Minding Your Business; 433; Scott Breckner

It's a job that helps pump money into the local economy, provides employment for students, and makes the area a lot more fun place to live. We talk with a special events director at NMSU this time, on Mining Your Business. Hello and welcome to NYB, I'm Charles Comer. He replaced the legendary Barbara Hubbard as director of NMSU's Office of Special Events, and came to Las Cruces with a wealth of experience, here to talk about the past, present, and the future. It's Scott Breckner. Thanks so much for being here.

Here's Charles. Appreciate it. And I do need to clear, actually you're more filling the shoes, there was someone in the interim between Barbara. Yes, there was. Will's Luffering was here for about six years, and so it, you know, it's funny and it's an enjoyable, I've known Barbara for a long time, but making that bridge between the two, sometimes she is a dominant figure in the community, and well, she should be. So and I made the promise before we rolled tape, and it's my pledge to you and our viewers. This is the only show we'll even do any comparisons to you and Barbara, because I think your work so far has kind of stood on its own? Well, I think so. It's, you know, it's difficult, of course, to, in more than not trying to replace so many things of what Barbara has done here locally, starting with opening, of course, the PANAM and the development of the ACTS program for developing student talent throughout the country. And just a side part of that, her first winner of the ACTS scholarship program was Jeff Dunham. And actually years and years ago, and he is coming in September to the PANAM.

So there's a relationship unique, and we use those relationships that she has in the industry. We did not know that about Jeff Dunham, and he is a huge star now with several comedy central specials, and last year when I was in Vegas, he was, he was headlining at Mandalay Bay. So, so just a huge star, I didn't, well, thanks for that little fact already. Absolutely, and hopefully there's some things that as you, as we move into the fall, there may be some relationships, maybe some interviews there that can occur with, with Jeff himself, hopefully. Well, that would be great. Well, let's, let's keep in touch and see if we can figure that out. Where did you grow up, go to school, and what did you do before you came to Cruises? I grew up in Central Ohio, north of, in a small little town called Cardington, which is about 40 miles north of Columbus. And I went to a branch campus of a small family, had a brother, and my mother's still, still alive at the age of 94, and that's a healthy 94. And the small community, they take care of each other.

I went to college at, my first stint in college was at the, Ohio State University branch campus for a couple of years, transferred to Bowling Green State University, received my undergraduate there, then went to graduate school at the University of Toledo. And that led me into this industry, which was back in the mid-70s. And after that I spent about 12 years at the University of Toledo in an office called the Office of Facilities Management, and we had a stadium, and we had a relatively new arena at the time. And then moved to Michigan State University in 1989 to open the Breslin Center, and was there for about 16 years, and was able to look at other opportunities in the sense of going to warmer climate. My youngest, I have four children, and my youngest was graduating from high school. And so I had known bar for a long period of time, this position came open. And it's really been a great experience for me. It's enabled me to do some things differently than what I was doing at Michigan State. It's much more broad-based activity of doing a number of different things, and a number of different platforms.

So I'm sure with our director of broadcasting, Glenn Cerny, when you guys chat at the Bowling Green, the Toledo, all of that, I'm sure he jumped right on that. He loves meeting folks from those areas. Absolutely. Now we've referred a bunch to Barbara. We met about 20 years ago at one of our international conferences at the time, and Barbara at that time was really one of the pioneers in the facility management industry. Back in the mid-70s, late-70s, there really was a transition going of many of the arenas that were slowly being on the drawing boards that were major capital projects. Or suddenly, there was a direction of actually creating a professional management side of the business. Many times that you would find former coaches being moved into a position of some kind of facility management within the arena or something like that. So not someone specifically trained at all to book acts and run that business, correct?

And so in the mid-70s, what was occurring early in the 70s, there was a direction for finding individuals that specifically facility management experience that related to everything from personal management to equipment management and purchases to risk management. That was the beginning of the real focus on it was easier to find professionally managing individuals that had experience in things like risk management. Nobody even used that term before, but as a result of issues related to old buildings and retrofitting old buildings and in building new buildings, there really wasn't emphasis on let's find people know how to do this and now there are approximately 20 colleges in the United States that I'm familiar with that have undergraduate programs specifically focusing on recreational management or facilities management component where they are now graduating and going to work for private management companies, universities, or municipalities. So folks like you and Barbara were out there kind of inventing the craft and now there's

finally degrees in it. There are and it's been a tremendous growth period simply because in the late 70s, there was an average of approximately 10 to 12 new arenas or convention centers or performing art centers at minimum built each year for a long period of time because there was this continued growth and what really precipitated that increase was the fact that people began to understand that as the concert touring business expanded in grew that there was the need in major municipalities to have large venues that could accommodate that. If you go back and look historically, you'll find that many of the Midwest communities can't in Ohio and Toledo and Columbus all had memorial auditoriums and they're basically built as part of the WPA project and it was a 4,000 seat or 6,000 seat monolith, you know, heavy stone looking building but it wasn't accommodating to people with disabilities and so there was this huge change over in the sense of what we need to do to retrofit buildings

