AN INTERVIEW WITH

JOAN AND LESLIE DUNN

An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach

Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV

University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas

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©Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project

University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014

Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV – University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers and Editors: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White

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The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a

Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables

students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-

person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the

support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish.

The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false

starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All

measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases

photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator.

The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of

the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project.

Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center

University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas

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PREFACE

Among the stories of those who came to Las Vegas in the 1960s to work at the Nevada Test Site is that of Leslie Dunn and his wife Joan. Leslie had been hired by the U.S. Public Health Service to monitor radiation from the explosions. He has tales flying into craters that make you wide-eyed. This assignment would last until his “retirement” in 1983 – one can’t really describe this couple as retired.

During these early years, while Les pursued his scientist career, Joan’s chief focus was on raising their three children, Bruce Dunn, Loryn Dunn Arkow, and Sharon Dunn Levin. She also completed her education in accounting at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She was involved with Equal Right Amendment efforts and League of Women Voters.

The couple were only in their forties when Les left the PHS. As he looked forward to new opportunities, he felt compelled to pursue his longtime dream to become a builder, something he had dabbled at as a youngster with his father, Jack Dunn. Together, he and Joan embraced the dream. First, with a couple of home remodels; then starting a small concrete business and building a small apartment complex on Sunrise Mountain.

Then in 1988 the stars aligned as Les seized the opportunity to acquire a 40 acre parcel of land, and then another 40 acres, and envisioned a retail mall for the growing hinterlands of Henderson, on the dusty road names Sunset. By 1995, a regional mall named Galleria at Sunset emerge on the wide-open desert near the newly construct I-95. This would not be the Dunn’s last venture for their Dunrite Construction Company.

The Dunns were both born and raised in the Jewish culture of New York City, the Bronx. They were teenagers when they met and fell in love. As with many Jews who relocated to the valley, the Jewish community offered friendships that have remained for decades. Joan recalls her mother-in-law Rose being a strong factor in observing Judaism as a young mother and proudly talks about her children and grandchildren becoming bar/bat mitzvahs.

The couple is also proud of recognition by the Small Business Administration, Distinguished Service Award for the Nevada Health Care for their TLC Care Center, among other recognitions and positions in the greater Las Vegas community.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Joan and Leslie Dunn

June 20, 2016 and May 30, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada

Conducted by Barbara Tabach

Preface……………………………………………………………………………………..……..iv

Leslie’s family roots discussed; grandparents who emigrated from Russia in early 1900s and settled in New York City; was raised in Bronx; attended City College, where he studies civil engineering. Joined U.S. Public Health Service and after a stint in New Orleans was assigned to Las Vegas and worked at the Nevada Test Site in the early 1960s, flying into detonated areas, being tested for radiation levels and his position on the after-effects of the testing………….1 – 8

Talk about Les’s Master’s thesis at Tulane in Sanitary Engineering; being assigned to Environmental Protection Agency as a commissioned officer in Public Health Services during President Nixon’s administration; frustrations………………...…………………………….9 – 13

Joan reflects on this period, her education and route to earning a Bachelor of Science in Biology; move to Las Vegas in 1964 and securing a position with UNLV (formerly Nevada Southern University.); starting a family; being a stay-at-home mother. Also active with League of Women Voters, Jean Ford, spoke at ERA hearings; first home near Koval and Harmon rented for $106/month, moved nearer Nellis Air Force Base; Temple Beth Sholom preschool; carpooling with Gov. Richard Bryan’s children; neighbor of Lonnie Hammergren; life style overview; public schools their children (Bruce, Loryn and Sharon) attended; small town feeling………….13 – 22

Both talk about becoming the contractors for building their own home in Equestrian Estates at Pecos and Warm springs; how the area looked then. Passing of their son Bruce at age 27; how he announced he wanted to attend Hebrew school; Temple Beth Sholom was only synagogue in town but they wanted a more liberal temple. Became involved in the organization of Congregation Ner Tamid; attended meeting at Dr. Kirshbaum’s house; board member; Les’ mother Rose taught in the religious school there; Moe Dalitz and early fundraising……………………….…..…23 – 25

Joan reflects on her mother-in-law Rose as a role model; talks about her personal Jewish heritage and foundation; background of grandparents came in the later 1880s; she was an only child and raise in New York City, her grandmother being the one who made sure she had a Jewish education. Their daughters had bat mitzvahs at Ner Tamid; children attended Jewish camp in Prescott AZ; their grandchildren all became bar/t mitvahs. Talk about Building Committee for Ner Tamid in the 1980s…………………………………………………………………………………….....26 – 28

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Talk about Les’ retirement from Public Health Service and transitioning to the construction business; built four-plexes in Henderson, PEPCON plant explosion of 1988; PEPCON as illegal. Also mention the musical talents of their children. Joan recalls her involvement with the Equal Rights Amendment hearings, to be ratified; ………………………………………..………29 – 33

Les summarizes the highlights of his life’s first forty-five years. More about Ner Tamid formation and Las Vegas history with mobsters such as Moe Dalitz, criminalization of alcohol. Englestad episode at Imperial Palace celebrating Hitler’s birthday, how heirs have done much for the community to more than make up for that. Humorous story about Richard and Carol Oshins who once bought their home……………………………………………………………………..34 – 37

Thoughts about impact of Jewish community on Las Vegas growth in general; difficulty of attracting rabbis in earlier days; small affiliation rate. Remember dancing at the Desert Inn on weekends to live music; Garden Room and Sinatra; drummer Buddy Rich as a former neighbor; Spilotro children classmates of the child……………………………………..…………….37 – 40

Session 2

After retirement, Les recalls pursuing his dream to become a builder; he and Joan begin with a a couple jobs in home repairs and remodels; built apartments on Sunrise Mountain, and then start a small concrete business, Dunrite Construction. Built a small office park for small contractors in Henderson. Tells the story of purchasing a 40 acre parcel on a dirt road called Sunset in Henderson in 1985; how he invited investors to join his LLC and actually purchased 80 acres which became the site of Galleria Mall; included negotiations with Father Cavallo of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church; how they learned to build a regional mall and created a scholarship fund for St. Viator’s; interviewing architectural firms; steps taken to build malls in stages; by January 1986 all the pieces came together…………………………………………………………………………….…41 – 54

Steps to find anchor stores while the recession of the mid-1980s is raging; steps to design and construct the mall; construction commences in 1994. Buys property from City of Henderson which eventually was purchased by the Clark County School District for Green Valley High School; also donated a parcel of land there for the College of Southern Nevada, the Leslie and Joan Dunn Advanced Technology Center……………………………………………………………….54 – 60

Talks about buying another 80 acres parcel; learning and building during a recession. Discuss Joan’s role; being a married couple in partnership; building other shopping centers in Henderson, including Stephanie Power Center, Green Valley Station Shopping Center, and also some in development in California. Talk about time when there was an effort to stop devilment in Las Vegas by the Federal Government – protection of tortoise, water issues, 10-15 year cycles of overbuilding in the valley…………………………………………………………..……….61 – 66

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Talk about being honored by Small Business Administration in 2004; building TLC Care Center, a rehabilitation facility in Henderson; dealing with government regulations; how TLC has become Les’s cause. The facility has short-term and long-term patients/residents…………………66 – 69

Discuss their grandchildren; comparison to their growing up in Bronx. And the luxury home that the Dunns now live in in Anthem Country Club overlooking the city of Las Vegas – includes how they came to build this home over seven years. Raising their three children and where they are now. Being active in AIPAC, Jewish National Fund, Israel causes such as CUFI [Christians United for Israel]. Talk about the BDS [Boycott Divestment Sanctions] movement to stop Israeli-made products from being sold. Their dedication and trips to Israel, importance of knowing history of the area…………………………………………………………………………………….70 – 77

Mention long friendships. Les mentions encountering anti-Semitism at Test Site at first. Talks about his patriotism, belief in free speech, importance of learning American history; being able to own their home; growth in local population they have observed; professional sports coming to Las Vegas; changes in malls and retail shopping; changes in residential development as property prices increase; future expansion and water; local education and other topics of importance as we face the future. Talks more about being on building committee for Congregation Ner Tamid during its founding; Temple Shirat Sholom and Philip Goldstein…………………..……………..….78 – 88

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Today is June 20th, 2016. This is Barbara Tabach working on the Southern Nevada Jewish

Heritage project and it's my pleasure to finally sit down with Leslie and Joan Dunn. I'll

ask you first to spell your name for the book.

L-E-S-L-I-E, D-U-N-N; Leslie Dunn.

Great. Thank you.

Joan, J-O-A-N; Dunn, D-U-N-N.

For the Jewish project, it's always fun to hear about family roots.

Where did your family ancestry begin? I'll start with you, Leslie.

LESLIE: My grandfather was from western Russia. There were continuous pogroms in Russia

against the Jews in the early 1900s. I guess, he saw the writing on the wall, and decided that he

would leave Russia. He was twenty years old when he came to the United States. He arrived in

1903. He was introduced to my grandmother, who also came to the United States about the same

time, cupid’s arrow struck and they were married. They set up housekeeping in a little apartment

in lower Manhattan. They became part of the Jewish immigrants seeking a better, safer life in

America. They had no money. They didn't speak English. They were in America and it was

better than living in Southern Russia.

My grandfather did odd jobs. He borrowed money from a cousin and bought a candy

route of penny machines, in Manhattan and Brooklyn. He eventually got a job with the City of

New York as railroad conductor on the subway system. I guess, he did that most of his life until

he retired. He received a small pension when he retired. He always made a living, took care of

his family and loved being an American citizen.

He didn't stop working after he retired. He knew Manhattan and the Bronx and he

worked for a dentist delivering teeth. I remember that, because he would have some of the

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grandchildren help him on his deliveries. He would pay us a dollar or two a day to help him. It

was really nice having some time alone with Grandpa. I came on the scene in 1940. The

extended family lived in the same neighborhood in tiny apartments. We would get together on

Friday nights grandma and the aunts made Shabbat dinner. There were always ten or twelve

people—cousins, aunts, uncles. We all lived within a few blocks of each other in New York

City. We all went to public schools. I went to PS 59, PS 118, and DeWitt Clinton High School.

I was not a great student, but I was in Arista and I was in the top quarter of the class.

I went to the City College of the City of New York. I joined the ROTC (Reserve Officer

Training Corp) at school and graduated with a BS in Civil Engineering. I enlisted in the U.S.

Public Health Service with the Naval Rank of Ensign.

I met Joan, when she was sixteen and a senior in high school. I was nineteen years old

and I knew she was the one and that we would build a great life together. We dated for three and

a half years. She also went to City College. After I joined the U.S. Public Health Service, we

were married. I was assigned to New Orleans.

BARBARA: I want to hold up before we get you to New Orleans. Let's go back to being

raised in New York City. So you were right in Bronx, the whole family lived—

LESLIE: In the Bronx.

BARBARA: In the Bronx, okay. And your grandfather did this teeth delivery service.

Your grandfather was the one doing that?

Right. My mother was a school crossing guard and busy raising me and my brother.

What did your father do?

My father was a small contractor in New York City. I started working with him when I was

twelve years old. My father would take me on jobs. We would do repairs. He taught me how to

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use tools, how to build things and to be self-reliant. I would also make a little extra money. I

was always an entrepreneurial kid. I would go with him when I was off from school or when he

needed some help, someone to carry his tools, a helper in training.

Was that customary in that era that kids would start working at that young age or did you

do that just because you're adventurous.

I worked to make money and learn skills. I washed floors for twenty-five cents in the other

apartments in my building. I was kind of the bad boy of the block. An independent soul, my

way or the highway.

How is that?

When I was fourteen, I bought our family’s first home with the money in my bank account that I

had received and saved from my Bar Mitzvah.

When I was sixteen, I bought a sailboat. I would race in regattas on Long Island Sound.

I was also on my high school rifle team. My father taught me how to shoot when I was about ten

or eleven—he took me to a shooting range in the Bronx, which happened to be where Hank

Greenspun had hid the illegal guns that he had managed to obtain. Those guns were shipped to

Israel during the 1948 war of Independence. I have continued my gun hobby throughout my

life. I still enjoy it. It is important for me to know that I can protect my family.

How did you decide to go to City College?

It was what we could afford. We were a middle class or lower middle class family in terms of

economics. City College was one of the best institutions in the country at that time. In order to

get into the college you had to have a ninety average or above and you had to have high marks

on the New York State Regents exams. It was a great academic institution.

So you're at City College; you're a smart guy. What did you decide to study?

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I chose civil engineering. The great works that advanced civilization: aqueducts, hydraulics and

mechanics made farming possible, creating villages, towns and cities. I wanted to be part of the

future, idealism of youth. I think I was looking forward in my junior and senior years to moving

out West. The Big West where there were great opportunities, new projects, this was my future.

I decided to join the U.S. Public Health Service. The USPHS was actively recruiting.

How did that work?

When I joined the service, I was assigned to New Orleans for my first two years in the Bureau of

Air Pollution. Then I applied to the Bureau of Radiological Health and I was assigned to

Nevada. The laboratory in Las Vegas was tasked with the health safety of the public related to

nuclear weapon systems development at the Nevada Test Site.

My career turned from air pollution and water pollution to nuclear environmental safety.

We were the watchdogs for the radiological health of our country here at the Nevada Test Site.

How did that work? How could you watch for that? I'm really fascinated by that whole

era of development in the Las Vegas area.

We were a group of engineers and scientists. We worked on the UNLV campus. In 1964, we

had at that time on the university grounds, four research laboratories. UNLV had an additional

four buildings on the campus. At night, I taught fluid mechanics in the Engineering Department

at the University.

When I arrived in Las Vegas, our laboratory was developing programs to monitor

radiation. If any radioactivity was released from the Nevada Test Site, we tracked it and alerted

people in the path of the radioactive cloud. They had just converted from above ground nuclear

testing to underground testing. We had a fleet of aircraft that we flew out of McCarran Airport.

I also flew out of Nellis as a commissioned officer on military aircraft over the Nevada Test Site.

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We would fly over ground zero, minutes after the detonation to see if there was any venting.

During my career, I flew about two hundred and fifty missions. Many missions involved

tracking radioactive clouds, over the United States, to document radioactivity levels.

So this was during the era when the tests were below ground.

In 1962, in order to prevent radiation exposure to the general public, all testing was to be done

underground. All of the detonations occurred anywhere from a thousand to several thousand

feet below the ground. However, when an atomic device detonates it melts the surrounding rock.

Depending on the size and the yield of the shot, a molten spherical cavity forms, approximately

five to eight hundred feet in diameter. Several hours afterwards, the cavity would collapse

forming a crater on the surface. Sometimes there would be venting into the atmosphere, carrying

radioactivity downwind hundreds of miles. The Test Site was located approximately a hundred

and twenty miles from Las Vegas. There still were many vents that occurred.

So your typical day of work back then—you would have been how old? So you were just

twenty-four.

