VEGAS INC Magazine - Latest Las Vegas business news, features and commentaries about gaming, tourism, real estate and more
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/105502
8A Debra Solt Candy Schneider Director of Workforce Training & Economic Development Vice President of Education The Smith Center for the Performing Arts Vegas PBS D ebra Solt wants to help people build better lives for themselves. Toward that end, Solt continues to build Vegas PBS' workforce development initiatives to provide Southern Nevada residents with greater access to much-needed training and education. The goal is self-evident: to spur employment or aid in career advancement by providing a pool for businesses to have a skilled and qualified workforce. On the horizon in 2013, Solt will be focusing her efforts on several Vegas PBS Workforce Training & Economic Development initiatives. One is the launch of the Mentor Training Program for which Vegas PBS is partnering with the Clark County School District's Partnership Office. Vegas PBS received a $15,000 grant from NV Energy and $15,000 grant from MGM Grand to create a training portal with the CCSD Partnership Office offering a customized Mentor Training Program to all individuals who indicate they want to be a mentor with the partnership office. Vegas PBS has signed an agreement with a content provider and is now customizing the content for Nevada to create a comprehensive online tool designed to both develop and reinforce relationship-building skills and increase cultural competency. Solt will be brand- ing a training portal for the partnership office that was set to launch in January. "If people have jobs they can build lives," Solt explains. "If people don't have jobs they are scratching for a meager survival. You can't be happy and you can't be healthy if you're only surviving." She recently helped spearhead a partnership with Caesars Foundation to implement Caesars' Back-to-Work initiative at Walter V. Long Elementary School. Vegas PBS received a $50,000 grant from the Caesars Foundation to provide scholarships to the parents, employees, or friends and family of parents and employees of the school to utilize the online education offered through Vegas PBS' Vegas Virtual Online. Giving kids "a better chance at life" will always remain a strong priority, she adds. "The mentoring program, which is one of the programs I'm working on in the school district, will be huge because I think that kids need good role models. Unfortunately, I think our society has left us wanting for some of those, both professionally as well as with our youth." And no, Solt has no plans to slow down. "The folks at the front desk ask me all the time when I sleep," she says. "But you know, if you're doing what you love it doesn't feel like work." — Howard Riell C andy Schneider is passionate about education, particularly when it comes to the arts. "I had a seventh-grade art teacher who encouraged and supported my creativity and inspired me to be an art teacher," said Schneider, who went on to do just that, spending some 33 years with the Clark County School District, working as a teacher and as a curriculuminstruction coordinator before moving over to the partnership office prior to retiring from the district in 2006. Having established lasting relationships with local, regional and national arts organizations as well as education organizations, Schneider was ideally suited to join The Smith Center for the Performing Arts as vice president of education, a position she assumed more than five years before the world-class cultural complex opened its doors in 2012. "The center began to hold community meetings to get public input, and I kept showing up at those meetings and asking about the educational component," Schneider said. "I feel like I'm doing so much of what I did for the school district, just under a different roof, but for the same benefit to students and teachers." Schneider said the Smith Center has secured major partnerships, includ- ing one with the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to provide professional development training for teachers K-8 to use the strategies of the arts to teach across curriculum. In addition, Schneider said the Smith Center has partnered with the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts in Virginia to create a local program to train preschool teachers to use arts-based teaching strategies. The Smith Center has also partnered with Camp Broadway, a summertime program that offers theater arts camps, workshops and performance opportunities for children 6 to 17. Offered in New York and select cities in the U.S. — including the additional of Las Vegas — Camp Broadway classes are taught by trained Broadway professionals. Finally, Schneider said the center is also coordinating a communitywide competition that will culminate in the Smith Center High School Musical Theater Awards in spring this year, with the top two performers participating in the national event in New York City. As for the future, "As we move forward, we'll best utilize resources to increase education and introduce young people as well as broad audiences to the arts," Schneider said. — Danielle Birkin The Board and Staff of The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada congratulate our Executive Director Candice Nichols as a 2013 Woman to Watch The Center is proud to announce on April 6 the Grand Opening of our new home: The Robert L. Forbuss Building. Please consider supporting our Opening New Doors Capital Campaign and make The new Center an anchor of the New Downtown. For more information, please visit us at thecenterlv.com or contact Christine Nottage at (702) 733-9800 or christine@thecenterlv.com. We join Candice in thanking the following organizations that have already become Founder's Society Donors to the Opening New Doors Campaign: Bennett Family Foundation, Boyd Gaming Corporation, Caesars Entertainment, Cirque de Soleil, City of Las Vegas, Cox Communications, Fletcher Jones Automotive Group, Gay Days, Inc., Jewish Federation of Las Vegas, Lambda Business & Professional Association, The Laverty Foundation, MGM Resorts International, Nevada Dental Benefits, Ltd., Nevada Energy, Palms Casino Resort, Station Casinos, SuperPawn, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Wynn Las Vegas, and Zuffa, LLC. 20130128_VI01_I.indd 8 1/24/13 2:18:11 PM