and found it was to build new venues in relationship to retrofitting old and so that was there were a number of variables that really started this industry growing wise but getting back just to the brief comment I made in meeting Barbara, she was really one of the pioneers because there were not a lot of women in this industry. She was a great ceiling breaker because you know Barbara her personality and if she would ask all the questions and if she couldn't answer she kept asking questions. So I met her, the humorous story is that a number of my colleagues in the Big Ten and in the Mid-American conference and we would get to get the association meetings and Barbara would always come in and introduce herself and she's so warm and you know, affectionate and she would always say things we'd go, where again is Las Cruz, New Mexico making a joke of it and she'd go, well you may not know where it is now but someday you'll want to live there. So it was kind of ironic that this whole thing came together and so I really enjoyed the experience here and she still is a bundle of energy and a bundle of joy to be around and she still continues to be heavily respected in the industry.

And quite prophetic words way back then, yeah, I bet they rung in years, we shared it and shared a joke about that as we said so. So let's talk special events and quality of life for a community, what's a connection? In most communities, in just referencing back to my discussion about the WPA projects, I mean it was determined years and years ago that quality of life could be live entertainment. I mean, historically, Charles Ego all the way back to the years and years ago even in the settling of the Midwest, an interesting story I was reading of the day that everybody thinks of saloons as being a type of entertainment and actually if you go back, most of the Southwest in the United States and development of the Southwest, live entertainment actually included varieties of music that were found in the same saloon. There might be a dance hall event going on and then somebody would be playing a cello or a violin in the corner and then it was really an interesting study and the differences

in the growth of music, but it's live entertainment. It's always been a situation where people love to go and experience live entertainment. And so it's been growing over the years, obviously it's performing arts and you have growth of arenas and you have a growth of stadiums, but the quality of life not only is now being identified and has been for a number of years, but Broadway started in New York, you've had professional baseball and professional sports, there's been a huge growth of performing arts centers in the United States, Broadway expanded of course, there are road shows that are going to small communities that didn't have facilities to accommodate those kinds of activities and so community life and cultural life within the community is very important and I found with interest the other day that the response so far in the community of Las Cruces and supporting a quality of life tax or a cultural tax has been very overwhelming in a sense of people expressing an interest to do this to increase and subsidize a quality of life kind of synergy which would be cultural the arts and various other things.

So it's always been an important catalyst within a community's fiber. In our particular case, obviously Las Cruces and there's a history of live entertainment and supportive live entertainment. For a university venue it really provides an opportunity for students to get involved in in a position of being able to generate income as a result of a part time, but also to get experience in an industry that can grow referring back to Barb. I think there are the numbers that we talk about with her are there's 100 plus students that started it she influenced their lives that are now working in the industry and they all got started at many of them at the Pan Am Center road manager for Justin Timberlake Jeff Dunham that we already talked about I mean those are the kinds of impressions that you can have on individuals lives as they grow and here's a perfect opportunity. We employ 100 plus students for the majority of the events that we do. We probably are one or two in the relationship to the largest employer on campus other than maybe the food service part of the business, but when you're using 100 to 150 students

in areas of marketing, promotion, support, ticketing services in our ticket office, general labor, ushers, customer service representatives, there is a lot of people that are getting experience and we have seven or eight or nine students that have been with us three or four years and many of them are looking for jobs in the industry or at least having an experience of interacting with people in the community and getting some good quality working interrelationships with individuals and people and communicating and so it's really been nice for us and it's been a great source of income for a lot of our students over the years. Great segue for special events and economic development. What you've just talked about that certainly can be included in economic development. Any other ripple effects, how's it bringing money into the community? Well I think there are times that we have a gross receipts tax issue related to income that is generated.

We have not only the quality of life in the sense of live performing arts, but we also look at the situations that are developing with accommodating events in the community that generates traffic into the community that otherwise would not be attending. And that can be in a broad span of activities that might be simply and not so much at the Pan Am, but activities that might be occurring at some activity in the music center on campus or something else where people are coming into town and enjoying an experience obviously having dinner before or after. So there's that culminating effect. We've looked at that we're producing an association with the airport and airshow at the end of May this year that we'll we think generate between 10 and 20,000 visitors that may be local, but typically airshows are supported with a one hour drive of the community that they're in. We anticipate that some of those individuals stay over. We know that there are people flying in that display their planes that will stay. So entertainment and the economic impact can be defined in a lot of different ways, but regardless of how you define it, it's all a positive.

