Name: Donald Giancursio
Title: Vice president for sales, Managed Healthcare Division
Company: Sierra Health Services, Inc., Las Vegas
Type of Business: Nevada’s largest healthcare insurer. Sierra Health and Life and Health Plan of Nevada insure 200,000 members through HMO, PPO, individual and Medicare product lines.
Years in Nevada: 7
Years with Company: 4 1/2
Biggest Business Challenge:
My biggest challenge was making the decision to relocate to Nevada from southern California, where I had lived for several years and enjoyed a lot of success. The biggest challenge I have in my present position is the nature of the health care industry itself, with all the changes it’s been going through.
Greatest Professional Accomplishment:
It’s been very rewarding personally to reach top sales milestones in each of the companies I’ve worked for. I am also proud of developing several programs from the infancy stage to completion, and seeing the outcomes and positive results.
Worst Failure:
It’s necessary to take risks sometimes, and they may not always work out. But on the whole, I would say I have had setbacks rather than failures. I truly feel very fortunate to be where I am – I enjoy the health care industry, and like living and working in Las Vegas.
Most Valuable Lesson Learned:
One thing I learned when I was still in an entry level position was to treat people the way I would like to be treated. That has been a guiding principle of mine throughout the years.
Company Goals:
Sierra’s goal for Nevada is to provide businesses of all sizes, but especially small businesses, with comprehensive and affordable health care alternatives. It’s a goal I embrace enthusiastically.
Best Business Advice:
Be honest and straightforward in dealing with everyone. When you tell the truth, you never have to worry about remembering what it was that you said.
Name: Gary Ackerman
Title: President
Company: Gaudin Jaguar-Porsche of Las Vegas
Type of Business: Auto dealership. Besides Gaudin Jaguar-Porsche, the family owns Ford Country in the Valley Auto Mall and Gaudin Ford at 2121 E. Sahara in Las Vegas
Years in Nevada: 45
Years with Company: 22
Biggest Business Challenge:
Like many other business owners today, my biggest challenge is to recruit, train and maintain a quality employee base.
Greatest Professional Accomplishment:
I am proud to be building upon my family’s business heritage. Specifically, being part of the development partnership on the Valley Auto Mall in Henderson, which started in 1994, was very challenging and rewarding.
Worst Failure:
My worst failing is a terrible tendency to get emotionally too close to my employees. I tend to treat them like members of the family, which has it pluses and minuses.
Most Valuable Lesson Learned:
When my grandfather started out selling Fords in the 1920’s, his livelihood depended on building relationships and on word of mouth. He taught my father that this was the best way to build a business, and Dad taught it to me. Now I hear that “relationship marketing” is the latest buzz word. My grandfather would have wondered what took everybody else so long to figure it out.
Company Goals:
As a family-owned business, our goal is to continue to grow the family tree, both in our company and in our personal lives.
Best Business Advice:
For business owners, my advice would be to find a healthy balance between your family at work and your family at home. For employees, find a company that genuinely cares about you as a person and stick with it.
Name: Dan H. Stewart
Title: President and CEO
Company: The LandWell Company, Henderson
Type of Business: Land development. LandWell is developing 2,400 acres in Henderson into a mixed-use master-planned community.
Years in Nevada: 47
Years with Company: 6
Biggest Business Challenge:
The biggest challenge of my life is what I’m currently facing. Between 300 and 400 acres of our parcel are environmentally challenged, and need to be remediated before they can be developed. We not only need to accomplish this in a timely manner, but it must also been done to the highest standards.
Greatest Professional Accomplishment:
Over a year ago, we made an agreement with AIG, the largest insurance company in the world, to get an insurance policy to pre-fund the cleanup of the damaged area. This was a landmark policy which will allow us to get busy and start the cleanup.
Worst Failure:
I grew up in a family-owned construction business in Southern Nevada which was pretty successful, but we just weren’t able to make the transition from the first generation ownership to the second generation. This failure ended up providing me with an opportunity to go out on my own, so it wasn’t entirely bad.
Most Valuable Lesson Learned:
Never give up, and never quit trying no matter how tough it gets. My dad used to say, “Keep trying and something good will happen.”
Company Goals:
LandWell’s main goal is to create a comunity that will be as nice to live in 20 years from now as it is today. Other goals are to support the Nevada State College proposed for Henderson, and to remediate a 50-year old blighted property and make it liveable again.
Best Business Advice:
In one word: teamwork. Build a good strong team whose members trust each other and rely on each other. Teamwork is what we live by here.
Name: Donald Bently
Title: Founder and owner
Company: Bently Nevada Corporation, Minden
Type of Business: With over 80 offices in 40 countries, its scope of products includes instrumentation, software, bearing designs, engineering services, vibration measurement, and rotor dynamic research.
Years in Nevada: 39
Years with Company: 46
Biggest Business Challenge:
To provide a better product than the worldwide competition, and to provide it at a better price than the worldwide competition.
Greatest Professional Accomplishment:
I just had my greatest breakthrough in January, 2000 at the age of 75. Our new invention, the ServoFluid™ Control Bearing, is the most significant development in bearing technology in the last 100 years. It allows us to control a machine’s rotor dynamic behavior rather than just observing it, because our bearing is adjustable. It will have enormous repercussions on how people will design and operate machinery in the future.
Worst Failure:
For 40 years I struggled to build a really good torque meter, and went through a lot of frustration and 30 different designs. The good news is, we finally developed one that works in the field, but we went through a lot of failures before we got it.
Most Valuable Lesson Learned:
One of the most important lessons is how to take good care of customers worldwide. Another educational experience has been learning production methodology. I just spent $7 million to install a computer program called Enterprise Resource Planning to refine our business processes for the 21st century.
Company Goals:
Our constant goal is to provide customers with the best possible instrumentation at the best possible price.
Best Business Advice:
Number one is to work smart. Also, have patience and keep trying.