Twenty-four, yes. I was born in 1940.

We had our own laboratories on the University campus and had aircraft at McCarran

Airport. We would fly to the test site on the day of a test. We had our own aircraft, military

aircraft and we would fly those planes up to the Test Site and then circle Yucca Flat or wherever

the shots were scheduled, and then we would fly right over ground zero.

There was one time we were flying over ground zero at about fifty feet and the detonation

collapsed. The next thing we knew we were two hundred and fifty feet below ground in a crater.

We kept flying and we were lucky enough to fly out—the crater was wide enough. Then we

circled the collapsed crater and measured the radiation that was escaping.

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Do you remember that moment, what you felt like when suddenly you were surrounded

like that?

We were flying at fifty feet above the ground and then we were two hundred and fifty feet below

the surface—the whole column of air went down. So all I remember is—it happened

instantaneously—is that we were below ground and the surface was two hundred fifty feet above

us.

So, Joan, did you know about this? Did he come home and share that experience with you?

Of course, yes, yes.

That would be frightening.

We were warriors. It was fun.

It was fun to be a warrior, okay.

I mean this was national defense. We were developing the nuclear capabilities of our country.

At that point in time, all of the tests would measure the yields and efficiency of our nuclear

arsenal.

And all the crew members were tested after the flights for their radioactivity levels and they were

all radioactive, all the guys.

We were hot; colloquialism for high levels of radioactive iodine. I was a scientific officer. Our

lab developed computer algorithms to measure the radiation levels, measure the amount of

radioactive isotopes that escaped from the ground and traveled with the cloud. We would track

the cloud until the radioactive levels diminished to background. At our laboratory, we developed

criteria for the biological critical receptor. These are the safe levels of environmental exposure,

how much radiation an individual could be exposed to safely. Radiation levels decrease with

time. The first day most of the short half-life isotopes decayed. These radioactive iodines decay,

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fallout or they're rained out, they settle on farm pasture lands. The small farm pasturelands in

Utah have family cows; the cow would graze on the pasture, about five acres per cow and

concentrate the radioactive iodine. In most cases, radiation gets diluted because the milk from a

lot of dairies are combined together diluting the radiation. However, a family cow, eats five

acres of grass. All the radiation that fell out of the radioactive cloud at very low levels is now

concentrated into two gallons of milk. The milk is then ingested by a child and all the

radioactive iodine again gets concentrated. This time into a child’s thyroid, which is the size of a

pea. The radioactive levels are 10,000 times higher in the child’s thyroid than the levels on the

grass. There have been cases—the government denies it—but the levels of thyroid cancer in

small towns around the Nevada Test Site in Utah were ten times higher than in communities that

weren’t in the path of the radiation.

So there is scientific research or controversy over that; there's evidence that would

substantiate that.

There was controversy. It took years. The government didn't admit this scenario until the late

nineties. Okay? That's just the beginning story.

I read the book Area 51 and I've interviewed others. We did a small project for the wives

of the scientists from the Test Site, some of whom you probably knew. Then I interviewed

Dr. Leonard Kreisler for this project.

I know Dr. Kreisler. His opinion—and he has to live with himself—was that no, it didn't affect

the children. I and a lot of other professionals, looking post-period, recognized the patterns that

there were and the high levels of the radiation. To dismiss it as, oh, well, thyroid cancer is a

natural thing! If the radiation levels are significantly higher and the cancer rates are ten times

higher than the national average, in communities in the path of the radioactive cloud and we

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have an exposure model that shows how radiation is concentrated throughout the environment:

from the air, to the rain, to particles, to the grazing land, to the cows, to the milk, to the child, the

critical receptor, there may be a significant correlation between the exposure and the higher

cancer rates. They can hide their head in the sand and say whatever they want.

Were you worried yourself during those—

I was in my twenties.

You're invincible at that age no matter what.

Exactly.

I was a little worried. I was concerned.

Twenty-four years old. Your country is involved in the Cold War. You have a mission to do.

You don't worry about those things. You do your job.

When you're flying through the clouds, there was one cloud that was so radioactive that it

pegged every instrument. We had a significant range of instruments onboard the aircraft to

measure high levels of radiation from the cloud. It's a matter of not only the concentration, but

the time that you're in the cloud.

So when you would finish and you had any level of exposure, did they have a process for

decontaminating you?

Yes. It was a whole body counter and would measure the concentrations of radioisotopes that

we had in our bodies. There were certain criteria; if you received certain exposures, then you

had to restrict your exposure for a number of months or even a year before you could fly on

missions again.

Well, I can see we can probably do a whole long conversation on this alone.

Right. It's a whole story here.

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This is fascinating; this is just one part of your life.

Right.

JOAN: I want to point out that when we lived in New Orleans, while Les was working, he also

received a Master's Degree in Sanitary Engineering from Tulane University. For his Master's

thesis, he went to Colombia, South America and studied river pollution on the Rio Cauca.

LES: When I did my research in Columbia, I worked at the University in Cali. We were looking

for the point of contamination from human waste products. Cali was a city of six hundred

thousand people. The main sewer plant dumped all the sewage into the Rio Cauca, which was a

small river. Below the output of the sewage plant was the intake from the water plant. Although

the water plant was fairly modern and had good facilities to clarify the water like we do in the

United States, if the treatment plant would break down the sewage would go directly into the

water plant serving six hundred thousand people, a very hazardous situation.

My study involved measuring the amounts of fecal coli in the water. We did tests for

different contaminants. I recommended that the intake for the water plant be relocated above the

sewage plant so that if the sewage plant should have a malfunction, the city’s water supply could

not be contaminated by human waste. I made those recommendations to their civil authorities in

my Master's thesis.

In regards to the testing program, when the winds were in the direction of Las Vegas, no

testing was conducted. We only tested when the trajectory of the winds were over low-density

populations or uninhabited areas of Utah. When you say uninhabited areas, it doesn't mean that

there are no people there; it means that the density is extremely low.

Did you read that book Area 51 [by Annie Jacobsen] that was published in 2011?

No, I haven't read that.

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I'd be curious—

I wanted to point out, that when the program needed airplanes to do oversight across the

country, Leslie went to Washington D.C. and was able to acquire several helicopters for the

Public Health Service laboratory here in Las Vegas. Nobody could believe that he went to

Washington and just talked everybody into giving him the helicopters. It was a longer story.

It's a longer story.

What was your motivation—

That was my story: I was assigned to the Environmental Protection Agency when it was formed.

I was a Commissioned Officer in the Public Health Service and was assigned to the

Environmental Protection Agency. In 1972, President Nixon was very interested in the

environment. He was doing everything to prevent environmental pollution and improve air and

water quality. A task force was instituted to look at a large majority of lakes across the United

States. I went to Washington and proposed a program to study several thousand lakes across the

United States. I proposed doing it with a group of scientists and limnologists using a fleet of

helicopters. It had to be accomplished in a matter of a year and a half because of the

environmental conditions of eutrophication of the U.S. lakes.

The only way to really do that many lakes was to develop special equipment. We

needed to fly to a lake with a helicopter and then sample several places in the lake. Due to

seasonal variations of the pollutants we sampled each of the lakes three times during the year.

We built sampling equipment that had wenches and sensors that were placed into the lakes and

we also had samplers that could sample the lake bottom. Then we study the data and see the

eutrophication, which is the pollution that occurs from the nitrification of waste products.

We did this with the use of three helicopters and establishing bases throughout the United

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States for servicing the helicopters and repairing them. Since we were all Commissioned

Officers, we could use Air Force bases in every state. We had a series of thirty or forty Air Force

bases that would service our helicopters, which were Huey helicopters that had been used in

Vietnam. That is a story in itself. But we would fly and do testing in many lakes. We also had

limnologists with the team and they examined the biota of the lake bottoms. We established the

levels of different chemicals within the lakes. We could do a hundred lakes out of an Air Force

base and then move on, fly to another Air Force base and do another hundred lakes. We did this

several times a year for a year and a half and established a baseline of pollution, or non-levels of

pollution in almost every state throughout the United States, an adequate sampling to determine

the eutrophication of the lakes in the US.

I contacted the army at the Pentagon three or four months before we were going to start

our program and checked out what kind of helicopters they could supply us that were surplus to

their needs. I called a group called Axe-4, which is the army field command for their assets.

They said, "Okay, we can give you three of these helicopters." I proceeded to put together a

twenty-five-million-dollar program, hire people, get everything ready. We were supposed to go

into the field April or May of '72.

I went to Washington to discuss delivery of the helicopters. I met Colonel Pickering who

proceeded to tell me that they no longer had these helicopters available. He was a Colonel and I

was, at that time, a Lieutenant Commander. He said, "Commander, we just don't have these

available for you at this time." I said, "I put together a program. This is a big thing, very

important." I said, “President Nixon wants this done."

He didn't want to hear it. I said to him, "Colonel, what would it take for you to change

your mind on this?" He said, "If the Secretary of the Army tells me to give you the helicopters,

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probably you'd get them." I said, "Thank you."

I went back to my offices in Washington, D.C. thoroughly knowing that I don't know the

Secretary. How the hell am I going to get to the Secretary? My morale was not very high. So

I'm sitting in the offices on K Street trying to figure out...This is the end of my career. I've spent

all this money. No helicopters. No program. What do I do?

While I was sitting in the office, the Deputy Secretary of the EPA that I was assigned to

was in the office, too. I went in and said, "Sir, I'm having some problems." I said, "Timing,

doesn't look like I can get these helicopters.", "You wouldn't happen to know the Secretary of the

Army, would you?" He said, "Oh, sure, I was at a party with him last week." I said, "There's a

matter of timing on getting these helicopters. It would really help if we had a letter from you to

the Secretary of the Army requesting these helicopters." And I said, with chutzpah, that this was

a presidential mandate to get this done. He said, "Sure, write it up for me and I’ll get it done."

So I sat down, wrote it up, gave it to him to sign. He made a few changes. He said, "I've

called the Secretary." Take this over to the Pentagon, give it to his adjutant. He said he'll take

care of it."

Go over, give it to the adjutant. Wait two days. Now, they don't know how to contact

me. Call up Colonel Pickering. Get on the phone. "Colonel, this is Commander Dunn." I said,

"Did you get my letter?" He said, "Commander, there's been a big misunderstanding." What I

really need to know is how many helicopters do you need and when did you want them?" He

said, "Why don't you come over here for lunch?" I said, "Fine, I'll meet you at the Pentagon for

lunch."

We sat down. He said, "I didn't understand. When we got the letter, the shit hit the fan."

I said, "I tried to tell you that this was from the President." He said, "Well, no problem, we're

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going to give you some zero-time helicopters from the factory in Fort Worth. "When do you

need them?" I said, "I need them in two months." He said, "They'll be ready."

The helicopters had come back from Vietnam and were completely checked and rebuilt

for us. I flew my pilots to Fort Worth. We picked up the helicopters and flew them back to Las

Vegas. That was almost a career-ending situation.

It sounds like it became a great pivotal moment.

Well, yes, it was.

It came together then at least.

Yes. The word is chutzpah.

Well, let's take a pause on that.

BARBARA: Joan, you're living here while your husband's career is developing. What

were you doing? What did you think about coming to Las Vegas in general? Take me

through your arrival here and that period of time.

JOAN: I had mentioned that when we got married in New York, Les was already in the U.S.

Public Health Service and he was being assigned to New Orleans. I still had one more year to

go to graduate college. So I rushed; that last summer I went to three summer schools—two at

NYU; one at City College—and I completed one semester. I had one semester to finish and off

we went to New Orleans. We were married that August of 1962 and I finished my last semester

at Sophie Newcomb College, which was the girls' college affiliated with Tulane University. I

received a Bachelor of Science degree from the City College of New York in Biology.

We lived in New Orleans on St Charles Avenue. I worked at, Tulane Medical School in a

laboratory doing research on high blood pressure medications.

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In 1964, Les was assigned to the Division of Radiological Health in Las Vegas. When we came

here, there was very little, only a population of 200,000, but we were so happy to be out in a

different area of the country, away from the mosquitoes and humidity.

Why were you so happy?

Well, just the atmosphere in New Orleans; it was kind of depressing. We didn't know anybody

except a cousin of Leslie's who had moved there just before we did. So basically, he and his wife

were all who we knew. Les worked in a field trailer alone and I was going to school with young

people who were not married. I entertained myself by visiting the local cemetery where there

were above ground burials due to New Orleans being below sea level.

Les’ cousin was an engineer who worked on the Apollo space program. He was in a group that

developed the space suit that was used on the Apollo missions out of Hattiesburg Mississippi

That's amazing.

When we arrived in Las Vegas, we knew somebody that was friends with a friend of Les’ mother,

the husband was an entertainer on the Strip, the wife had been my Girl Scout leader in the

Bronx. When we arrived, Les began working at the Southern Nevada Radiological Health

Laboratory (SWRHL.) I tried to find a job, but with a degree in biology in 1964 Las Vegas,

there was really nothing. I was finally able to get a job at UNLV (at the time called Nevada

Southern University.) I was in charge of the chemistry and physics laboratories. They were

located in the Science building, one of only 4 buildings on the campus. I dealt with the students,

preparing for their assignments and ordering the supplies and chemicals. I did that for, oh,

about a year and a half.

We had been trying to have a family and it wasn't working out. My mother was 37 when I

was born quote, pretty old, and I didn't really want to be an old mother. We decided we were

15

going to adopt a child and we went through Catholic Services. We were able to adopt an

adorable little baby. We flew to Reno and brought him home that very day. He was 5 days old.

He was a delight; we named him Bruce. It was hard being a new mother, and we had nobody

here to help.. The only friends we knew were the people that Les worked with. We were not

involved in the Jewish community at all.

We went to a Lutheran church.

Yes.

Oh, really?

A few times with friends. Actually, we were stand-in godparents at a baptism.

Yes, substitute godparents at a Lutheran baptism for our friend’s new baby. They didn’t know

other Lutherans and we were friends, Les worked with William, the father.

Eventually I had two biological children, Loryn and Sharon. I was one of the earliest recipients

of the new fertility medications.

Child development.

Yes. I raised the children here. We still didn't belong to any synagogue. Over the course of a

few years, Leslie's mother moved to Las Vegas after Leslie's father had passed away in New

York. Leslie’s brother had previously moved here too. I got along really, really well with

Leslie's mother, Rose. It was a true friendship. She was a wonderful grandmother to the kids.

I, at that time, said, "There's no way I could make enough money to go out and work—

—to get a job and then pay someone to raise my children that I wanted to raise my way." So I

stayed home and raised the children. I always had them on the move, never sitting still. There

was very little to do here then with children. I remember taking them to Paradise Park, Fantasy

Park, Woolco for a petting zoo and spending hours at Vegas Village (an all in one store, a

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forerunner of Walmart.) We went to the Nevada Test site gathering spent shells from the

bombing range to Shoshone chipping away for opals imbedded in the rocks. We went to Mt

Charleston for sleigh riding and collecting pine cones for the pinion pine nuts. We camped and

hiked at Brian Head, Utah.