I mean it's a warm, it's a warm and fuzzy, it's activities within a community that allow you to be entertained as well as the economic benefits. So there isn't one single negative to that whole picture that we paint. Yeah, you book a hotel room and there's a bunch of other bucks related to just that one night's state. Now when you got here and you assess things as far as NMSU is set up as far as infrastructure, infrastructure, physical plant, how well is it set up for special events? Oh, I think they've done a great job. I think there's some, we are in auxiliary service division within the institution. We have a great cross relationship with other departments on campus. Actually the building is very sound, it went through a $21 million renovation. We have some unique challenges with the tunnel, which is a long ramp and we have to do some unique things to load cases on the trucks, but that doesn't seem to have stopped the history. More than anything, the facility, the physical plant, the relationships on campus, I'm very

pleased with that whole thing and I enjoy this environment at Michigan State. It took as an example, it took almost six years to get a marquee outside our venue at the Breastland Center of Michigan State. Here the dynamic is smaller, the relationships are more easily established and you can find yourself in influential discussions with individuals, that's probably poorly said. In discussions with individuals that you know can influence and you can talk to them on a one-on-one basis, which is very difficult in a community where you've got 15,000 employees and 45,000 students. It's just a different dynamic and it's really refreshing, very enjoyable, but you got to be careful because you can get yourself in a lot of different things in relationship to instead of working five and six days, you might be working completely seven. But that's a unique dynamic that's really exciting and I've really enjoyed it and I've enjoyed very much the interrelationships from everybody from of course, Klan and others, but very accommodating, interested in what is going on and this is a wonderful institution

that has tremendous growth capabilities. It's got a wonderful and enriching history and I think that's really the great story about this institution and I think this increase in student enrollment has pretty much reinforced that tale too, that it's a great place, it's a quality education, it's inexpensive based on other standards and it's a great physical plant and it can only grow. Now you mentioned the tunnel, to the best of my knowledge, ELO back in the late 70s, I actually had to cancel a show because they couldn't fit the spaceship through the tunnel. Down through the tunnel, during that time. It came into pieces and I think it was half or third would not fit down through that tunnel, so I think they had to re-book in El Paso, but we'll talk for a few minutes about El Paso. We're talking about infrastructure, physical plants, we're about the arts complex. Is your office going to oversee booking that, is that going to be a different group? No, I think that's going to be strictly on its own in relationship to the various schools,

whether it's theater or music and I think that's the direction and rightly it should. I think it's going to be more of a performance based type of facility that will accommodate those kind of programs. The initial phase does not include a Broadway type of configuration with a capacity of 1500 or 2000, which I think in this community would be a tremendous asset to hope, boy, there is a phase two. I think that is something that we're trying to recreate in Pan Am, where we really need a configuration that can accommodate about 2,000 to 2,500 max. We're working on that business model because we know that whenever we put together a pro forma that allows us to accommodate a program in the venue or whether we're going to present shoreland or carry underwood, there's really a model of how that thing comes together, what are our expenses are going to be, what the potential revenue is going to be, and what we can do in relationship to supporting that event and can the community support it.

It's a small community to this extent of what maybe 300,000 within a 45 minute drive. That's staying out of North El Paso, we know that we can go an hour south and you can be setting on half a million people or something like whatever the number is. But we know that there's certain limits that we have in providing, we'd love to do a Broadway series, we're still trying to fine tune that particular business plan. We know that we really need to own our own grid, our own curtains, our own staging, our own lighting. Do you lease that or rent it for now? We currently lease that, excuse me, if we do a Broadway event, and that wine item alone really creates a dynamic that it generates about a third of your operating expense. If we owned our own grid, and even if we had to internalize and pay off that internally, it looks like it would work in the sense of providing a Broadway presentation over a period of years. So that's something we're looking at. So that's some vision for the future of a goal you're looking to achieve, okay? We think that in the marketplace, based on discussions we've had and some analysis that

probably about 20 to 40% of the market, maybe in the mid-30s, is really in a position and probably has interest in drawing into a Broadway type of event. In other words, we've talked with the associates in El Paso and they do a series of one day, occasionally a two day event, but they do not do any split weeks in Broadway. And when I ask them, and I have one of our former students that is a general manager of the convention complex in El Paso, and he got his start at Michigan State, they've basically found that they've got about 30% of their population basis is those that probably are an economic area that can really allow them to purchase a $50, $60, $75 ticket that you need sometimes to provide support financially for Broadway presentations. So those are kind of the unique twists we have, and we have a great retiree community here, and many of them have come from obviously the Midwest and the East, and I've had those dialogues with individuals I made a presentation at a Sertoma Club not too long ago, and one

of the individuals at the club during the luncheon was actually leaving to go to Seattle with his wife to go see Wicked. So I mean it's unique to see the dynamic of people that will go to Vegas to attend some kind of event that's not presented here or in El Paso, so there is an interest there, and I think if we're getting it to the point we can make the business model work, I think if we're able to present four to six single day Broadway based productions a year on a subscription series basis, but I think we can make that thing work if we're able to get the equipment issues resolved in relationship to owning some of those pieces of equipment that really need to do to make the Pan Am an intimate setting for Broadway presentation. So many things I'd love to talk with you about, but we're going to have to jump over some questions, and I'd love to hear this show is going to air in August, so what's in store what you're working on for fall, winter, maybe even spring and summer and next year warp tours are going to come this year in the interim, it's probably going to come next year.

