Former Strip casino executive turns to role with nonprofit organization

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Blind Center of Nevada President and Chief Executive Officer Ronnie Wilson uses negotiating and accounting skills honed in the big-money world of Strip casinos to help the visually impaired.

The center’s board of directors turned to the former Aladdin chief executive officer in 2000 to help resuscitate the fledgling program.

"I had come down here and been volunteering some. The people here absolutely touched my heart," she said. "I thought I could always go back to the casino industry, but I can see where I can really make a difference here."

The center is a nonprofit organization with a $2 million annual operating budget. The money comes from grants from state agencies and private companies, individual donations, fund-raisers and its own business enterprise employment center.

Wilson said she works as hard now as she did when she was running a casino.

"It is much more stressful because you’re dealing with people’s lives, not just money," Wilson said.

Under Wilson and the new board, the center’s focus has grown to provide job training and job opportunities, as well as working to promote community awareness and outreach.

The center has a year-and-a-half old eBay business in which the center’s members refurbish and recycle computer components from gaming companies, private industry and state agencies for sale.

Visually impaired people run the site using adaptive technology for pay starting at $10 per hour.

The center also graduated its first job-training class in partnership with the National Statler Center for Careers in Hospitality Service, a Buffalo, N.Y.-based nonprofit group that works training visually impaired students. Seven of the initial 10 graduates work for MGM Mirage for as much as $16 per hour.

Wilson broke into the gaming industry in 1973 as a 22-year-old, working as a bookkeeper at the Thunderbird.

After four years, she left to help open the Maxim. She became the property’s controller in 1986.

Getting there was difficult, she said.

"I had to work harder than everybody else and prove myself," Wilson said. "I didn’t have anybody that was going to protect me."

Her tenacity paid off in 1992 when she was asked by Joe Burt to join his five-member management team, JMJ Inc., as chief financial officer to run the then-bankrupt Aladdin.

Question: What first struck you about the people that come to the center?

Answer: They’re the brave ones because they are not sitting at home. The people that come here are still living and working, participating in society. Unfortunately, some people don’t know about our services and don’t have the support system they need to access our services.

Question: How has technology changed the lives of the blind and visually impaired?

Answer: Technology is the great equalizer. One of the astounding things I discovered coming here is that our people are capable of doing anything. What they need is perhaps some adaptive technology or more training. It may have to be done a little bit differently, but it can be done.

Question: The national employment rate for the visually impaired is 28 percent. How does the blind center work to address this problem?

Answer: These people have lost their vision; they have not lost their intelligence. We want to help spread that word and help them with training. Like the program with the Statler center, we want to develop jobs and develop the training for our people that will give them their confidence back and the skills they need, the adaptive technology they need to go back into competitive employment in the private industry.

Question: What was the idea behind the e-waste business?

Answer: We are solving a problem. We are not going to a company and asking them to please give the blind center a job because it’s the right thing to do. We’re going to them and solving a problem for them. We’re putting blind and visually impaired people to work and providing operating funds for the blind center. It will also keep 2 million pounds of e-waste out of out landfill.

Question: How much of the Blind Center is funded through the e-waste program?

Answer: Right now, it’s in its infancy. The potential is that it will grow to the point where it will support the whole blind center and everything we do. Right now, its supporting that work program including salaries, insurance and rent which is a really big jump for us.

Question: How did the blind center change when you and the new board and staff became involved?

Answer: All of us come from private industry. Before that it was made up of its members and they didn’t have the wherewithal, or the connections, or the knowledge to reach out into the community to get other companies involved with the blind center or develop a work program.

Question: Do you ever think about how much money you could be getting paid if you’d stayed in the gaming industry?

Answer: I was offered a lot of money to stay at the Aladdin. This about so much more than money. I can look myself in the mirror in the morning. I can have one of our members walk in here and see the smile on his or her face. You can’t put a price on that. I get the reward of seeing people come in here lost and depressed and, sometimes, turn around within a week.