They were always having fun, learning and doing physical and outdoor activities. They were

involved in everything and every day we got up and out and did something.

I was active in the League of Women Voters and did soliciting in neighborhoods on

behalf of candidates that I supported. There was a woman, Jean Ford, who was like my idol at

that time and who became a State Senator. I remember walking the precinct by myself with a

stroller. The precinct went from Flamingo to Tropicana and from Pecos to Sandhill; that's how

empty the area was at that time, that one person could walk the entire precinct and knock on

every door.

I spoke at the Equal Rights Amendment hearings that were held at the Flamingo library.

I brought my daughter, Loryn, with me, she was about seven, and I told her that this would be an

important day in her life. The Amendment was never ratified by the required number of states,

Nevada being one of them.

Oh my goodness. So where were you living at that time?

Well, we lived in several places. When we first came here, we lived in an apartment near Koval

Lane and Harmon. It was a newly developed area then. We were one of the first residents.

When we moved in, we paid a hundred-and-six-dollars-a-month rent for a two-bedroom

apartment with a pool.

Never been lived in.

Never been lived in because, as Las Vegas has always done, it's always overbuilt, then there's a

17

crash, then there is a recession, then when the economy improves, they overbuild again. So that

was our first crash in the sixties.. Then, I ended up with two dogs in an apartment because my

parents brought out my childhood dog, Pepper, who they no longer wanted to take care of, and I

had a puppy, Cobble. So I said to Les, "We need to get a house with a yard."

We rented a house near Flamingo and Nellis. It was a nice quiet neighborhood at that

time. We rented it from a woman whose husband was in the military. We were there about four

months when we received a call from Nellis Air Force base. The husband was coming back to

Las Vegas and they would like to go back to their house and would we be so kind as to give up

our lease and let them. So we did.

Then we rented a house on the other side of Boulder Highway, an area that had also been

overbuilt. We didn't really have any neighbors. It was a house on an empty street.

Then a couple of months later we decided that it was time to buy a house. Our first house

was off Desert Inn Road on Sombrero, behind Sunrise Hospital, which at that time was a very

nice neighborhood. We lived there five years and I was raising two children. They attended

Temple Beth Sholom Preschool on Oakey. I would in the summer go to Vegas Village shopping

center because there were no places that were cool or air-conditioned to go to and it was too hot

to be outside.

Then our garbage disposal went out. We had been in that house five years. Les said,

"Time to move; this house is going to nickel and dime us to death."

So I grabbed the paper because I knew that once he gets an idea in his head it's hard to

take it out. They were having a close out at Paradise Crest, near Flamingo and Sandhill, which,

at that time was in the middle of nowhere but beautiful. There was no shopping. There wasn’t

anything in the area. Les said, "Too expensive for us." So I said, "Well, it's a closeout. Let's

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go."

We ended up buying one of the houses. It was just the basic house. It had concrete

floors. It had no yard. Nothing was really finished. So over the years we finished it. We had

our third child, Sharon. I remember distinctly my neighbor next door; her husband was a dentist.

I'm out on the front lawn with the kids playing and she put her nose in the air and she said, "I

didn't think that young families with children would be able to move here." So needless to say,

we never really got friendly with that neighbor.

Now we have three children: Bruce, Loryn and Sharon. At that time, we didn't have any

relatives here, and the only people we knew were the guys Les worked with and their families.

We still didn't belong to any synagogue but we did join the Jewish Young Couples Club, a group

for young Jewish couples to meet. The children all went to Temple Beth Sholom preschool. We

raised the children and I involved them in every activity possible. They did gymnastics, soccer,

guitar, piano, swimming, and were active in school activities. They were on the Sandpiper swim

team at UNLV. I kept them really, really active. They went to Lewis Rowe Elementary School,

which at that time was like the best elementary school on this side of town. I was active in the

PTA and I still drove so much that my son said that I should get a chauffeur’s license because I

did so much driving.

Loryn was the first student in the AT program (Academically Talented, now called the Gifted

and Talented.)

She was attending Temple Beth Sholom preschool. Her birthday was in October and the cutoff

was September 30th for starting school. I said, "This child does not need another year of

preschool." It just happened that year they started the AT program. She was the first student in

the program. There was another girl whose father worked with Les who lived near Desert Inn

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and Nellis. We car pooled to the one school that had the program, which was on the west side.

On the other side of town.

What school was that?

I'm trying to remember the name of it. Red Rock Elementary.

Kenny Guinn, yes, a future Governor, who was then Superintendent of the Clark County School

District—I called Kenny Guinn and I said, " I have a daughter. She's four and a half, this is the

results of her intelligence testing and they're supposed to be starting this program, but it hasn't

come through yet. I don't know if I should sign her up for another year of preschool or if this

program is going to be started." He said, "The program will be going. She'll be accepted into

the program and don't worry about sending her to preschool." Nowadays who would call?

The Superintendent of the School District or who could get through.

He was the head of the school district at that time.

It was a different time.

Right. It was a small town.

Smaller, yes.

Our kids car-pooled with the Governor’s, Richard Bryan’s, children. He subsequently became

senator. His wife Bonnie was a wonderful woman who recently passed away.

They lived in our neighborhood. It was just a small town. Dr. Lonnie Hammergren also lived

in our neighborhood. He was a well-known neurosurgeon and a Lieutenant Governor. His

daughter Amy was in my Girl Scout troop.

So you had access to everybody at different levels and everybody knew each other. It was a

small state and a small city.

That's when everyone said you really didn't have to lock your doors.

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It was a whole different...

It was a different way of life.

Did you go down to the Strip at all?

We hardly did because we didn't have extra money. We didn't spend any on entertainment

(which I regret now, not seeing the famous entertainers who brought Las Vegas to life.) The

only money we spent was on the children’s activities. Whatever lesson, whatever they wanted or

I thought they should have, that's what we spent our money on. Vacations were really minor;

we'd go camping.

We were living on a military salary. At that time it was very low, a few thousand dollars a year.

So later on when they—

They raised the salary.

So it was difficult for me. I didn't know very many people and it was so hot and I had always

wanted to have a career.

I really, first of all, wanted to raise great kids and be there for them.

That's an important job, for sure.

Which I did, I must say.

It's okay to be proud.

While raising the children, I attended Nevada Southern University, which became UNLV. I

received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Accounting. I knew that

accounting would give me more opportunity in Las Vegas than a B.S. in Biology. I studied while

the children were at school and went to UNLV in the evenings.

The children attended Lewis Rowe Elementary School, Kit Carson Sixth Grade Center,

Gehring Elementary School, Cannon Junior High School and Valley High School. Then went on

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to Culinary School of America, Harvard, Wharton, John Hopkins and Stanford.

When my son and my older daughter were sixth-grade age, they had sixth grade centers,

for integration. All the students in sixth grade from all over the valley were bussed to the west

side. The children on the west side were bussed all over town for all the other grades. It was not

a successful venture.

What did you think about that?

I don't think it worked. It was difficult on the children and on the parents. Some children spent

hours on a bus for many years.

We lived in Paradise Crest for five years when the children were young. When Les was

nearing retirement from the U.S. Public Health Service he wanted to go into the construction

field. He said (this is chutzpah,) “I want to build our own house so I'll learn every trade because

I want to be a general contractor."

This is a carryover from your father.

Yes, Les had worked with his father who was an electrical contractor, his father was very handy,

and Les learned how to do many things. He wanted his own business and that's what he wanted

to do.

I really liked living in Paradise Crest, I knew people there, it was a great neighborhood,

and I loved the school. One day there was a knock on my door and the woman said, "I heard

your house is for sale." I said, "Well, I really haven't decided that yet." So she said, "Well, I'm

here. Can I see it?" I said, "Well, I'll show you part of the house, but not the bedrooms."

Because I had three children, it was a little messy.

Did you know this person?

No. But she had gotten our name from (Senator) Richard Bryan's wife, Bonnie who had heard

22

that we might be moving.

It was a small town.

It was a small town, right. I told Les about it and then I figured, how will it would be if I don't

do this and he's not able to do that; become a contractor? Maybe I need to do it. So I said,

"Okay." We actually sold the house to that couple, the Oshins, Richard Oshins who is an

attorney in town and his wife Carol.

An aside to that, Richard Oshins is—do you know Richard?

I don't know him, no, but I know the name, yes.

Les, you know which story I'm talking about?

Yes, it comes later.

When his son—

Yes, yes. Richard Oshins was a very successful estate-planning attorney in town.

Nationally also.

Yes. So they bought the house. We had six months or so to leave. We had to start the scramble.

We finally had to leave the house. I think Carol gave us extra time. We moved in with Leslie's

mother in a two-bedroom Heritage Square little attached house with three children and a dog.

After two weeks, I said to Les, "This is not going to work."

We actually moved into the new house with nothing in it. I think we had one toilet that

worked. The kitchen didn't have any appliances yet. We made it. We went every day to this

house. Leslie was the owner/builder and I was the attendant...whatever needed to be done. I

helped all the subs do this, do that. Leslie made me sweep the whole place every day because he

said, "The worst thing in building is that workmen step off a ladder onto a screw or something

and twist their ankle and break their leg." So there I was sweeping and cleaning every day and

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paying the bills for this house that was being built. Leslie was hiring and learning all the trades.

So both of you are operating as contractors for the building of your house.

Les learned each trade as we went along.

Where was this house being built?

This was in Equestrian Estates at Pecos and Warm Springs, which was then in the middle of

nowhere. I mean Warm Springs was not paved. Pecos was not paved . Tomiyasu was paved,

Sierra Vista and Wayne Newton’s ranch were there. Las Vegas ended at our house and then

Henderson started with only 12000 people near the downtown area. Equestrian Estates didn't

even have their outside wall yet. There was, I think, one other house there.

People know where Wayne Newton's—

Yes, it was right down the road from Wayne Newton's house.

I remember one time we were going on vacation and there was no way for us to drive our

car. There had been a huge rainstorm and everything was flooded. A neighbor took us in a

four-wheel drive Jeep to the airport.

Then, after we built the house, Les got his general contracting license. We opened up a

small contracting company.

I did a lot with the kids and they really turned out great. Loryn and Sharon each have

two boys of their own and are continuing the tradition of being very very busy. Bruce, being a

typical boy, never followed through when he had an ugly thing on the bottom of his foot and

that's where his melanoma was.

That's sad.

Yes, it was very sad. He had been married for a year and was a chef at the Mirage. Les was

building him a restaurant in a shopping center that we owned. Sharon set it up after Bruce got

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too sick. She was a student at The Wharton School in Philadelphia and a business maven. She

put together the structure of the business, the menus, the purchasing, the accounting. We named

the restaurant Gator Alli since it was adjacent to Green Valley H.S. and their mascot was the

Gator.

So he was young when he passed away.

Twenty-seven. When Bruce was seven, he came to me and said, "I want to go to Hebrew school."

I'm thinking, what? Where did he get that idea? It must have been from Leslie's mother. So I

said to Les, "We probably should send him." We didn't belong to any synagogue at that time.

Beth Sholom was the only game in town then. We met with Leo Wilner, the Executive

Director. We just didn't feel like it was a place for us. It was just too much.

And your mother is living here.

Yes, but she didn't belong to a synagogue.

Was she more observant before she moved here?

Yes, she belonged to a Reform Synagogue and Judaism was a very important part of who she

was.

More than we were.

There's a sliding scale.

Right, a sliding scale. We left the meeting and we didn't join. About two weeks later, I was

reading the newspaper and I see, "Reform Temple organizing; anybody interested please call,"

and there's a number. So I called and they said, "We're having our first meeting next Thursday

at Dr. Kirshbaum's house." He was a veterinarian in town and very involved at Beth Sholom.

I said to Les, "Let's go and see what this is all about."

We went and we listened to everything and we joined that night. We became founding

25

members of the new Congregation Ner Tamid. They had about twenty-five people at that first

meeting. That's how our affiliation began with Ner Tamid . We became very involved with the

Temple and Les went on the Board. Leslie’s mom, Rose, taught kindergarten and second grade

in the Religious School. For years we just rented from churches, we went from one church to

another. We were in an Episcopal church. We were in a Baptist church. We were in a

Methodist church. We were at UNLV. Then we decided to build a building and we had a big

fund drive and Les was put in charge of the building committee. He was now a licensed general

contractor. It was a very difficult time in his life dealing with everybody, all the personalities,

and the contractor that was actually hired to do the work. He was just the liaison for the

building committee. We went through many rabbis at that time. It was a very uncomfortable

time, but the Temple continued to increase in membership. We built a very nice building. We

received donations. Even Frank Sinatra, I believe gave twenty-five thousand dollars for the

lobby. Some other big names gave money.

Moe Dalitz.

Moe Dalitz gave money.

Of course, there was a big fund drive. Funding synagogues is always a continuous concern.

Leslie's mom became very active in the Sisterhood. She was Sisterhood president for many

years. She received the Great Lady Award.

Most of the parents today were Rose’s students in the second grade.

She taught second grade in the religious school at Ner Tamid.

Oh, okay. I guess I didn't know that part of the story at all.

Everybody knows my mother.

Rose Dunn. When she got older and we'd go out to dinner, somebody would come up to her and

26

give her a kiss; they had been in her class in second grade.

Oh, that's special.

Yes. She was a good role model for me. The kids adored her. Our children all attended the

Religious School and had their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, Bruce and Loryn at different churches and

Sharon at our own building. The parties were at the Jubilation, a well-known festive venue.

Joan, when you say Rose was a good role model for you—what was your Jewish heritage?

I didn't have much of a Jewish heritage. I grew up in the Bronx. My father was drafted into the

army when I was two months old and my mother moved in with her parents. We never moved

out, even when my father came back after the war. My grandparents were not observant either

except my grandmother shopped at the kosher butcher. They didn't have any pork. I think we

had separate dishes for meat and dairy. They did not belong to a synagogue.

They had come to the United States in the 1800s.

I think my grandfather came in 1874, 1875. When he came, he was seventeen years old. He

became an apprentice to a tailor and he learned how to sew. When he got older, he had his own

tailor shop. Whenever he would put enough money together, he would bring over another

relative from Eastern Europe. He was able to buy an apartment house in Manhattan and later

moved to the Bronx. He was the first one from that side of my family who came to the United

States. I had a lot of older cousins that he had brought over. It was the Mark family.

Everybody always looked up to him because he was the one who sponsored them.

When he married my grandmother—if you know Jewish history—she was from Germany

and my grandfather was from the Pale, which was Poland and Hungary, that region. The

German Jews always looked down on the others; they thought they were better. My

grandmother was of German Jewish heritage and her family disowned her when she married my

27

grandfather. I know nothing about her side of the family.