What else is in the works? Well, we've talked briefly about Jeff Donum, and we're really looking forward to that actually and that will be a successful without question, he's a very popular comedian and extremely popular on the college campus setting, we're looking, we think that there is a real good capability of we'd like to do a comedian once a semester, and I mean major, somebody locked the lawns of Dane Cook and others that really have that unique aspect of providing a variety of entertainment and not in a specific area, we don't want to present four country shows a year, though this is a pretty strong country market, we'd like to look at the diversity aspect of different types of programming, so we have comedy, we're looking at, we have not given up on the possibility of rolling out some broadway activities such as the Lord of the Danes or others that are good solid programs that haven't played the marketplace for a long, long time if at all. In the sense of the national tours, we're looking at some metal tours that I think might

develop as we move through the next year, I think we've got a couple of one, maybe two, major country superstars that will probably come through Las Cruces in the next year and the neck in early 2010, so it's an exciting time actually, I'm bored by the fact that at this time last year we have more events that are going to contract than we did a year ago, even though the industry and the concert touring business is really seeing a change in relationship to how the tours are going out, there are fewer major tours that are guaranteed sellouts and there are fewer tours in the medium range that are touring simply because the economy has impacted in so many different cities, at one time it used to be that a typical tour would play a minimum of about 55, 60 cities and it would die across the U.S., that's kind of been expanded to going to 45 cities but maybe doing two legs of a tour, so the dynamic of that is changing, there's still a lot of interest there but you've got to be more careful in relationship to how those tours are being put together

and what parts of the country they're actually playing. Well that's very good news that sounds like you want to be very inclusive as to the crowds you want to attract to the pan am and to events at NMSU, Scott, thanks so much for being on the show. Thank you so much. Great having you here and let's bring you back next year, talk some more. I look forward to it. Thanks. Well it's time again for a weekly piece that showcases some of the hardworking entrepreneurs and business people in our area, we call it the NYB Local Business Feature. Really the business got started, we were at the BMX track and there was really the other bike shops didn't have specifically what we needed to BMX, it was what we come to find out.

And so Robbie was always wheeling and dealing with people out there at the track, buying and selling parts and fixing everybody's bikes and about that same time, this is back in 04. The track was failing and Robbie had stepped up and said hey I'll take responsibility of it. So we first became track directors of the track, we kind of got a nonprofit started and got that rolling and then it just kind of came naturally that well you know kind of have a niche here you know everybody was still asking Robbie to work on their bikes and so we're like well that would be good for a business. We had to support our habit and that we had kids in it and we had to kind of justify actually doing this much work you know for free. As far as service wise we service all types of bikes, road bikes, mountain bikes, BMX bikes, cruiser bikes, you name it, we'll go ahead and fix it. Even wheelchairs and people come on the blockers because it's very similar with the cables and things like that. It keeps me working with mechanical stuff, it's really mechanical and there's nothing electronic about them, it's just you know all about the person in the bike.

We have apparel like racing gear specifically obviously we do a lot of BMX, full phase, helmets that are good for wheeling as well, mountain biking shorts, racing components for BMX, lots of tubes, tires, complete bikes, we even do rentals. Just a small crew of us, I mean it really is family. My kids are back in the back half the time and when they feel like they will come running out screaming and hollering. She does a great job and it employs people locally and it creates another job, another place for people to be. We're at 1763 Eastern University Avenue in Sweden, this used to be the old postal annex office. A lot of people still come through looking for the postal annex, but right here across some end machine, the people here are just awesome, I mean they come through and regardless of the internet being a big competitive mind, they still come in and they like the service and they like that they can maybe get educated with the different things that they need to

be educated on or be able to talk when they need to talk, I mean that's a lot of it too and just knowing that there's somebody out there that is, you know, just like them. That just about does it for this week, if you have a question or comment about the show, you can call them in your business hotline at 646-730 or email me at CH-C-O-M-E-R at NMSU.edu. For information on upcoming shows and an archive of past shows you can log on to krwgtv.org. Again, I'd like to thank my guest, NMSU Special Events Director Scott Breckner for coming on the show and thank you so much for watching. I'm Charles Comer, here's hoping you have a great one.