PR firm’s founder remembers real estate roller coaster

Pmay not be a developer or broker, but she generated plenty of business from Las Vegas’ real estate industry during the boom years.

And when the market crashed, she wasn’t spared the carnage.

Investment banking giant Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy 10 years ago Saturday, helping trigger the financial crisis and the worst recession in decades. Las Vegas, after its steroid-fueled real estate craze, was perhaps the hardest-hit area of the country.

Yakubik, the 46-year-old founder of Henderson-based Massmedia, rode the roller coaster with everyone else. In a recent interview, she said she launched the marketing and public relations firm in 1997 as a one-person enterprise — herself — and by the mid-2000s had 35 employees.

Around 90 percent of her clients back then were commercial real estate-related, including banks, developers, contractors and engineers.

“You name it, we were handling all of that,” she said, adding that developers “were just on a wild spree.”

Construction boomed, property values soared and flippers went wild, thanks to a flood of easy money. Yakubik recalled a family friend who worked as a concrete layer and bought three condos in Panorama Towers, a luxury complex near the Strip.

Yakubik grew up in Las Vegas and said her parents moved to Nevada from Pennsylvania in 1980 because there was no work back home. During the mid-2000s, she was happy to see her city roaring with growth.

She bought an office building on St. Rose Parkway at Eastern Avenue in Henderson and moved her company there. According to property records, she acquired it in June 2008 for $1.84 million.

“I just saw no end in sight to the great business we were running,” she said. “Then the recession hit.”

SEGALL

director of the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada at UNLV.

Gill said gender pay equity can be better for businesses and leads to more longevity and higher job satisfaction from workers, as well as better decision-making.

“This is good for companies’ bottom lines, but I hope it’s not the only reason organizations take on this kind of program,” Gill said. “It’s a matter of fundamental fairness. Women deserve to be paid equally for equal work.”

How Casinos Compare

Jan Jones Blackhurst, executive vice president of public policy and corporate responsibility at Caesars, said gender equity initiatives help build an inclusive culture.

“We’re very proud of the results from our first gender pay equity study and are already working to address the 1-2% of jobs that aren’t in parity,” Blackhurst said in an email.

It’s unclear how other companies in Las Vegas compare to Caesars. Representatives from Boyd Gaming Corp., Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Red Rock Resorts said the companies do not publicly disclose their data. A representative from Wynn Resorts Ltd. said it does not have the final results of a commissioned study.

Samantha Cummis, executive director of communications for MGM Resorts International, did not provide data but said MGM is “committed to ensuring that its employees are paid equitably and competitively, and takes regular appropriate steps to comply with gender equity and other applicable laws in this regard.”

Kim Churches, chief executive officer of the AAUW, said it’s important to recognize companies’ transparency in gender pay parity.

“We need to applaud those that step forward and pose questions to those that do not,” she said. “Opacity isn’t going to lead to improvement.” Employers “should be transparent.”

Statewide statistics

Nevada is faring better in gender pay equity than the nation as a whole, according to the AAUW.

According to the analysis released by the nonprofit Thursday, Nevada has a pay gap of 17 percent, faring better than the national average of 20 percent. Another study from the National Women’s Law Center based on 2016 American Community Survey Data said Nevada had the 22nd-smallest wage gap. As for parity among board directors, publicly traded companies in Nevada are still working to catch up.

The AAUW data analysis found the pay gap has only decreased by about $0.05 over the past 20 years. If current trends continue, the gap will remain until 2106.

“We’ve made a lot of good strides,” Churches said, “but as we march for parity, we’ve kind of stalled out.” She said biases are one of the major causes behind the pay gap, as well as practices such as using salary history as a determinant for future salaries.

Churches said during a call Thursday that in order to shorten the gap, there must be stronger equality laws, and employers must improve their practices.

“More women are in the workforce than ever before and leading families,” she said. “Ensuring fair pay for equal levels of skills should be a fundamental right.”

The Review-journal is owned by the family of Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson.

Contact Bailey Schulz at bschulz@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0233. Follow @bailey_schulz on Twitter.