On my father's side, I don't know very much, either. I know they came from Russia and

my father's mother died from polio when he was about ten or eleven years old. There were four

children and he was raised by a sister. His father was an insurance salesman. I don't know

when they came, or their history. There was a Cousins Club on that side of the family. I was a

young child and I remember going downtown to an old building, upstairs to a dark room and all

these cousins were talking. Phil Silvers, the famous comedian was my father’s first cousin. The

only one from that side of the family, who is still alive, that I know, is my cousin Anne who lives

on Long Island.

Everyone on both sides of my family except for one aunt had only one child. It was a

very small family going forward. Several of my contemporaries have already passed away.

From that, I ascertain you're an only child.

Yes. I grew up in my grandparents' home—my grandparents both died when I was seven, my

mother always worked. She was a stenographer for the City of New York. I became a latchkey

kid because she worked all day and my father was a waiter and he worked nights. He would get

up around eleven in the morning and leave for work and not come home until maybe four in the

morning. I made it through as a latchkey kid in the forties and fifties. I had a good friend who

lived on my street, her mother stayed at home. Any time I needed anything, I'd go to her

apartment. We'd have our milk and cookies and I always knew there was somebody there.

When I was seven, she said to my mother, "Are you sending Joanie to Hebrew school this year?"

My mother said, "Oh, we don't do that." So she said, "Well, Roberta is going to go to Hebrew

school what is Joanie going to do on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon?" My mother said,

"Okay, I'll send her; I guess I'll have to."

28

So, that's how I started my Jewish education. The shul was Orthodox because that's

basically what they had in the Bronx. I was like the star pupil. When I became twelve, they

said goodbye to me. I said, "What do you mean? I want to go on to the next class." They said,

"Well, that's the Bar Mitzvah class, we don't bar mitzvah girls." I said, "Well, I don't need a bar

mitzvah, I just want to be in the class because I enjoy it." They said, "Sorry, you can't." So at

twelve years old I said to them, "Well, goodbye, and you'll never see me here again." Out the

door I went. I never went back and I never became involved in a synagogue until we joined Ner

Tamid.

When we lived in New Orleans, we went a couple of times to Touro Synagogue but we

never joined.

That's always a fascinating aspect of Judaism.

One can leave and come back.

Did your daughters have bat mitzvahs?

Yes. Yes, because in Las Vegas we belonged to Ner Tamid and it is a Reform temple.

Our daughters belong to Reform temples in their cities. They were excellent in Hebrew school.

All three of our children were presidents of the Ner Tamid Temple Youth, the youth group for

teens. They went to the Jewish camp in Prescott, AZ, Camp Pearlstein. Loryn attended Kutz

Camp in New York for Temple music leaders. Sharon is active in her Temple in Virginia and has

been in charge of the Chanukah bazaar for many years. Sharon has always been an organizer

and a take-charge person. Loryn’s son David was Bar Mitzvahed two years ago and Sharon’s

son Zachary will have his Bar Mitzvah in November. Loryn’s son Andrew will be Bar Mitzvahed

in June. Sharon’s son Nate is in religious school and will be Bar Mitzvahed in a few years.

We went through a lot of turmoil at Ner Tamid. We had a succession of four or five rabbis.

29

It didn’t seem to interfere with our children’s Jewish identity.

Right. So when you were on the building committee, what year was that approximately?

That was the Emerson location?

Yes.

Probably in the late 80s.

Because you were retired, you said.

Well, when did you retire?

Eighty-three

Eighty-three. So maybe '86 to '88?

So you retired in the 1980s from the Public Health Service. That's a big life-changing

moment I'm sure for all.

When the children were a little older, I became a substitute teacher, I could still be home when

they came home from school and take them all over town to their lessons and activities. I did

substituting for three years. I didn't care for it. When Les went into the construction business I

was prepared to do the accounting and the children were older.

That's a tough job.

That was a tough job. After I obtained my accounting degree from UNLV, I worked as a

part-time accountant during tax season for a couple who became friends of ours over the years.

Then when Les retired from the Public Health Service and started his construction business, I

did all the bookkeeping and the accounting work and the taxes. I did everything. I was the

gofer. At that time, we had no communications.

No cell phones.

No cell phones. People would call the house.

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Did you have a beeper?

Nothing. No, there were no beepers. There were two-way radios, but we didn’t splurge for them.

I was driving all over town. Les had jobs building in many locations.

Yes. And people would call and need to talk to him, and I'm trying to...Where could he be; which

job today? I never once didn't find him. If I needed to call somebody, I had to stop at a 7-Eleven

and use the pay phone.

One of the first things that we did in our construction endeavors, we built two four-plexes

on Sunrise Mountain for rentals. We did everything. We built them, we rented them, we cleaned

them. When people moved out we scrubbed the ranges the, bathroom, we cleaned everything.

When people are renting they could care less about cleaning up after themselves. That was our

start in construction.

In 1988, there was a terrible blast in Henderson when the PEPCON [Pacific Engineering

and Production Company of Nevada] plant blew up—the industrial plant that produced rocket

fuel. We had our office by then, right up on the hill not too far from the Vocational-Technical

High School.

The blast waves lifted the ceiling in our office two to three feet and then dropped down. All the

lights fell out of the ceiling.

Yes. The front wall of the building came apart from the rest of the building.

Well, as scientists let alone builders, what were you thinking about this?

Well, Les started to cry because we could see the flame.

I saw the building, the PEPCON building, after the first and second explosions. We could look

over the cliff. We were on a cliff near Vo-Tech. I looked down. I could see the building. Then

the third blast occurred. And four minutes, when the cloud lifted, there was nothing there.

31

Yes. Les started to cry. He said, "There's three or four hundred people working there. There's

no way people could have survived."

Just a slab where PEPCON had been.

The whole town came to a standstill because the wave, the shock wave actually went out ten

miles.

It was actually a wave and skipped around, hitting some buildings and not others.

—yes, it would take out front doors of houses, move their roofs, the wave just went through the

valley.

There was a woman who was a secretary at PEPCON. She saw the fire, she alerted all the

employees, and they started running across the desert.

Yes, she went on the loud speaker and she said, "Everybody leave immediately. Run as fast as

you can away from here." She saved all those people.

Only two people died because they could not get out. They must have had five minutes. There

was a person in a wheelchair and the person wheeling him; they died.

Those were the only two that perished.

Yes, yes.

On the third explosion, we could see the pressure wave rolling across the desert. The wave

picked up the dust and it looked just like a tidal wave. Then it started to rain down pieces on us.

Little pieces of debris would fall out of the sky. Sharon was at Valley High School. We didn't

try to reach her but I called the school. They were keeping the students there.

Bruce was home because by then he was working a night job. He wanted to go to the Culinary

Institute in Hyde Park, New York, and he had to have a year's experience. He got himself a job.

He would work anywhere to learn something. He wanted to learn how to make pastries; he got a

32

job at a French bakery. He wanted to learn how to make Italian food; he got a job at a pizza

place. He just tried everything. He was very musical and played in the marching band at Valley

High School. He played the piano, the keyboard and the clarinet.

Loryn also is musical. She played the piano, the viola and the guitar. She did

gymnastics. She was the State Beam Champion in the eighth grade. She was the diving

champion because she was able to use her gymnastics skills on the high dive. Then at

gymnastics, she broke her arm twice over several years.

She was the best student pianist in the state then. She won the Bolognini piano competition.

She broke her arm on the beam routine during gymnastics. The surgeons set the break and put

two nails in to hold it together.

It's like a nail.

—skewers in her shoulder. And the Bolognini, which is a competition for all the students taking

piano lessons. She played and won that year.

Sharon played soccer for many years. She enjoyed photography and attended a camp on Mt

Charleston that was for music and photography. Bruce and Loryn attended the camp for its music

program.

Wow.

So needless to say, I was a busy parent.

Right. Regarding PEPCON: I'm envisioning this and I can't help but wonder, having come

from the career you had with exposure—

Right, the radioactivity.

—the radioactivity and all of that, what did you think?

Right. It all drifted to Utah.

33

PEPCON was an illegal place.

Illegal?

Illegal. They called it the island. It didn't belong to Henderson; it didn't belong to Las Vegas; it

was privately held. It was one of only two American producers of ammonium perchlorate, a

chemical used in solid fuel rocket boosters. It was owned by the Gibson family. The explosion

caused $100 million in damages and impacted the valley for miles. The only fire hydrant they

had was connected to a one-inch plastic tube. Now, fire hydrants come off ten-inch lines

everywhere else so that there would be enough water for a hose. But they had a fire hydrant that

didn’t meet the standard. They could never put out the fire that started. There were two million

pounds of illegally stored rocket fuel. The explosion was equivalent to a kiloton of TNT. There

weren’t OSHA or other government agencies monitoring the facility. It was a thousand acres.

When it blew up a brown cloud formed. It wasn’t radioactive, but it was poisonous to the

extent you were in it and there could be problems. The cloud drifted over Lake Mead and then

into the desert. We were lucky; it didn’t drift over the valley. The brown cloud could be seen

drifting northeast afterwards. It went toward Arizona and Utah.

It went up the Virgin River area.

Joan: A most memorable time of my life was the Equal Rights Amendment hearings. The Equal

Rights Amendment had to be ratified by the states. The hearings were held at the Clark County

Library on Flamingo. I remember speaking in favor of the Amendment. I brought my older

daughter, who was probably six or seven, and I said, "Loryn, this is going to be a momentous

time in your life and I want you to be here." The Amendment never passed. But without passing,

much of its essence has come to fruition.

That's important, yes, those ways that you serve as a role model for your children. Those

34

little, tiny moments are so important.

[Pause in recording]

Les, you were summarizing what we've talked about so far of your life. Start that again.

Probably that first 45 years was a kindergarten to post-doctorate training course for me in the

Public Health Service—management skills, education skills, people skills, learning how to do

things and put things together. That's like phase one in my life, the first forty-five years.

That's a really good way to put it. I think it was happening for both of you. You were

raising the family, the kids, and looking at getting yourself prepared for what came next.

Right. Exactly.

Whether it was by plan or not, it worked out, it seems to me.

And it worked out that my accounting was a perfect fit.

Let's talk a little bit, while we have still time yet today, with being part of Ner Tamid

founders and the construction. What did you learn from that experience?

You may not be able to put that in a book.

Right. Let me just say something. We are no longer members of Ner Tamid, that happened

about two years ago.

That's okay.

So I don't think we should go—we won't go into all...

The politics of everything you've done, obviously that people part is difficult.

Yes, so I don't think it's appropriate.

But maybe you can tell us about the development of...

Let me just think a minute.

It was a very positive experience for many years. The children received a good education there.

35

Between us and Leslie's mother and the Temple, we raised very Jewish-oriented children.

It’s those early days that I find interesting. Where did the money came from? So you

mentioned to us about Frank Sinatra because Gary Sternberg showed me a copy of the

letter that was the communication on that donation. Having Moe Dalitz's name involved;

that is part of our history. What did you think about it then and now?

It was just part of the Las Vegas history; we needed money, and those were the sources that were

available.

Nothing wrong with his money, all right? You look back at the age of the bootleggers. You

look back at why it happened. How did they criminalize alcohol? The prudishness of certain

people in church groups saying, "This is a sin." Americans have always been people that like to

have fun. They used to go out for music, dancing and drinking. All of a sudden, groups get

together and say, "This is hellfire; this is immoral.”

It's the same thing with drugs today. They do cause a problem. Liquor does cause a problem.

But it's very hard to regulate things that cause problems if people want to do them. It's very

difficult to just outlaw bad things.

So when they said Moe Dalitz was a bootlegger, it’s another man’s entrepreneur. You look back

on that age today from where we are and morality seems to shift with time and all of a sudden

instead of being a terrible criminal now, we look at it with some nostalgia. Did he kill people?

Probably not. He wasn't arrested. Was he a bootlegger? Sure, he was. Is he entitled to try and

make some amends for what he did and become a good citizen? We put people in prison to

rehabilitate them and then they're let out. He didn't go to prison. Maybe he had some feelings

that he could do some good with what he had.

So it's hard to judge a person especially as time goes by. I have some judgments that are

36

very harsh on people. The Communists and the Nazis killed millions of people. Moe Dalitz? I

have nostalgia about what went on in the 1930s. At the time when he made his gift to the

Temple, did I have a problem? No, I didn't have a problem. He was using his money for a good

purpose.

Yes, he was doing good.

Look at Ford. Not a very nice person. Henry Ford was not a very nice person. Does the Ford

Foundation do well today with the money that he made? Yes. Carnegie, all of them. Where do

you draw the line? What's legal? What's illegal?

Yes. Another example of Las Vegas history similar to what you're talking about is

Engelstad who liked celebrating Hitler's birthday and having a museum of Nazi

memorabilia.

Yes. Well, we'd never go there.

And, yet, that family has done so much.

After he died. The children, I believe, tried to make up for his past by doing good deeds.

I believe people should be allowed to clear up.

Well, some things you can't clear up.

No. That's what I said. The Nazis I can't clear up. Stalin I can't clear up. You see what they did

and why they did it. All of the big industrial magnets in the 1850s, they weren't nice people.

They thought themselves as above the law and they could do anything they wanted to do. Today

the United States is stronger because of them. Their families give lots to charities. So no

judgment.

You can say maybe I wouldn't want them as a friend.

37

So you had a story—I made a note here before that you wanted to tell a story about

Richard Oshins. Would this be a good place maybe to pop that story in?

Oh, Joan can tell you about the story.

Oh, okay. Richard Oshins and his wife Carol, bought the house that we had owned in Paradise

Crest and they had two boys. The older son, Steven is an estate-planning attorney now and he's

our estate-planning attorney. The younger son, Jason, is an insurance agent and we needed to

get a new life insurance policy and we called him.

He had lived in the house we sold them when they were young. Jason came to our

present house to work on our life insurance. He walked through the front door [of their current

Anthem Country Club home] and he said, "My parents bought the wrong house."

[Laughing] That's great. That's a good story.

Really cute.

Yes.

So there's still a lot of people that have been here for a long time and we still run into them. Of

course, the town is so big now; it's very different.

How would you describe, because you've been kind of in and out of the Jewish community,

its impact and history and growth of Las Vegas in general?

Well, Beth Sholom was the only game in town for a long time.

We've had a hard time attracting rabbis to Las Vegas because—

Where is this you're talking about?

Just in general. Because it's very hard to attract good rabbis. They don't want to come to Las

Vegas. They think of Las Vegas as Sin City. They don't want to raise their children here, I

think it's a difficult problem. I think that's one of the problems here and why Ner Tamid had so

38

many rabbis.

I also think the affiliated Jewish community here is small. I guess in today's age, church

attendance has gone down, too.

Let's be honest. There wouldn't be a Las Vegas without the Jews’ influence.

Most people don't think of Jews being that way. I think Jews always had to find a niche,

whatever country they were in, what they were allowed and not allowed to do.

They are also doctors, lawyers and teachers, so you have this dichotomy. No matter what they

did, they probably did it well. So when Las Vegas was forming in the forties, think about who

was involved, many Jews.

