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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, faced 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 barked at Siddall as she approached the podium.
Siddall smiled and launched 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’s delivered her last spreadsheet and 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 name tag 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 her first real taste of casino finance as cage cashier. In that job, she quickly learned about the stress of wondering whether the company would have enough money in the bank to pay its bills — an experience that would serve her well decades later.
One of the requirements of her certification in accountancy was to work for a CPA firm, and she briefly held a position with a company that conducted independent audits of the LVCVA’s books.
While there, she saw a notice of an opening in the LVCVA’s finance department. Since she was familiar with the agency’s books, she decided to apply. 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, when Siddall took over as vice president of finance — in effect, the organization’s chief financial officer — she had to confront one of her biggest fears, public speaking.
“My goal was always to be able to explain numbers to non-financial people and make it simple for them, and not use government account-speak, making it understandable for everybody,” she said. “I think I succeeded.”
In her early days as the vice president of finance, the LVCVA’s cash flow was good and there were few worries about making ends meet. But when the recession hit, there were tougher decisions to be made and projections to be met. That’s when Goodman began making his monthly inquiries of Siddall.
“It was a huge challenge, probably the biggest challenge of my career,” she said. “But the mayor actually made it more comfortable for me. I really enjoyed his humor. He was like this little boy with a mischievous grin. And when he saw me coming up, I knew he was preparing whatever comment he was going to make.”
Siddall 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.
“Rossi always likes to have Plan B in case Plan A doesn’t work,” she said. “And that fits right in with my own personality. I like to do all the vacation planning at my house. I’m going to have the entire thing organized and have all of my husband’s activities planned out.”
Ralenkotter was equally complimentary of her.
“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.”
Siddall said she’ll mostly miss her LVCVA colleagues, many of whom she met when she decided to quit smoking.
“Four years ago, I stopped smoking and I took up going for a walk after lunch,” she said. “I ended up going about three-quarters of a mile every day and I would meet up with a lot of people and got to know them and about their families. I think that people feel they could come up to me and talk directly about things, and I’m really going to miss that.”
And what will she miss least?
“Definitely the public speaking,” she said. “I’m pretty happy that I don’t have to do that any more.”
And she’ll never have to worry about the mayor threatening to fire her.