ZZZ - GMG - VEGAS INC 2011-2014

T ina Kunzer-Murphy wasn't really a big name in the public eye, locally, until last year. But for more than four decades, she has been a tireless supporter of UNLV athletics, with a lot of behind-the-scenes accomplishments to her credit. As the executive director for the Las Vegas Bowl, Kunzer-Murphy saw six consecutive sellouts from 2006-'11. She also, at one point, oversaw the Lady Rebel athletic program, the Rebel Football Foundation, the Rebel Golf Foundation and was a founder of the school's Women's Sports Foundation. As the interim athletic director for six months in 2013, she focused on football ticket sales, marketing, improving the game- day experience and negotiated coach Bobby Hauck's contract extension. The UNLV football team attended its fi rst bowl game in 13 seasons. Those experiences, and plenty more, were enough for the Board of Regents to remove the "interim" tag and make Kunzer-Murphy UNLV's fi rst female athletic director and one of only fi ve among 120 Division I universities. Now Kunzer-Murphy is busy charting the athletics department's future. She's worked with the Board of Regents to create a fi ve-year plan and is focused on making the student athlete experience a positive and character-shaping one. UNLV has 480 student athletes spanning 17 Division I sports. She has her eyes on improving student advisement academic services, sports medicine ser vices, and the department's communications with the campus community. Kunzer-Murphy is also looking at ways to redesign and combine specifi c areas of the Thomas & Mack, including marketing and ticketing, and boosting fundraising, overall, for each individual sports program. Developing a facilities plan that includes an indoor practice facility for student-athletes is also in the works. "We are committed to winning championships, living within the rule structure, and guiding our student athletes to be the very best citizens they can be," she said. "It's a big job and there are a lot of things to do. I can't do it alone." With past fundraising and marketing success to her credit, not to mention a pretty sizeable Rebel red streak emblazoned on her soul (she received her bachelor's and master's degrees from UNLV too), Kunzer-Murphy may be just what the university's cash-strapped athletic department needs. — By Brian Sodoma S elf-described Army brat, Jessica Peralta, RN, BSN, earned her nursing degree at Georgia College & State University, and worked as a traveling nurse with a specialty in critical care. She made a pit stop in Las Vegas, fell in love with Southern Nevada, and relocated a decade ago, working at Sunrise Hospital. Then life intervened. "After the birth of my fi rst child, my priorities changed," Peralta said. "I was fortunate to be able to stay home with her, but we had no family here, so I had no outside emotional or social support, and physically you do want to get that body back, but maybe with people who can relate to you." After nearly a year of research, Peralta discovered Fit4Mom, and something clicked. Founded in 2001, the Fit4Mom franchise now has nearly 1,300 locations nationwide and offers moms an opportunity to get in shape, meet other moms and have fun with their babies. To Peralta, it seemed the ideal marriage of her nursing background and entrepreneurial spirit, so she became a franchisee, launching her fi rst class at Town Square in 2012, with one client. "Now I have more than 350 clients – and at least 370 babies – and would love to see that fi gure increase to 600 clients," Peralta said. "Our Stroller Strides fi tness program is our signature program, along with Fit4Baby for expectant moms, and Body Back for new moms, but we'll also be adding some new programs this year, including Stroller Barre, a blend of ballet, Pilates, barre, yoga and stroller-based exercises." The new Lean Mommy weight-manage- ment nutrition program (based on the book by Fit4Mom founder Lisa Druxman) will also launch this year. In addition to increasing her number of clients, Peralta is also looking to increase her number of valley locations – currently at Town Square, the District, in Summerlin and in Henderson – and is focusing on expansion into Southern Highlands and North Las Vegas. Having created a community of sisterhood in motherhood, Peralta – now a mother of three – w ill continue to stay in shape while helping other women do the same. "My hope is to instill a personal sense of value to each and every woman who joins our programs," she said. — By Danielle Birkin JESSICA PERALTA Owner and CEO Fit4Mom Las Vegas TINA KUNZER-MURPHY Athletic Director UNLV T he year ahead will, as far as Cheryl Smith is concerned, be one in which she helps build upon structures that have already been put in place. "There are really three areas that I'm focusing most of my attention on," Smith explains. "It's not just what I've accomplished in the past year, it's also what I'm focusing on going into the new year, as well." The first is to increase the number of medical and bio-skills meetings that come to Las Vegas. "These are medical meetings," she says, "like surgical training meetings, that happen sometimes in the hotels' conference centers, but also in specific bio-skills facilities, and we have five of them scheduled here in Las Vegas. That's a significant area." A number of different medical meetings came to Las Vegas for the first time last year, including the World Medical Tourism & Global Healthcare Congress. The second area of focus is to promote Las Vegas as a wellness travel location. Las Vegas already enjoys a significant share of the nation's medical and wellness travel. "That means collaborating with our hotel partners to promote the destination," says Smith, half of whose two decades in the health care industry have been spent in Las Vegas. In particular, I'll be continuing to work with leisure travel agents, the Travel Institute and Well-Being Travel, as well as other leisure travel buyers that basically look to book destinations for their clients for wellness, and what I like to call 'soft adventure travel.' The third is a focus on promoting Las Vegas as a destination for medical travel – that is, for medical/surgical procedures. That, she explains, includes "working with our partners in the medical community such as Las Vegas Heals, the Clark County Medical Society and individual physicians, hospitals and surgery centers that are engaged in providing medical travel services." All told, Smith predicts, 2014 should shape up as "a year of continuing to build, a year for incremental growth. We have essentially laid a nice foundation, and now we're going to be building upon those successes in incremental steps moving forward." — By Howard Riell CHERYL SMITH Medical and Wellness Tourism Manager Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority WOMEN TO WATCH 2014 10A _WomenToWatch_020314.indd 10 1/30/14 2:19 PM

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