The first part of our life, we hardly ever went to the Strip. We didn't spend money on

entertainment. We never saw the headliners because we were young and to us Frank Sinatra,

that group, it wasn't that important. It was too costly. So we didn't go.

We went dancing at the DI.

At the Desert Inn on the top floor they had dancing on Friday and Saturday nights and you only

had to buy a drink or two and then you could dance.

Was it live music?

Yes, live music.

Yes, it was live music. It was nice.

Yes, we went there. We went to the Garden Room. That's where Sinatra and his friends hung

out. But we went at six and seven o'clock to eat Chinese food and they went at one and two

o'clock in the morning to sing when they were finished with their shows.

We learned how to work the buffet from the Sands buffet.

What do you mean?

39

We went to the Sands buffet for dinner. As we were walking in, Leslie spots a chocolate eclair.

He said, "That's what I'm going to have for dessert." So we eat all the other food. He goes up to

the dessert table. There's no more chocolate eclairs. After that, he would get his dessert first

and put it on our table.

[Laughing] That's great.

Steve Wynn transformed Las Vegas from purely gaming to an entertainment capital.

Then Corporate America arrives. They built four-thousand-room entertainment venues and Las

Vegas is continuing its futuristic growth.

In the early days, yes.

Our kids swam on the Sandpipers swim team at UNLV with the children of Lefty [Frank]

Rosenthal, a mob figure. I remember when he was a lane watcher for the meets and I thought that

was cool. When we lived near Desert Inn Rd, Buddy Rich, the famous drummer, lived next

door to us and his daughter babysat for our children.

A small town.

The Spilotro family lived right behind a friend of ours who would tell us that he knew them

well, the two brothers. He'd go to their house and sometimes they would open the drawer and it

was filled with hundred-dollar bills.

When our daughter Loryn , was at Valley High School, a substitute asked one of the students

whose name was Spilotro "Oh, are you related to the Spilotros?" The girl said, "None of your

business." Next door to you, there could be a killer or a gangster. Las Vegas had a reputation.

When the mob controlled the casinos, there wasn't a lot of crime in the city and innocent people

didn't get killed.

There was a whole other world, which is what this project demonstrates.

40

Well, we were building our lives. We always had goals.

That was in the earlier days when we had no money.

Well, we always had goals. When we had no money, we saved everything. We just tried to save

as much as we could. We'd never say, "We have extra; we'll do this." We didn't. When the time

came that we had a little money and Les had a retirement from the Public Health Service, we

started a construction business. We always had something to fall back on.

I'm going to stop us for today, but I don't want you to go away.

[End of Session I]

Session 2

This is Barbara Tabach and today is May 30th, 2017. I am sitting with Joan and Les Dunn

for a second session. As we were talking the last time—we ended with you retiring as a

scientist in 1986.

LES: Right. I retired from PHS, right.

I always wanted to be a builder and work for myself. I thought working for yourself you

have much more control. Little did I know that no one has control. Things happen in the

economy. No matter where you are, you always have something that can affect your life and

how it will be. I guess the bigger your company becomes, the more you become affected by

outside forces.

We started out as a little construction company. Joan and I had a concrete company. In the

mornings she would help me load up the concrete equipment into the back of the truck,

sometimes with the help of our children. It was very heavy to lift the equipment into the back of

41

our pickup truck. I had about ten employees. We built concrete foundations for US Homes. We

also built apartments and did house reconstructions.

So you just jumped into the concrete business?

Yes.

JOAN: No. Well, actually first he did home repairs and remodels. You did a couple of those.

Then we built some apartments on Sunrise Mountain. We built them, we rented them, we

cleaned them, and re-rented them.

We would put an ad in the papers and people would call up and want to see them. We lived in

Las Vegas and we'd have to go to North Las Vegas, and when we got there no one was there,

many times. Then we did rent the eight units and we had it. Subsequently, we sold them and

that's when we went into the concrete business.

So you saw a need for someone to deliver that product in the community?

Well, my father was a small contractor. There came an opportunity with a friend who wanted to

go into that business, and so we went into the concrete business. We had a crew of about ten

people. We had the equipment in our garage. We had no office.

We used to pay the people outside the 7-Eleven off the back of the pickup. Les bought a very

expensive curb and gutter machine because he thought that would expand our business. All new

development had curb and gutter. But it was not that great. We didn't have any method of

communicating with each other.

There weren't cell phones at that time.

This is what year? Let's set the time context.

1983, '84 or '85, around in there.

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What was the name of your concrete business?

Dunrite Construction.

I love it. Spelled D-U-N-N?

No, one N. D-U-N-R-I-T-E.

My father had been in business in the 1940s and 50s, he did electrical repairs. The name

of his company was Dunlite Electric. So we had Dunrite Construction.

While I was raising the children, I went to UNLV. My original degree was in biology, but

there was no opportunity here. I thought—I was always good in math—I'll do accounting

because with accounting you can always get a job. Then we worked together and I took

care of the accounting and all the office responsibilities. It worked out really well. I read

the contracts and always put in my 2 cents, as I still do.

As I said before, there were no cell phones. So, when someone called the house, as that was

the office, I would say, "I'll get back to you," and I would get in the car and drive fifteen or

twenty miles to where Les might be; Les was not always there.

Most of the time I found him. I'd stop at 7-Eleven and use their phone because we had no

way to communicate.

Isn't that amazing?

It was amazing, yes.

It was a different time.

Right. But it didn't slow you down.

Then Les decided he wanted to build a little center, an office park for small contractors like

himself who could have a little sales office in the front and a workshop in the back. We

43

went looking for ten acres of land to build it on in Henderson. We found a ten-acre piece.

The fellow who was the Realtor® at the company, his name was Kent Clifford.

Which we just remembered this morning. We were trying to think of his name. He set

everything in motion.

I think the realty company was Americana Realty. Kent was in charge of the commercial

end of Americana. He showed us this ten-acre piece. I went home and we drew up some

plans. We went back about two weeks later and he said, "You know, Les, something just

came on the market." He said, "I think it's a better deal." It was forty acres of land and it

was on Sunset Road.

There was no freeway. Sunset was almost like a dirt road. The freeway overpass was

being built at Tropicana at that time.

So we looked at that and I said, "Yes, this looks very nice." But I didn't have the money to

buy forty acres of land. It was about half the price of the other per square foot but it was four

times a much land. It was also a much better location. I'll explain to you the location in a

minute.

And he said, "With forty acres I could do a little retail in the front and have my little

office park/warehouse in the back."

So about what kind of money are we talking about at that period of time?

That piece of property was 1.5 million dollars.

For forty acres.

For forty acres.

Wow. That's a bargain.

Not very expensive in today's prices. Today I'm selling land for a million dollars an acre.

44

Truly amazing, isn't it?

We bought forty acres. So just about thirty times less in 1985 than the cost today.

I didn't have the money to buy the property. So I looked at calling friends and putting

together an LLC to buy it. We had some relatives in New York City who might be

interested.

Didn't we only have three people or something when you first bought the first forty?

No. I think Marvin—

No, I don't think so. Well, it's not important.

We had a few people who were interested. We went to a local attorney and he drew up a

document that we would be able to use to put together an LLC and expand it. We bought

the first forty acres. This was, I think, in 1985, which is important because a lot of things

happened from April of 1985 to November of 1985.

The next thing that happened...We had forty acres and we needed to put a road

alongside the property. There was an adjacent piece of ground and I contacted the owners.

It was also an LLC with a group of people. I said, "If you give me thirty feet of your

property, I'll put in thirty feet of my property and I'll pay to build the whole road. " I

thought that was a good deal. Obviously, the guy who was the general partner didn't and he

said, "No, we're not going to do that with you."

I went back to Kent, the Realtor® and I said, "Kent, I can't get this piece next to

us. We're going to have to build the whole road on our property." He said, "Well, why

don't you use a loan?"

45

It turned out that there were several people that he knew who owned that property

and they were anxious to sell it. They put pressure on the general partner. I made an offer

on the property, without any money to buy it, for 1.6 million dollars. He said, "Okay."

But I had trouble getting the first one and a half million. So now, Joan was right; we

did go to friends back in New York, and also I had a friend who was a doctor in Las Vegas,

Dr. Kollins, Steven Kollins who also brought in other investors. We put together enough

investors that we bought the second piece of property. We now had eighty acres of property

and we did have a mortgage that we had to pay. I was fairly confident that the land we

bought was at a good price and that it would go up because the freeway was coming close to

the property. I said, "The land will double in value in a year or two."

We purchased that land. We were going to build a local shopping center in the

front and then in the back we would put the small starter office/warehouses. That's when

the story gets really interesting. The first piece of property was purchased in February. The

second piece of property that we bought was in April.

It must have been sooner than that because May is when we went to the—

It all happened very fast. So in May, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)

was coming to town.

Kent told us about the convention. We had never heard of it. Kent said, "If you're going to

build a shopping center, you should go to that convention." So the two of us went and we

signed up and we went to their classes. They hold different classes at these conventions and

they have booths and displays about retail shopping centers.

It was like a college. At that time the International Council of Shopping Centers held a

week college before they had their Convention, and so we attended the college. They

46

gave us books and materials and they had many speakers. We learned about the building

and operations of shopping centers

One of the courses that we attended was, How to Build a Regional Mall. At that one, there

were mall owners and developers from around the country telling the attendee how to

build a regional mall, and we're just sitting there first time ever at anything like this.

To build a regional mall you needed a hundred twenty acres, and to build a local shopping

center you could do a nice big one on eighty acres. Eighty acres is what we had.

We had ridden our bicycles up on Warm Springs Rd to the high cliff above where Green

Valley High School is today and there was nothing. Green Valley stopped at Green Valley

Parkway. You could look all the way from there to Boulder Highway and Sunrise

Mountain. There was nothing.

There were no houses, one or two businesses that had to do with construction materials.

Old cars lots of junk.

But basically there were two thousand acres in front of us with nothing on it.

And Les said to me, "You know, that class we attended, it said that to do a regional mall

you need a hundred and twenty acres and we have eighty acres. Maybe we should look

into purchasing the forty acres on the corner at Stephanie and Sunset (just a street sign

in the sand.)

So we researched who the owner was. The Catholic Church was the owner of that

piece of property. I had a good friend at the time John, who was involved—he was

Catholic—he was involved in church affairs. He said, "Father Cavilla of St. Joseph’s

on Boulder Highway is in charge of all of the property for the Catholic Church."

He was also on the State Planning Commission for Highways.

47

And he knew where the freeways and roads would be built. There were no freeways in

Henderson.

That was a long time ago.

I said, "Do you know him?" He said, "Yes, he's the priest at my church.

I've certainly heard his name before, yes.

So I said, "Can you talk to him and get an interview for me?" And he did. So I had my

first interview with Father C. He's a different kind of guy altogether than the regular

priests in the church.

How's that?

Father C was involved in community affairs. He was a powerful political figure in the

church.

In the state, too.

And the state. So he was a power all unto himself.

So he was very involved in community and civic affairs.

Yes, in the whole state, yes.

In the whole state. I would say at that point in time in the development of the state of

Nevada, he was probably one of the ten most important people in the state because of the

road system. So I went to meet with him and we hit it off. We had a good first meeting. He

called me his "little Jewish developer."

Les said to him, "I just want to tell you what I want to do. I'm not going to surprise you. I'm

not telling you any stories. This is my background and this is what I’d like to do.

48

"I own eighty acres on Sunset Rd. There is forty acres next to it, owned by the Church. I

would like to build a regional mall and that requires 120 acres. I don't know if I can do it, but

that's why I’d like to purchase your 40 acres."

He said, "Okay, that property would be for sale since we don't intend to build a

church on it. Or a school." He said, "I believe it would be available to sell."

I said, "I bought these other 40 acre pieces of property for about a million and a half

dollars apiece."

He said, "Well, you can make an offer and I'll send it to the bishop in Reno and

we'll see what the church wants to do."

I said, "Well, this is the same size as each of the other pieces but it has more

frontage on the two main streets. So I made an offer of 1.7 million dollars. Two weeks

later I received a letter from the bishop saying that “the Church considers "That piece of

property as surplus to our Church plans." He said, "We can sell it. We are establishing a

trust fund for college scholarships for St. Viators and we would use the money in the

scholarship program." So I said, "Great." He said, "I need to make a few corrections." He

said, "That piece of property we feel is worth more than 1.7 million." He said, "I think it's

worth 2.8 million." He said, "If you can raise that money, we will sell you the property."

Because at this point you're already at 1.6...

I had already spent three million dollars.

Okay, we're at three million. So now he's going to double what you had

already committed.

And also everybody we knew—

Is tapped out.

49

And had invested already and that was that.

So at that point, I said, "I can never raise that kind of money." I said, "I'll just develop the

eighty acres."

Yes, Les never got back to anybody.

So I didn't respond to the church. About three weeks later my friend, John, who was an

engineer and the one who originally got me the appointment, went to Reno to the Basque

Festival. He was walking through the Basque Festival and there was Father C and the

bishop. They came running over to John and said, "Les never got back to us. What's the

problem?" He said, "Well, 2.8 million just was beyond his capability to raise, and so he's

just going to develop a smaller shopping center." They said, "Well, that was just our first

offer." He said, "We can negotiate and work something out."

When my friend returned to Las Vegas, he tells me the conversation. I said, "Well,

John, maybe I can get it done." At the ICSC, not only did they tell us how to build shopping

centers— and remember the ICSC— they told us about negotiating.

That's the International Council of Shopping Centers.

—was the richest convention in the world. It controls all of the retail in the United States—

Not so much anymore.

I talked to Father C, "Well, what will it take to buy this property?" He said, "Well, you've

got to make an offer." So I make an offer of 1.9 million. Two weeks later, he came back

and said, "Les, the property is worth more than your offer, however, we will compromise

with you. We will sell it to you for 2.2 million."

So now I have a price of 2.2 million, which was probably was fair, but I have no

money.

50

And no friends left with any money to invest.

So I said, "Father C, that's a fair price." I said, "But I just don't have that kind of money."

He said, "Well, the church will not go any lower than 2.2 million." He said, "But maybe we

can arrange terms that you will be able to meet."

So I have half a million dollars left from my fund-raising. And I said, "Father C,

you want a scholarship fund for Saint Viators." I said, "How much would that be a year?"

He said, "Well, we'd like to have sixty to eighty thousand to give out each year in

scholarships." I said, "Would you take an option on the property for four years at a

hundred thousand dollars a year?" He said, "Well, that sounds fair." I said, "Okay." I said,

"Would you apply that toward the price of the property?" And he said, "Okay, Les, we will

do the deal." And he said, "I'll throw in something better. After the four years, if you don't

have it completely paid, the church will take a note on the property for eight years at six

percent."

