It was one of those comic-relief moments of the monthly Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority meeting.
Brenda Siddall, the LVCVA's vice president of finance, would face the board and its chairman, former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, to talk about tax collections, financial forecasts and how tourism marketing was faring during the stormy days of the recession.
"Do you have good news for me?" Goodman would bark at Siddall as she approached the podium.
Siddall would smile and launch into her report. At the end, Goodman would either have a grin on his face or jokingly tell her she was fired.
Today, Goodman is no longer on the board, and Siddall will never have to worry about being fired. She has retired after being with the LVCVA for 25 years.
Siddall, Goodman's economic barometer since the early 2000s and the voice of the LVCVA's financial status, will now strive to enjoy life away from the world of collateralized debt obligations and convertible debentures.
"I am going to have the best garden in my neighborhood, and my new challenge will be to catch more fish than my husband," Siddall said before her Nov. 14 departure from the LVCVA.
Siddall, who grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, aspired to get into the hotel management program at UNLV in the late 1970s.
When she arrived in Las Vegas, she got a job as a change girl at the old Aladdin casino. She was a favorite with gamblers in search of good luck because her nametag listed the date she was hired: 7/7/77.
When she enrolled at UNLV in 1978, she said, her advisers told her that she had exceptional mathematical aptitude, so she changed course on her degree and studied accounting.
She got a job with the LVCVA as a senior accountant, hired by then-CEO Frank Sain.
"I thought it was going to be really professional, and it was the first job I had that I could use my CPA license," she said.
But she soon learned that the LVCVA could be a circus.
The finance office was located in a Quonset hut next to a warehouse back when the Las Vegas Convention Center had its rotunda building that housed large community events, including UNLV basketball.
"The first show that was there when I arrived in 1987 was the Barnum & Bailey Circus," Siddall said. "They kept the circus animals in the warehouse, and they had the elephants right outside my office."
In 2004, Siddall took over as vice president of finance — in effect, the organization's chief financial officer.
"My goal was always to be able to explain numbers to nonfinancial people and make it simple for them, and not use government account-speak, making it understandable for everybody," she said.
She said the recession spured greater appreciation among the organization's decision-makers and staff in the value of long-term financial planning. She and LVCVA President and CEO Rossi Ralenkotter developed five-year financial projections and plans to prepare for the lean months of an underperforming economy.
"She has a great knowledge of the numbers, but more importantly, she knows how to present them," he said. "She was critical during the recession because our 11-point (recovery) plan revolved around finances. Sometimes, she made the tough decisions or gave us the input that maybe we didn't want to hear. But she really made the numbers sing."rick.velotta@lasvegas
sun.com / 259-4061 /@VegasInc_TheRV
Copyright 2011 Las Vegas Sun
