Clay Harris
October 1, 2008
Who’s
going where and doing what in the gaming industry
EASTSIDE CANNERY CASINO
Harris
The
newly opened Eastside Cannery Casino & Hotel in Las Vegas has
announced several staffing
hires including the appointment of
Clay Harris
to sales manager. Prior to joining Cannery Casino Resorts, Harris
served as
sales manager for Arizona Charlie’s Hotel & Casino for five
years, and
prior to that Harris was a sales coordinator for Castaways Hotel
& Casino.
Maria Lee
Cates was named Eastside Casino’s new
marketing manager. Cates’ prior experience includes serving as
marketing
manager at the Cannery’s Meadows Racetrack & Casino in
Pennsylvania
and as rewards center manager at the Fiesta Rancho Casino &
Hotel in Las Vegas. Cates also
worked as the database marketing manager for Cannery Casino Resorts in
2003.
Mark
Roberts
was hired as director of surveillance. Prior
to joining the Cannery Casino Resorts team, he served as the
surveillance director for Coast Casinos for more than 12 years.
AMERISTAR CASINOS
Chet W. Koch has been promoted to
senior vice president and general manager of Ameristar Kansas City. An
Ameristar team member since September 2006, Koch had been serving as the
property’s vice president and acting general manager. Koch’s gaming industry
career spans three decades, including executive finance positions at Grand
Casino Tunica in Mississippi, Caesars Entertainment’s Northern Mid-South Region,
and Casino Windsor resort (now Caesars Windsor) in Ontario, Canada. Koch also
served in various operational capacities for casinos operated by Harrah’s,
Claridge, Hilton and Resorts. He has been directly involved in opening 13
casinos ranging from small properties to large, land-based destination
casino-hotels.
BALLY TECHNOLOGIES
Spatharos
Bally Technologies appointed two key executives to its
international management team.
Carlos Engel
was named director of Mexico
sales and operations. Engel, based in the company’s Mexico City office, manages Bally’s sales
activities and market-development strategies throughout the country. Prior to
joining Bally, Engel worked for Acuity Brands Lighting in Atlanta, Ga., where
he was the international market development manager for that company’s Lithonia
lighting division responsible for managing an $18 million sales portfolio
encompassing the countries of Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala,
Honduras, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. He is fluent in Portuguese,
Spanish and English.
Timothy G. Spatharos has
been promoted to director of international operations. Working out of the Las Vegas corporate
headquarters, Spatharos is responsible for managing Bally’s global gaming
operations, including supervising game installs, managing service-related
issues and supporting the international sales activities and gaming operations.
Spatharos previously served as Bally’s director of outbound logistics. Prior
to joining Bally, he was president of TEFTEC Corp., a national manufacturer of
powered wheelchairs.
INSPIRED GAMING GROUP
UK open server-based
gaming developer Inspired Gaming Group appointed four managing directors to
lead the key operating divisions of the firm. Lee
Gregory will head up the casino and bingo division as managing director
of UK
gaming. In this position Gregory will be further developing products such as
multi-win roulette and SBG bingo terminals, and focusing on key clients. Martin Lucas has been named managing director of UK
LBO and will be responsible for betting and pubs SBG. As managing director of
UK Leisure, Adam Hodges will lead the team
responsible for leisure projects and multisite, and Jonathan
Mills is the new managing director of the fourth division, focused on
international markets. Mills’ focus will be
primarily on virtual sports, international casino and international street
gaming.
MULTIMEDIA GAMES
Shanks
Former Harrah’s marketing executive
Ginny Shanks has joined Austin, Texas-based
Multimedia Games Inc., as chief marketing officer. Shanks brings to Multimedia
Games, a developer and supplier of systems, content, electronic games and
player terminals, more than 25 years of marketing experience in gaming
entertainment. As senior vice president of brand management for Harrah's
Entertainment, Shanks was responsible for maximizing the company's key
strategic brands — Caesars, Harrah's, and Horseshoe casinos; the Total Rewards
player loyalty program; and the World Series of Poker. In addition to setting
overall corporate brand strategy, she oversaw sports and entertainment
marketing, strategic alliances, consumer insights, public relations, and
nationwide casino promotions.