So now, I had the property tied up for four years. Four years, at $100,000 a year

and another six or eight years beyond that to develop it. The freeway is almost there. The

property is going to double or triple in price. Even if I couldn't get a mall, I could

certainly put other things on this hundred and twenty acres and all the partners would

make money. I said, “I’m not afraid of that." I said, "It's a deal."

So now we started in February. We went to the ICSC in May. We had bought the

second piece of property, 40 acres next to the original 40 acres. And then we finally

bought the last 40 acres for the necessary hundred and twenty acres. So now we had

a hundred and twenty acres that we controlled; we didn't own; we controlled it.

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Les said, "Before we can do anything, we have to find out if it's feasible to do a mall here

because there's only fifty thousand people in Henderson.. Let's find out." Les found out

that the company Laventhol and Horwath did analysis for developing different projects

around the country and he contacted them.

They had a specialty in mall development.

They were out of what city?

L.A.

Well, they were all over the country. They were one of the big seven accounting firms.

Yes. We contacted the office in Los Angeles.

So they do this feasibility study.

Exactly. The people who did the study said to him, "This is a slam dunk."

"A home run." They said, "There's no shopping in Henderson. This is perfect."

"The population is going to be growing."

After the woman who did the analysis and her review was completed, she asked, "Could I

be a small partner?"

After Laventhal and Horvath’s study indicated that it would be a slam dunk Les set up

a strategy on how he was going to accomplish this. He began by finding an architect to

do a schematic for the site. We needed a schematic rendering as a starting point to

approach the large mall developers and partner stores that we would need to do it.

But before that—

We went to the architect.

—we went to the architect and they drew up plans.

52

And you should have seen how cute we looked because at that time in the eighties Les had

had five or six back surgeries. So he couldn't walk that well and he couldn't carry anything.

So little me is always walking with him carrying briefcases and plans.

And you're like four foot...

Well, five foot tall. Let's say five feet at that time. Carrying all the plans and all the big

attaché cases full of everything.

We visited many malls in California.

In Southern California, yes.

To San Francisco. It must have been ten or fifteen malls.

It was a cute time. We were going up the escalator and I hear some people behind us

saying, "Uh, I'm so tired of shopping here in the mall today for this and that." And I said

to Les, "I'm tired of shopping for malls."

I love that. That's a great one. I have so many different ways to go with you on this.

What inspiration or which mall developer?

Well, that's the next story. So we see a mall that we really liked.

It was in Redondo Beach.

Redondo Beach. It was owned by Forest City.

The architect was RTKL.

Oh, I didn't know that. I don't remember.

So we looked at it. It was about 1,500,000 square feet. And we said, "This is the architect

that we want."

Well, we went to the architect.

We went to the architect and we paid them a consulting fee and they drew up a

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A schematic rendering.

...of a mall that could fit on the property.

About how many square feet did you estimate?

It was about a million two.

That's what you could do on that. You could create a footprint of that.

Well, we could do more than that, but...In malls there are stages of development. You

don't build the whole mall.

But you need to start with that size.

So this was to show what could be done. We don't have a developer yet. Now, one thing I

learned is that a little guy can't develop a regional mall, impossible, not because he couldn't

build it, but because he didn't know the anchors the department stores, the anchors didn't

know him.) No anchor is going to trust going into a mall with someone who has no

experience and knows nothing. So we knew we'd have to get a developer. We knew we'd

have to get an architect. We sort of knew the architect we wanted.

And we needed an attorney.

We needed an attorney who could negotiate a contract with the mall developer. We had

the feasibility study from Laventhol and Horvath. We went back to them and said, "Can

you suggest a number of developers and a number of attorneys? We'd also like to

interview some architects."

So we interviewed architects including RTKL We got ourselves a Los Angeles

attorney who had negotiated many malls, Greenberg Glusker. We started going to

different developers

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now who might be interested in our location. We came up with Federated as the developer.

We went to Federated. They were interested. Now we have all of the pieces that go into

developing a mall. We started in March of '85 and now all of the pieces were in place by

January of '86.

That's pretty fast.

Yes, whirlwind.

For someone who is buying the property, getting all the procedures, these things take ten

years. We did it in 10 months.

Two weeks before the ICSC the following year, Federated who had been

expressing interest signed a contract with us.

A week later, before the opening of the ICSC, I get a call from Federated. They said,

"You know, the contract we signed, we think it's a little premature. We think we should

hold the land for three more years and then we'll do some work."

So they wanted us to carry it for the three years.

The developer costs would be millions of dollars during that time. I said, "Look, you think

I'm a jerk." I said, "You know what? I'll give you four days to sign and validate this

contract and then if you don’t you're out." I said, "Don't start (Russian) negotiating with me.

You got the wrong person."

Let's go back a month. Federated is sitting at one of their meetings. I got this

from someone who was there. The developer, mall builder partner said, "Les will be

back to us.”

Now we'll turn back the clock to the second week. I said, "Okay, they're out.

They haven't come back to me."

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Because you felt you had alternatives? Or you had to have alternatives.

Yes, yes.

I called Forest City.

Forest City is a big mall developer, too. They're out of Cleveland.

I had shown them the plans before, but I had told them Federated was building it because

Federated was bigger. So I called Forest City and I said, "My negotiations with Federated

have come to an end." I said, "I'm going to send you the contract that I had with Federated.

If you will honor that contract, you're my partner."

The ICSC has started and the Forest City representative approached me and said,

"We received your letter. The chairman of the board is flying out tomorrow to meet

you." I said, "Wonderful."

He arrives at the ICSC and says, "Les, we'll do the deal as proposed here, no problem."

He said, "And by the way, I'd like to look at the property with you." He said, "And Jim

Dillard is here with me."

Bill. Wasn't it Bill?

"Bill Dillard is with me." He says, "He'll be an anchor in the mall." He said, "Let's go out

and look at the property." So the three of us go in a limousine. In the back I'm sitting

between Bill Dillard and Albert Ratner. The first time I’m mingling with two retail giants

He is head of Forest City. Here a year before we were pouring concrete slabs for US

Homes.

I love those stories.

Albert turned around to me and said, "We're going to make a deal with Bill." He said,

"What do you think?" He said, "We will give Dillards key money to be an anchor in the

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mall, we always give key money to our anchors." He said, "Les, what do you think, two

million dollars is good?" He's asking me. He's schmoozing, right? I said, "Albert, if you

think two million is okay, it's okay." "Bill, what do you think?" Bill says, "Two million is

fair. We'll go ahead with the deal and anchor." So they're both buttering me up like I'm

making a decision. I don't make any decisions. I'm just an owner of a piece of property that

they're talking about building on. That was in May of 1986. Then the country goes into a

giant recession. Meanwhile, we negotiated the contract.

For three years, we negotiated the contract. Les always said he got a law degree from

their attorney in Cleveland.

A degree in real estate negotiating anyway. The attorney on the other side, he's like an in-

house attorney for Forest City although he works for Jones Day, a very well-known law

firm. Jones Day does all their work. Naturally, everything he does, he favors Forest City,

and we have our attorneys, too.

One day I get a letter with the notes of the meeting. I read it and I said, "Where was

I at this meeting? This is not a meeting I went to." By this time it's a year into the legal

documents, I called Forest City and I said, "The deal is off." I said, "I just received a letter

from your attorney. I wasn't at the meeting you described," I said, "Although I was," I

said, "Enough of this crap." I said, "I'm going to find a partner who is honest and doesn’t

invent discussions that never took place.

He said, "Les, Les, don't get excited. Don't get excited. I'll fly up tomorrow

morning. You and I will write up the notes and we'll get all the deal points and I'll speak

to the attorney about it." And I said, "Okay."

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The Forest City guy who I'm dealing with, Brian Jones, is one of the most honest

guys I ever met. His word was good. Even when terms were in our favor, he honored

them. When I pointed out the highly inaccurate meeting summary, he really got hot under

the collar for a moment and said, "The thing I value most is my integrity. I want you to

believe that everything I do I honor and I want us to be friends." The next day he flew to

Las Vegas and we got the matter settled.

In the history of the deal there were many times that Forest City and we had

differences of opinion to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. I never lost a negotiation.

We collected tens of millions of dollars.

Anyway, we own the mall with them. It was built. We went to Italy to help select the granite

and marble for the mall itself. It was just a great experience, except for the hassling. I

learned a great deal.

So your role once you have this vision and you start putting these other people into the

mix to create this regional mall, your day-to-day role becomes what?

Well, watching over our partnership and making sure that our partners would come out

well.

We had meetings on the design and construction every two weeks in Cleveland. We had

input into the design, plus I had a contract with them to watch over the building

construction. I was a co-developer.

So you had the right to determine exactly who the architect was going to be?

No, they were going to do it. They were the major...

They accepted our terms because—

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Yes. And then they squeezed us over the years. There were always problems, but we

managed to come out okay.

That's part of the deal, I guess.

Yes.

There were disputes.

Oh, I imagine.

Yes, there were disputes over the years.

There were disputes over the years. The first dispute was over about 15 million dollars that

they said we owed them.

And you would owe them money because of what?

Because they said they had lent the money. I don't think we need to go into so much

detail on this.

I think it's interesting. So share unless you think there's a legal reason not to share

that.

And then it came to the point where they wanted to buy us out.

Ten years later they wanted to buy us out. They said that they thought that we were in it

long enough; maybe we wanted to get some money out of it. They would buy our share.

[Pause in recording]

So in the 1990s—construction starts when? Let me just start there.

I think we started construction about '95.

Ninety-four.

Yes, '94. But it takes a few years to build.

It opened in '96.

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We had a great party. They had a great opening party. We invited all our friends. They

put out a red carpet. It was just a fabulous evening, the opening of the mall. They hired

Disney to do the grand opening.

Anyway, we were partners with them for several years. As Les said, they had come

to us and wanted to buy us out. They told him what they were offering as the buy out price.

Les found out how much a mall like this would actually be worth so he said he would buy

them out. They were shocked. They said, "Oh, no, we're doing well; we'll stay together."

The guy almost fell over the chair backwards. His eyes rolled in his head when I said we

were going to buy him out.

We stayed together with them for another year and then before the ICSC the following year

Les made an offer to buy them out at a very nice price. They knew the ICSC would be

coming and if they didn't buy it, one of the other developers probably would. So they ended

up buying us out at way, way more than they had offered us to begin with. We made lots of

very wealthy people in this town, our investors, who invested in dirt in the middle of

nowhere. That was really great.

Les also, after we thought we were going to be successful, before we even started

building the mall, put together several other big pieces of property with a lot of the same

investors and other investors and we did well in all of them. We really did. He bought

property from the City of Henderson. They offered this big piece of property for sale and

Les was there with several other people from large companies who were interested. The

City wanted the deposit right then, and Les was the only owner who could give them a

deposit right then. He called me to bring a check right away. Everybody else had to

consult with their companies. So Les bought it. It was unbelievable. Out of that property,

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the city came to him and said that the Clark County School District wanted a site for a high

school and would he be willing to work with them. He said, "You let them pick whatever

part they need from the property I bought and they can just take it and I'll keep what's left

over." That's what they he did and that's Green Valley High School.

So you donated the land?

We sold them the land.

For what we paid for it, basically. But I don't even think there was any money

exchanged. He just said, "Let them take what they want." And they bought it from the

city.

There were two. Then they came back to us—

Oh, right, the City came back to us after our purchase had been completed and told us that

the College of Southern Nevada was interested in a campus on the land that we had recently

purchased on Warm Springs Rd, the area where the technology building is located. We

donated that land to them. The College named the campus the Leslie and Joan Dunn

Advanced Technology Center.

So you got shrewd there. You sharpened your skills pretty quickly.

He did. He certainly did. And I'm very thorough at reading contracts and all, so that was

my part. He's great with people and a great negotiator.

I do want to come back to the two of you working together having—I know what

the spousal businesses can be like.

Exactly. So you know you're arguing twenty-four hours a day. [Laughing]

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What other things were you getting involved in and feeling confident about

the community?

Well, he was going to build hotel/casino.

I was going to build a hotel and casino.

Was. So you never did that?

I bought eighty acres.

You love that number.

I like that number.

It was near the mall.

I bought eighty acres, another eighty acres. Also at that time I bought the rights to Embassy

Suites and we were going to build an Embassy Suites.

We were going to do an Embassy Suites. Lucky it didn't work out because it was just

before everything tanked during the big recession.

We traveled to Canada to check out a Dave and Busters.

We designed a casino and other thing else to go on that site.

Then there was a whole lot of what they say mishegas went on.

Let’s talk about the lessons you learned from getting into this new career path of

being a visionary developer of Henderson and Las Vegas and all of that – and at a

time it's coming into – the mall is opening during a recession. What are the

obstacles?

You have to have a lot of chutzpah because the things we did were impossible to do.

Today if you asked me would I do that kind of stuff, I'd probably say no. But I had no

money then and I was young.

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How old were you then?

Forty-five. But a lot of people who do these things have worked in that area for years. In

business or real estate. His background was a scientist, engineer. But he always put

programs together at the lab where he worked too, for the government. He was the one they

sent to Washington to get money for the programs.

So if you were to summarize the skills, the personal assets that he had, not the

financial assets that he got for doing this—

I had no financial assets.

Yes, no financial assets. I think he has a winning smile, to tell you the truth, and he's smart

and he seizes an opportunity and he never worries about what's been. He always goes on to

the next thing if something doesn't work out. He doesn't dwell on mistakes or problems. He's

very optimistic and I think that's what does it.

I'm also tenacious and I stay on a project. If partners stay in for the long hall and

recessions are not too long I've had a good track record for my partners.

How about knocking on wood, would you do that?

And how about Joan, what was her role in these projects? Because you were

working together.

She was the accountant. For the first few years, she kept the books, paid the people who

would do things, kept up with the paperwork and discussed all the legal documents and

business deals (which she still does.)

I kind of ran the office.

We would fight when we do—she doesn't understand the importance of this—but we would

fight over—

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Everything.

—what we would do and then I would do it anyway. A lot of things which she had said

in the fights were incorporated into what I did.

So you were a good partnership.

So although I think she thinks I didn't do that, a lot of things she would say, "No, you

can't do this; you can't do that," and it would influence my decisions. She is a very

detailed person.

Even today that still goes on.

I have a project now that I can't even talk to you about. I'm going to make as much money

as I did on the mall, but I can't talk about it because it's still in the works. It's one of the

big projects that I have, but it's still in escrow.

So from mall development what did you move on to, the next project?

We did several shopping centers.

Oh, you did several. In Vegas or...?

In Henderson.

Several hundred thousand feet, yes.

The shopping center on Stephanie, the big shopping center.

Oh, I see, the Stephanie Street Power Center. The Green Valley Station Shopping

Center, which is...?

The corner of Warm Springs and Arroyo Grande and the one across the street from that, the

Arroyo Grande Shopping Center and the Walgreens on the other corner. Then we had

property off Warm Springs Road near the freeway, near the 95. Then to be a little different,

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he has property across town at Durango and the 215, which we are still going to be

developing in the next few years.

