cost is $30 for members, $40 for non-members. Registration includes complimentary appetizers. For more information and online registration, go to www.tmaofnevada.com

TMA Roundtable "War Stories to Share" Evening Goes into Overtime

The June Roundtable turnaround stories kept TMA members and guests engrossed well past the usual time for adjournment as Pat Wisman, Andy Alvillar, Pamela Joy Ring and Phil Cohen shared their personal experiences with the fine art of turnarounds. Each presenter brought an interesting and unique perspective to a discussion that aggregated into a comprehensive overview of business turnarounds.

Pat Wisman, chairman and CEO of SouthwestUSABank, started the discussion. He is the only certified turnaround professional (CTP) in Nevada, and brings years of experience here and on the East Coast to the conversation. According to Wisman, there are three critical success factors to every turnaround. The company must have a viable core business, it must have managerial talent available and it must have access to capital. In today's environment, capital is the biggest challenge, followed by managerial willingness to change. It's critical that management knows what the business will look like after the turnaround, and that it is committed to that vision. That being the case, Wisman commented that turnarounds have five stages. They include management change, situation analysis, emergency action, restructuring and return to what is a "new normal."
Pat's best advice? Be sure a company is really ready for a turnaround before you begin the process. As he says, "If a business wants to go off a cliff, you really aren't going to be able to stop them."

Andy Alvillar, who is a senior manager with GlassRatner Advisory & Capital Group, LLC, followed with his experiences in the real estate industry. According to him, after the subprime meltdown, most property owners, and therefore most of his clients, these days are banks. "Credit was just so available and money so easy to get, that we saw a whole class of new developers, without much experience in real estate. The bottom line is that no one was paying close enough attention." He gave several interesting examples of projects around the country that were inadequately supervised, suffered from poor construction and exhausted their financing long before completion. Andy attributes the failures to a lack of attention to basics and puts the blame on both developers and on the banks making the project loans.

Pamela Joy Ring, president of Ring Retail Advisory, LLC, presented stories of the positive turnaround and repositioning of two retail brands, Judith August Cosmetics and Somers Furniture. Before their re-branding, both companies were product-driven. Pamela worked with her clients to help them understand the need to focus on their customers, and to reflect this orientation in their marketing. "I helped these clients to think strategically and develop sustainable growth plans for their businesses. Today, an effective value proposition must speak to consumer needs and wants, not to the capability of the product producer. The owners of these companies were open to this idea, and I was able to keep them focused on market realities and the real opportunities available to them. Together, we successfully launched two exciting, and turned-around, consumer-driven brands."

The last presenter, Phil Cohen, who is a master certified coach with SPARCK International, spoke about the human factor in turnarounds. According to him, most turnarounds occur in closely held companies and the key is ultimately the people involved. Philip sees his job as helping his clients accurately perceive the reality around them. "Often, management is seeing what it wants to see and is often kidding itself about the situation. I try to introduce a new perspective, and help struggling business owners develop a viable vision for the future." Of course, Philip adds that owners then must be willing to take the steps, which are often painful, necessary to actualize the turnaround. "People fear the unknown, and change is always unknown. Good psychological leadership, to overcome this fear, is a key component in any successful turnaround."

A spirited discussion, and several member stories of their own turnaround experiences, followed the presentations.

Thomas "TJ" Porterfield (left): Thomas Porterfield is a senior manager for the business development company, Modern Technology Solutions Inc., Las Vegas office. MTS is a technology, security and defense company with core capabilities in systems engineering, tests and evaluations, modeling and simulation, acquisition planning, operational concept development and business and financial management.

Pamela Joy Ring (right): Pamela Ring is the president of Ring Retail Advisory, LLC, where she specializes in consulting retailers, consumers goods and services businesses, resort and casino properties, and retail real estate developers in developing and improving their retail operations. With a 30-year track record of creating and growing retail and consumer-driven businesses, her ability to understand and orchestrate consumer needs, market conditions, how to sell, how to motivate sales people, how to create a merchandise mix, and build and design store environments to maximize sales results in optimizing clients' multi-channel sales market reach and bottom line.
As co-founder, executive vice president and acting COO of the publicly traded, multi-sales channel, specialty retailer, Gallery of History, Inc., she applied her expertise in strategic retail brand development, methods of converting impulsive, one-time buying tourists into long term, long distance, repeat-buying customers, and niche product marketing. Ring often is called upon by the media and the industry to speak on strategic decisions in retail planning. She has a BS in economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and an MBA in finance, New York University. Ring is a member of the ICSC, current president of the Turnaround Management Association, Nevada chapter, and is chief board advisor on retail curricula to the Global Gaming Expo (G2E).
To learn more about Pamela, view her profile or website.

Have You TMA'd Today?

• The Workout June 2010
• The Workout May 2010
• The Workout April 2010
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• 2010 Event Archives