MOHEGAN SUN
Abu Hoque has been named
director of housekeeping at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. He oversees a staff of more
than 300 employees, be responsible for the maintenance of guest rooms in the
1,200-room Sky Tower, as well as all daily operations of the department. One of
Hoque’s prime responsibilities is to organize and structure the housekeeping
department for the new 920-room Earth
Tower set to open in
October 2010. Hoque began his career at Mohegan Sun as executive housekeeper in
2003. In December 2007, he took on the role as director of housekeeping at
Atlantis The Palm Dubai in United
Arab Emirates. Hoque’s 20 years of
experience includes positions at the New York Marriott East Side and Southgate
Tower Suite Hotel properties in Manhattan.
SANTA ANA STAR CASINO
Eldredge
Tamaya Enterprises named
Scott
Eldredge as interim general manager of Santa Ana Star Casino, one of New Mexico’s leading
Native American gaming casinos. Eldredge replaces Conrad Granito, who resigned
to become the general manager of the Coushatta Casino Resort in Louisiana. Eldredge is
the director of marketing and transportation at Tamaya Enterprises, which
manages the Santa Ana Star Casino. Tamaya Enterprises is currently conducting a
search for a permanent general manager.
NORTH AMERICAN VIDEO
North American Video, a provider of integrated
security and technology solutions, has announced the creation of its new
Integrated Business Solutions Division, which will focus on providing
enterprise-level security solutions and services for corporate clients. To
support the effort, the company has added a core team of individuals and is
opening a new office in northern New
Jersey that will serve as headquarters for the new
business unit. The business will be led by Vice President and General Manager Frank Lloyd, a security industry veteran with more
than 20 years of experience in systems integration. Lloyd has held leadership
positions with Wells Fargo, Honeywell, Johnson Controls and Ingersoll-Rand.
Additional appointments to NAV’s new division include Alex Melo as director of business development; Kurt Heinicke as director of engineering; Glenn Durant as director of operations: and Brendan Burns as strategic account executive.
SLOT-TICKETS
Murphy
Kay Murphy has joined
Slot-Tickets in the position of sales assistant. Murphy will be responsible for
providing assistance with order placement, pricing and other customer needs at
the Memphis, Tenn.-based provider of coinless slot machine tickets. Prior to
joining the Slot-Tickets team she worked as an administrative assistant and
attended the University
of Memphis.
PENN NATIONAL GAMING
Thomas P. Burke has been promoted to
senior vice president of regional operations at Penn National Gaming. In his
new position Burke will be responsible for overseeing all facets of Penn
National's eight facilities located in Mississippi,
Louisiana, New Mexico,
Missouri, Iowa
and Colorado.
Burke has nearly 30 years of gaming industry experience, having served in
various senior management positions in New Jersey,
Indiana, Missouri,
Colorado and Melbourne, Australia.
Burke joined PNG in 2002 as president and general manager of the company’s
Bullwhackers Casinos in Black Hawk, Colo. and
has managed PNG’s Argosy Casino in Riverside,
Mo. since 2006.
ST. CROIX CHIPPEWA
House
The St. Croix Chippewa of Wisconsin
has hired
Robert House as director of
marketing where he will oversee marketing
operations at their St. Croix Casino & Hotel in Turtle
Lake, the Hole in the Wall Casino
& Hotel in Danbury
and the Little Turtle Hertel Express in Hertel. House has spent the majority of
his professional career in Indian gaming, beginning with a six-year stint as
senior copywriter and creative director for Grand Casinos from
1992 to 1998. He has also served as
a marketer for the Red Lake tribe in Minnesota.
During his tenure at Red
Lake, the tribe unified
its three small casinos under one name, the Seven Clans Casinos. In 2001, he
became the director of marketing for the Leech Lake Band of Chippewa, where his
major responsibility was the opening of that tribe’s new Northern Lights
Casino.
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