He bought a piece of property in California —now, this is one that wasn't great, but we

didn't lose any money—we bought a piece of property, forty acres in Temecula.

Because one of the businesses he got into one time was landscaping, and so he was

going to plant all his shrubs and trees and grow them there.

And also use them on our projects. We sold that property and made a small profit.

When we were doing the Stephanie Street Power Center, we went to California in an area

where they grew palm trees for sale. We walked through this giant field of palm trees, I

don't know how many.

We bought two hundred.

We bought two hundred for that center. It was just great, just going there and picking out

palm trees.

"Give me that one, that one, that one."

My previous biology degree allowed me to do the tortoise surveys on the properties

because it was a requirement. If there were tortoises, they would make you relocate them.

Because of my degree in biology, I had the credentials to do that.

This was here or in California?

This was here.

That's when they tried to stop all development in Las Vegas.

Why were they trying to stop all development?

Yes. The federal government didn't like us for some reason, gaming and one of our...So

there were tortoises dying out. But we're not in tortoise country, you have to understand.

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We're on the fringe of tortoise country. The tortoise area is in California west of us. So

maybe there's one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of the density of tortoises here. The authorities

came here and applied the tortoise preservation act in the Las Vegas valley to stop growth

here.

So who is "they?"

Maybe a government entity. Someone was angry with us, I'm not sure who. They were

going to put a stop to Nevada’s growth, which meant that on every piece of property we had

to have special studies and pay money for moving tortoises. You couldn't have equipment

on the property until the study was accepted and the tortoises removed. If you killed a

tortoise with a backhoe or a machine, my god, you could go to jail. We didn’t find any

tortoises.

And then what happened, they made everybody turn in the tortoises. They wouldn't let you

keep them as pets then. They put them in this one area, fenced in, and most of them died

because there was such a close conglomeration; one got sick and a virus wiped every one

out. So I think they might have some now, in a tortoise sanctuary, but it's not a big concern

anymore.

The City of Henderson wanted control and to raise money. The City didn't have enough

water, true, and they've been developing many ways to increase the water supply They put

a water moratorium on everything so they could control the water. There were a lot of

things that you had to fight.

In the explosion of population that I've just seen in the little over twenty years of

living here and water has always been an issue, what's—

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Well, speaking of the explosion, every ten or fifteen years our city gets overbuilt and then it

gets hit with a recession and then everybody moves out and we're left with empty houses all

over the valley. That's what's happening again now. They're over building this whole

valley, Henderson, Las Vegas North Las Vegas. From mountain to mountain there are

houses going up. What's going to happen when all of a sudden the jobs stop?

Have you seen the density of these houses? They build them little, tiny boxes and they put

them five feet from each other. That's wonderful now. People buy it and then they outgrow

it and they become rental properties. Then the people move into those properties don't take

care of them. They become slums. They become areas where you have high robberies etc.

I don't know if they just don't think of the future and what these places are going to turn

into. But the developers are interested in getting maximum density and selling as cheap as

they can.

I don't know if we included the last time anything about our family. I know in my written

record I put a lot in, but I don't know if...

We did talk about kids a bit, but we can come back to that. I do want to ask, because

one other business that you're known for—what I'm referencing right now is this

Small Business awards luncheon that you were honored in 2004 by the SBA. It

mentions the TLC Care Center. Let's talk a lit bit about that business.

We got involved, not directly to do that, but someone was interested in building a nursing

home there and we put in the land and he put in supposedly the expertise. He turned out

not to be much of an expert; in fact, the opposite. So Les said, "I'm not going to be in

business with anybody who works like you do, so I'm buying you out." So Les bought him

out.

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This is before we opened.

Before we opened it, while we were building it and while we were putting in the initial

supplies. So he was never a part of it once we opened. Les learned the business and we've

been in it since 1999.

What do we need to know about opening care centers like that?

Ah, government regulations.

There is a difference between real estate and a business.

And taking care of people.

In real estate, you have a piece of property. You have a title. It has a certain worth. You can

get it appraised. You sell it. You make money. You do things. Not so in a business. You

go into a business, and depending on the business you go—we went into the most regulated

business in the United States. The government looks at everything.

More regulated than hospitals.

Much more. Of course, they regulate the medicines and care that you provide. You’re

building a hotel and you're building a hospital. You have to wash the clothes. You have to

prepare the meals. If the meal comes out two degrees or one degree too cool in the

regulations, you get cited. Well, in a hotel you just get another meal. It's much different and

you have much more responsibilities.

I just want to say that for Les it's been like a cause, not a business.

Explain that.

He's just involved in wanting to do it right, wanting to make the best facility that he can to

treat the people well, and the money was not really part of it for all those years.

I take care of several hundred people.

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He made the money on other things and this is almost like his cause.

I can tell you that in a little business, in a dress shop you would make more money than

where I am with two hundred and fifty employees. You have to provide insurances. You

have to provide healthcare. You have to provide an environment for it. For the people

who are your patients, you have to provide entertainment. You have to provide food. If

you have two hundred and fifty people, you'll have a certain amount of people who never

agree with anything. So you have to find out how you take care of these people and make

it so that they like the lifestyle, they want to live there and feel good. You become their

mother and father, their family. You do all these things for them. They have their own

groups that meet once a month. If there's something wrong, if they want something, they

will not hesitate to tell you. We have activities and programs. We have five or six people

working in activities. We bring in entertainment several times a week where they sing and

they play music for the residents. And the music they play is appropriate music; it's from

the forties and fifties.

So these are retired or senior citizen type of facility?

Well, we basically have two kinds of residents.

We have everybody.

We have two types of residents. We have residents who are acute care who stay with us

for ten days or twenty days and then return home or go to an assisted living facility and we

have residents who live at TLC for the rest of their lives.

We used to have a whole wing for children, which because of the way the funding

was, we couldn't hold it.

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We were losing a million dollars a year on the facility because the state would not pay us

what it cost to take care of these children.

It costs a lot more to take care of a child, a baby.

And these children are radically sick; some of them had half a brain. None of them could

speak. Some were required by the state to attend school, an impossible task. I'm not just

taking care of twenty-eight children, I'm taking care of fifty-six adults and twenty-eight

children. The parents of these children need care too because they feel guilty about things

did I smoke during...and the child turned out this way?) So I have parents who, when I

took care of the children, it was a great stride for these parents to see their children crawl

across a mat because when they came into TLC, they laid in a fetal position and didn't

move. We had to feed them individually with different kinds of things and now maybe

they can eat and crawl and smile. It made a difference in those parents' lives.

Wow.

So now that's what we have, TLC, and we have the property across town that's near

Durango and the 215. In the next few years, we'll be developing that. Maybe we'll be

able to take more vacations now and visit our grandchildren who are getting older

quickly. By the time we're ready to go and see them often, they'll be away at college..

How many locations of TLC do you have?

Just the one.

Where is that located?

It's the biggest facility in the state.

It's at Warm Springs near Stephanie.

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It has two hundred and sixty-six beds. With the children, I had to have at least one or two

people to take care of each child. You can imagine how expensive. They had to be hand

fed and all of these additional things.

I could see this is your way of—Yes, your tikkun olam. You're making the world a

better place for these people that live there.

Of course.

What other activities have you gotten involved in besides that?

Most of our time has been devoted to trying to take care of our businesses.

And your employees. You mentioned your employees.

Yes, yes. I just had an employee who moved to Michigan. She worked for us for twelve

years. It was like losing a member of our family. She had to move away. But things go on.

Then our grandkids, they live on two sides of the country.

In June we have another bar mitzvah in L.A.

How many grandchildren do you have?

We have four grandsons; each daughter has two sons. They're adorable, of course.

Of course.

Smart, handsome.

Athletes. And if you think we're joking—everybody says that—we're not. These are

great students, valedictorians, athletes, musicians, tech jocks and extraordinary young

men. Our grandson who is fifteen is the tenth rated tennis player on the West Coast.

Everybody thinks they have great children and grandchildren. These are...You don't

have to put it in the book. Of course they take after their outstanding mothers and

fathers.

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No, this is part of your legacy. When you reflect upon where you grew up and

where you've come, do you have thoughts about...?

Oh, yes, I do all the time. It's just amazing. We grew up in the Bronx. I guess we thought

we were middle class, but when you look back and you see how people live today, we

weren't so middle class. I don't know, things have changed today. Everybody wants

everything now. Les stayed with the U.S. Public Health Service for twenty-three years and

we saved our money. We didn't spend a lot. We made everything work. We gave our kids

all the possible things that would make them better, more productive people, happier. Now

everybody wants everything now.

I lived in a one-bedroom apartment with my brother, mother and father, three hundred

square feet. I never had a new bike or anything like that. My father put together bikes. I

thought I was living well. It didn't occur to us that everybody didn’t live like we lived.

People today who they call in poverty, if you compared it to the way that we lived in New

York City, they're living upper- middle-class lives. Everybody has a car. Everybody has

televisions. Everybody has a cell phone, trendy clothes. We didn't have all of that. That

was how people lived at that time.

I was an only child and my mother worked too so I always had to take of myself. I went to

camp every summer because otherwise I’d be alone. I thought I was well off until I went to

camp and the kids came from Westchester and their maids would come up on Parents' Day.

That was a little different.

If we can talk a little bit about where you live now, this is quite wonderful. You've got

a beautiful view of the city and a really spacious house.

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I mentioned to you looking at houses was one of the hobbies we had when we first got

married and lived in New Orleans. We'd always went on the weekends to open houses and

critiqued the houses. When Les was going to retire from the Public Health Service, he

wanted to build our own home because he wanted to learn every trade. That's another

chutzpah. Not too many people say, “I want to become a contractor and learn every trade,

so I will build our own house.” We did. We lived in that house for twenty-seven years

while we were developing and building and learning everything. Then we moved up to

Anthem Country Club in one of the Anthem homes while we were building this home, which

took seven years.

Seven years?

It took seven years.

Our kids. Dressed in polyester. I gave haircuts with a bowl.

Our son's hair; that's what he looked like. I have the cutest picture of him with the three

children. Everybody is wearing this old-fashion polyester stuff with their long hair.

They learned to shop.

When our daughter Sharon went off to college—she was going to Wharton—I said, "It's

going to be cold there in the winter, so you'll buy your winter coat when you get there.

They don't sell anything here that will be warm enough." She called me up and she said,

"You trained me too well; I can only look at the sale rack." But our daughters, the same

thing, whatever those kids— not just want, but whatever will make them better able to

compete in the world, be happier, they spare no expense either. They have great kids.

What do your kids do, now?

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Well, our son passed away in 1993 from melanoma; he was twenty-seven. He graduated

from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. He had worked at the Golden

Nugget and the Mirage. He was married to Dawn Laxton. Our daughter Loryn,, lives in Los

Angeles and is a partner in a real estate firm. Loryn has a Bachelor’s Degree from Harvard

University, a Masters from John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a

Law Degree from Stanford University. She's also very into tzedakah. She makes sure that at

least once a month her boys do something in the community just to make them understand

that not everybody is as lucky as they are. Her husband Steven is a Federal Prosecutor.

Our daughter, Sharon lives in Arlington, Virginia. She graduated from the Wharton

School of Finance in Pennsylvania. She worked ten years in the business world. She

actually made the whole Passover Seder that we had here at our home (and the following

year in Disney World.) She is a great cook. She sent me a huge list and I bought

everything. She and her son, Zachary did most of the cooking. Loryn and her son, Andrew

made the matzah ball soup David made the flourless chocolate cake. I just set things out

for them. It was really nice. Sharon’s husband, Adam Levin is an attorney in Washington,

DC.

Whenever the four grandsons get together at our house they put on a play in our

theater. David writes the script, Andrew is the MC, Zachary is the Food and Beverage

Director and Nate is the performer. There is plenty of noshes to go around.

Two great families!

You try to give the children some grounding. They need to understand that because you

have money, it doesn't make you better than anyone else. It's what you do with your life

that makes the difference.

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We're attending the third grandson's bar mitzvah in the month of June and it's wonderful to

see everything carried on from generation to generation, as they say. You certainly get a

warm fuzzy feeling and I'm looking forward to it.

Sure. Do you reflect back about your own life in a Jewish...whether it's

religious or culturally, how that's affected anything?

It's culture. We're not highly religious, but we do go to temple.

We're active in AIPAC and just last month we attended the Jewish National Fund’s

yearly luncheon. I think those are the organizations that we enjoy participating.

What's important about JNF, Jewish National Fund?

Well, JNF has built Israel. Aside from the politics and the wars and whatever is going on, I

think they're the dirt that holds everything together. That's why they're there. They protect

the land and that's what makes it important. The politics can go on no matter what party is

in charge, but JNF just keeps doing their mission, making sure there's water and there's

clean air and the relics of the past are still being uncovered. I think it's the glue that binds

Israel together. That's why I feel good being a part of it. I think AIPAC is really important

because America has been the only country that has stood by Israel. Even when we've had

administrations that weren't interested or were negative, there was something about the

people in the U.S. that just kept demanding in some way, from the officials, that they

support Israel. I think it's really important. I think Israel is helping the U.S. especially in the

Korean problem because of the defense that Israel has been able to be successful in to help

South Korea defend itself in that area. So those are the two organizations I like. I'm not into

the social justice of some of the Jewish movements today. I think it's counterproductive. I

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think the words don't stand for what it actually is. There's another organization that we go

to; it's called CUFI.

Oh, yes, CUFI, Christians United for Israel.

You and I talked about that one time.

Yes. They just had about a week ago their yearly conference here.

They're mostly born-again Christians and they support and love Israel and love Jews. They

put together this organization. There's three million five hundred thousand members today.

When there's something that affects Israel—

In Congress.

—they can get instantaneously thirty-five, forty thousand telegrams out to Congress and

other people to get support, to show that it's not just Jews that support Israel but there are

Christians that support Israel. It's very important.

Why do you think they're interested in Israel?

I can tell you that Pastor Hagee who founded CUFI said, "Please..." – I get kind of

emotional – He says, "Please forgive us for not being there when you needed us. We will

never not be there for you again. The Jews have their religion and they built it." He said,

"The Christians took parts of their religion. We depend on the Jewish religion. We owe a

lot to Israel and the Jews. We are not here because of any prophecies that Jews have to be

here." He said, "There was a big movement in Christianity to take Jews and make them not

the chosen people. They changed their dogma to say that the Christians were the chosen

people." He said, "We don't believe that at all. There are 50 million of us. The Jews, we

still believe are the chosen people."

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A week or two ago an amendment came up in Carson City at the Assembly in Nevada

about the BDS movement.

Explain what the BDS [Boycott Divestment Sanctions] movement is. Can you explain

it?

It's a movement that's worldwide to stop products that are made in Israel from being

sold anywhere.

It's really to discredit Israel and Jews.

And they work on college campuses. They're very vocal, very forceful.

The Palestinians are on the campuses and this has really come out of the Palestinian

movement. We're into politics and keep very involved. We like to be involved in politics

that not only help the U.S. and Nevada but also Israel.

Have you traveled to Israel?

Yes several times.

Can you remember your trip there, what it felt like to be in Israel? Having been there

myself, I was sort of overwhelmed.

Well, the first thing I thought is, my goodness, it looks like Nevada. I said, "I've traveled this

far; I'm back in Nevada." A desert.

You can't really say this outside. But when fifteen million Jews in a world of seven billion

people have such an effect on the world in music, science, literature, business and science

and they survived the Holocaust and they're still here. How does a fraction of a percent of

people give the world so much and not be appreciated at all for it? There is more anti-

Semitism today than ever. What have they got? They've got this little, tiny country, which

belongs to them historically, and not only historically, but in ancient and modern times

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they’ve always been there. The Turkish Empire owned Palestine and sold it, much of the

property that they didn't think was worthwhile, to the Jews. And now people question

whether we have a right to be there. The Palestinians, if you know the history, have no

right to be there. They're Syrians and they came when the Jews came. The Jews hired them

to do labor. There were a certain amount of Arab people that were indigenous to that

country (not Palestinians), but there were always Jews living there. We could have lived

together very nicely if they didn't try to kill us all the time.

It's a small thing. No, I think that's very important. Knowing history is so

significant. That's the reason this is so wonderful that you're sharing.

Not only that, but there's nothing left of those civilizations that existed. The Jews have

existed six thousand years. They've traveled all over the world, this small group of people.

He who writes the history writes the future. The world writes us out of everything. Or it

tried to write us out of everything, but they can't.

That's beautiful.

Anything else you would like to add to this record of your personal histories

here? What have we not touched upon? Any stories out there, little anecdotes?

You've made some great friends. I met you through Gary Sternberg.

We know people that we've known for forty years. Even before we belonged to a temple, we

belonged to the Jewish Young Couples' Club. We're still friends with a couple that we met

there, Phyllis and Cal Lewis. We met Gary Sternberg at Ner Tamid and stay in touch on a

regular basis. Years ago, I was on the Hillel Board at UNLV.

At work I had my peers. We're still friends with them. None of them are Jewish.

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Did you ever experience anti-Semitism at all when you were working at the Test Site?

Yes, when I first got there, I did. There were a few anti-Semitic people the first few years.

After that, there was no openly anti-Semitic talk where I worked.

I remember Les saying that after the Jews in Israel fought back and won the wars, the

people he worked with, who weren’t Jewish, had a lot more respect for Jews and Israel.

I'm bothered most by Jews themselves who don't support Israel. I'm bothered most by

their stance—

On Jews who support people who don't support them and they refuse to see it.

The Arabs have a very good thing. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And these

people don't know it yet. We were Democrats until the year 2000 because I'm a patriot. I'm

an American patriot. Israel is number two. America is number one for me. When I see

things that are going on in this country...the Constitution...when I see that college students

are running wild denying people freedom of speech...That's the First Amendment to the

Constitution. That's one of the basic things we inherited from English law. The common

law was always that you had a place to talk and you had a right to say things. I just don't

understand what's going on. If you lose freedom of speech, forget this country.

I agree.

That's how Nazis come in. The worst part about it is they call everybody else fascist and

they're the ones preaching, "Shut them down; don't let them talk."

Again, I think it goes back to learning the lessons of history that we've touched upon

and understanding what a democracy is. A lot of people don't fully understand it.

They need to take a crash course on that.

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The history that they teach in the schools today is so watered down. They think history

goes back thirty years. But I've noticed that the history that my grandsons learn in

Virginia is a lot more involved than what they do in the West because Virginia is one of the

original thirteen colonies. They have many places to visit that are landmarks from the

American Revolution and the schools take the students to these places. They instill a lot

more patriotism in them, I think.

That's an interesting observation.

When you asked before about this house, it's so fantastic, the view that we have, just to sit

here and look out at what's happened to the city since we came here in 1964 when it was two

hundred thousand people. There was nothing. It was just desert. Now we almost reach to

California.

Yes. Did you ever think you'd live in a house like this? Was that ever an aspiration?

I think we really did because, as I said, from the time we first got married we went looking

at houses and thinking about houses. It was a hobby. When the time came we were

already for it because we had been looking all our lives at different aspects of homes and

what made them important and what made them feel good and not just brick and mortar,

as they say.

We knew that we could never afford this house. We looked at houses and we knew it took a

lot of money. We never expected to be very wealthy. Our wealth only happened in the last

twenty years. Otherwise, I was an engineer. We expected to live a nice life. We lived in

houses that were nice, but I don't think we expected to live in a super mansion. We

expected to live like our friends live, in a nice house in a nice community and have things.

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But yet, when we started with the architect, we had been thinking all our lives about things

that we liked, and so it just came pouring out because it was always a hobby.

That probably is reflected, as I shared with you when we were just sitting here before

we started, is I love the textures and warmth of the home. Even though this is

magnificent beyond description, it's warm. It feels comfortable and like a home. You

don't always get that if it's just an architectural palace.

You're right. We've been in a lot of large luxurious homes that had no feeling. There

was no good feeling in it.

Yes. The fact of you having been this—you're really kind of a silent visionary of Las

Vegas's growth and development and to be able to look out at this spectacle. What do

you think is the future of the city? Here we are in 2017. We've got two million people

living here. What is the future?

Now with all these sports teams, it's adding a whole new aspect to the city. I heard one of

the retired basketball players saying there's no reason that in the next few years we're not

going to get an NBA team. So we'll have everything. And the gambling part of the casino

money is going down a percentage because people are coming here to do lots of other

entertainment

They're malls. Hotels are now shopping malls.

So many stores and so many restaurants.

Malls have been redefined since you opened up.

Exactly. Now they have to put gaming into malls and sports activities.

Well, around the country malls closed up and had to redefine who they are.

Look at the Boulevard Mall and then they've lost Macy's now.

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In Las Vegas we have a concentration of these dynamics and people come from all over

the world to be here. Now sports are the biggest thing in the world today. We've grown up

and are big enough and our transportation hubs are big enough that people come here from

all over. It's convenient. They have fun. There's nothing like it.

I'm just concerned about the over building again in houses and poor quality developments

that are just going to end up as slums because you can see it in other major cities.

The city council and the developers are not setting quality standards. So the question is on

one side, do you deny people who make thirty or thirty-five thousand dollars, forty

thousand, fifty thousand [dollars] homes here? We need workers and we need people who

don't make a lot of money. So you build smaller houses, and pack them closer together.

I think that they're letting down the standards too much. They're asking to take

away the shrubbery to make the sidewalks smaller, make the space between houses

smaller.

On the other side of that, Joan—well, Inspirada is really...

That's a well thought out community. That's different.

Yes, and it's smaller and less expensive. But at one time they were thinking about putting

housing tracts into Arizona and back up into Pahrump and on the other side of the

Colorado River. The people who make thirty thousand dollars can’t afford to buy a home

here or rent space here. They would have to live thirty, forty miles north of town, thirty,

forty miles east of town because they would build low cost housing there. I guess they're

building that here now in certain areas and you know what that's going to be.

The one thing I'm hoping is that the medicine will improve here because they're going to be

building a medical school. We'll be able to have our own doctors that will stay here

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because it's still hard, I think, to get doctors to come to Las Vegas; the same thing with

rabbis. It was always hard. It probably still is. They don't want to raise their family in Las

Vegas. Maybe Las Vegas' reputation will change a little, too, with the sports and the less

emphasis on gaming. So we'll see what the future holds.

As a developer—I touched upon it, on water—do you think water is an issue for the

city?

Out at Lake Mead—we were just there, the water level has gone down tremendously. In the

last twenty or thirty years we've gone through a cycle where we had much less rain and

snow pack, and also we're using a lot more water than we did. The level of Lake Mead has

gone down. I think we have enough water to build out the land that we have. If you look at

the valley, we've built out to all sides. How far can they go, only to the northwest? How big

will Las Vegas get? I don't know. If you look at the history of Las Vegas for the past sixty

years—and they've chartered this on maps—every decade Las Vegas has doubled in growth

in people, every decade. We're now at two million. Are we going to go to four million? I

doubt it. But are we going to go to three million? Probably so. Can we handle three

million? Probably.

We need to improve the school system. We're ranked last. We used to be above Mississippi

and now they're ahead of us.

Science will always fix everything.

I don't know why. I don't know why the school district is in such miserable condition.

They've got some serious issues right now that's for sure. "Science will always fix it,"

what do you mean when you say that?

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Well, if you can think it, it will come here. If you have a need, you will develop the science

to fill the need. For instance, everybody was worried about the carbon footprint, about their

being too much carbon hydrocarbons in the air. That's gone, absolutely gone with the

electric car. In ten years, half of the cars in the United States will be electric. In twenty

years, I don't think they'll be producing internal combustion engines for cars. It will all be

electric. They've made such strides in it. It's not that there's less energy being used or

pollution, but it's electric energy and it's built in central locations and you can clean up those

locations. We have cleaned it up. Even with Trump saying we're going to pull out of this

thing—

Climate change.

—the United States has done more than all of those countries in Europe—

Last week we heard an AIPAC speaker from Israel. She was involved in water and energy.

This is at the AIPAC?

Yes. She was Israeli. She had a very high position in their agencies. She said Israel has

no water problem, they have desalinization plants. They haves no energy problem they

are using renewable sources.

They are at the forefront on development of clean energy electric and gas. They provide a lot

of the power to Jordan, but the people don't know it. I asked that question, "Do the

Jordanians know?" She said, "No." The governments know, but they don't tell the people.

Well, I think it's really important what you've said and it's really important that it

comes from you, a person who started your career as a scientist. So everything you

think is in that way, right? You're analytical?

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Because when you have a problem...You never invent something when there's no problem,

you look for solutions How can you invent something when there's no problem? There's

nothing to fix, but when you get something that develops into a problem, you can work on

it. The United States is a rich country and has the resources and scientists to do that. But

Israel is a small country and it does that too.

Well, why is Israel different than Jordan and Syria and all those? I can tell you why,

but I can't say. It's because their religion holds them back. First of all, half the population

are women and they're not allowed to do most things. They don't advance.

But when you look at your own religion, you're seeing that everybody is empowered

and encouraged to be successful and be problem-solvers.

Is your society one of individuals or is your society one of tribes? Are you still a tribe?

Civilization advanced. First it was the family group and the then the tribe. Over time

societies developed but some societies are still not as advanced as they could be. Their

ideas hold them back. You need individuality in a free functioning society to advance.

Those are great perspectives and observations. I thank you.

I'd like to see a development of Judaism aside from what's available today because I

don't feel like I fit in to any of the categories. We used to consider ourselves Reform, but

the Reform movement has moved so far to the left that I don't think a lot of them even

stand up for Israel. It's more standing up for the minority community.

Social justice is the big mantra but they need to know that they should stand up for Jews, a

still dwindling part of the world population, one of the smallest minority communities.

It's a phony mantra.

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Social justice. We’ll have a candidate who says, "I'm going to give you everything. You

want free college, free housing, I'm going to give it to you." Then this becomes a way of

living for them and their children. This country was built on individualism, on working

hard and doing things. Social justice. and I'm not saying that we have a perfect society

because it's far from perfect, but people have to recognize differences and they do exist.

Can you give everybody everything? You kill individuality. You kill respect for oneself.

It doesn't work.

When we travel I always like to talk to the taxi drivers in the places we go because you

learn a lot about people and about the areas. When we go East all the taxi drivers come

from

somewhere else—in the Middle East, from Africa—and they're all hard working. They all

have a vision to improve their lot, to send their kids to college, their girls too. They're

excited about this country. They say to me that some of the people that are in this country,

that are born in this country expect to get things without working for them. They don't take

advantage of opportunity. They don't think about it that way. But the immigrants come here

and they work very hard because this is the land of opportunity, where in their own country

there was no opportunity. When I say social justice and I say I don't believe in it, that

doesn't mean that I don't think there should be a safety net for people. I don't believe that

people should be lying in the streets or if you're sick or mentally disabled that there shouldn't

be a care system. Of course, there should be and we do that all the time. There was never a

problem in this country in the last twenty or thirty years of people being able to get medical

help. You could go into a hospital and they have to provide services for you. But they leave

these things out. They don't talk about them. They talk about exaggerations all the time. I

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see that it's almost like socialism-communism that's coming out and that system has never

worked in any country in the last two hundred years. I see that these people are pushing or

at least talking about it. The funny thing is that they say, "Well, look, you need to have

elections in all of these countries." When you have a socialist or communist system, you

can have an election, but it always turns out to be the last election. That's what bothers me

about a lot of the things that are going on, the promises that are made that can never be

fulfilled in this country. The Constitution is a successful document. It tries to provide a

societal structure and amendments that will make it better.

I really do thank you.

I'd just like to add that I think the most important thing is that we raised great children

and they're raising great children. Our grandchildren will be able to accomplish things

and live a good life and be happy in any field that they choose because the their

forebearers are leaving them a good legacy. They can achieve what they want if they

work for it.

This country provides opportunity, if you work hard and are somewhat intelligent you can

work to achieve a good life. We were able to succeed because this country provided for

schooling and opportunities and we were disciplined. We didn't just go off and spend

recklessly. We always managed to save and do those things that were important.

We didn't expect anybody to provide us with everything. We knew we had to earn those

things.

And you did well. That's great.

I’d like to see a country where everybody has the opportunity, not the guarantee, to reach

for the stars.

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Great. Thank you so very much.

So talk about being on the building committee for Congregation Ner Tamid.

When we were beginning to build the first Ner Tamid on Emerson, Les was the vice

president in charge of building and he coordinated between the temple members and the

contractor.

Like any Jewish organization, we had two thousand people who were experts.

We should have only had two thousand people,we had six hundred.

I'm exaggerating a little bit. Everybody thinks that they can build or that they can do

anything. When things are going really well, everything is fine. When things are not going

really well, they start laying the blame.

I was looking at positive stories.

Only positive stories. We got it built, but they didn't raise enough money to pay for it.

Then everybody pointed a finger at everybody else. So after that it taught me one thing:

Don't volunteer to do these things. If you do them, do them yourself.

Good lesson. Then you mentioned that you...Shirat Shalom?

Shirat Shalom.

I am not familiar with that congregation.

Several congregants affiliated and nonaffiliated with Ner Tamid and other Temples hired

the Cantor, Philip Goldstein, who had been at Ner Tamid, to start a new Temple, Shirat

Sholom. They respect all members and political opinions.

Where are they located?

At Warm Springs near Pecos. It's in an office park. It's been there for several years now.

They have about a hundred members and it's a close-knit community.

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That's where you go, okay. I'll have to make sure we have them included in the project

some way or another. I like to mention everybody. [End of recorded interview]

We’d like to end by saying that “We accomplished the impossible because we didn’t know it

was impossible.”