Leading by Example with Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo

Megan Comfort, Small Business Manager at Nevada State Bank, sits down with Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo for a focused conversation about leading the state as its chief executive, the principles shaped by a lifetime of public service, and his outlook for Nevada’s economic future. Governor Lombardo reflects on lessons from the military and law enforcement, explains how clear communication and systems thinking guide his approach to decision making, and shares how streamlining regulations, improving efficiency, and strengthening education contribute to long‑term economic resilience. He also discusses the importance of trust, collaboration, and accountability in leadership, along with the guiding principle that continues to shape his work.

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Transcript

Thank you and welcome to Through the Door: The Insider’s Perspective on Running a Business. I’m Megan Comfort, Small Business Manager at State Bank, and this is a podcast where we interview business owners and business leaders in the state of Nevada and get to learn from their stories battling challenges overcoming obstacles and making big decisions along the way So today my guest really needs no introduction. I have governor Lombardo here You may also know him as our former longtime sheriff(...) managing Nevada's largest law enforcement agency with a budget of 1.3 billion dollars and overseeing 6,000 employees Today as governor he leads the state budget at 28 billion dollars and oversees 45,000 employees So thank you so much governor for being here today Well a couple clarifiers there. I'm not a business leader

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Yes Yes,(...) but I would say you are I mean an organization that's actually responsible for running a budget in the livelihood of many people Like wouldn't you say that that constitutes as some level of business, right? That's how you kick off the podcast Yeah, explaining that I know I love it. And the other thing is is it's more than 28 billion. It's 48 billion Oh Wow Talerty because

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Obviously, you know approximately 50% of our total budget is funded by the federal government. Yeah, okay So she knows especially in the healthcare space. Yeah, a very needed space actually for us So we typically start these podcasts off by learning a little bit more about your origin story So kind of how you landed here in Nevada and your journey through ultimately landing as Governor for the state. So I know that you came from a military family from overseas and started living in Las Vegas sometime around the 70s So tell me a little bit about those earlier years for you(...) Right. So to give you a little more clarification on that my dad was in the United States Air Force So basically a military kid. I was born in Masala, Japan(...) And we bounced around Europe in the United States(...) Traditionally back in during those times military families move between three and four years. I Don't know what the scheme was for that, but that's that's what occurred. That's how we ended up living in so many places So via Madrid Spain

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To Las Vegas so that occurred in 1976

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Attended Rancho High School

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So when I got here I was entering my freshman year of high school oh, wow, and so he got assigned to Nellis Air Force Base and the the most proximate high school from that vicinity was Rancho High School and Upon graduating high school. I went into the United States Army(...) And then I deferred my enlistment(...) They were able to give you a deferment(...) After you had been in if you wanted to achieve a college degree and attend the ROTC program That's the Reserve Officers Training

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Program which I agreed to you know be and so bad upon graduating(...) college with a civil engineering degree I Had an obligation back in the military to return(...) Fort Knox, Kentucky, and then I separated from the military and entered the Nevada National Guard(...) upon my return to the State of Nevada, okay, so you're in the National Guard in the state of Nevada How many years did you have to serve in the military after graduating?(...) Oh? In totality I was in approximately eight years to that was an inactive reserve capacity in other words You're still obligated in case there was a draft or you know a call to service and I completed that through the inactive reserves. He still hold the title and the responsibility You didn't have to do any training, but the active training piece was approximately six years What were some of the things that you learned in going through that experience that you still maybe carry with you today, right? So you know I said my dad was in the Air Force right and you know he so he Told him I was gonna enter the military obviously he wanted me to join the Air Force But you know he didn't have an Air Force our OTC program It was army, so it was just easier a little more seamless to operate in that fashion And you know in the military you could equate it to discipline right self-discipline discipline amongst your your subordinates and your employees per se your your soldiers and You know the build out of the early iterations of your leadership skills You know you lead from the front lead by example you know and and Inspect what you expect in other words if your your subordinates are at telling you they're doing something. You know you should pay attention and confirm you know Confirmed through the process so those were early development pieces and management and leadership So then after you came back here you joined the Las Vegas Metro Police Department in the 80s Was that? 1988 was that what you thought you would be doing like when you know when you go in Yeah, so I worked as a civil engineer actually as a mechanical engineer in Garden Grove, California, so How did I end up in Garden Grove, California the young lady? I was dating at the time Was attempting to make the US Olympic team, and she was training at the Santa Monica track club training for what?

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Hep tathlone okay, so the men are in the decathlon and the women are in the heptathlon and So I ventured out there with her Her her goals and so I got a job at a mechanical engineering firm out in Garden Grove, California We lived in the Santa Monica area, so I had to travel back and forth on a daily basis while she you know tried to reach her Goal being on the Olympic team and unfortunately she didn't make it you know they take the top three athletes and she qualified forth And with that in mind. I said well. What am I gonna do with my life now? It was too expensive to live in California I didn't see of you know a little vision ability to have a quality of life out there in perpetuity so I

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We both decided we would come back to Las Vegas and during that transition piece she had applied to the Clark County Fire Department and I applied to Las Vegas Metro and that was never in my vision my life vision to be a police officer But I I had a few friends that I graduated college with that had entered the police department. They invited me to go on a ride-long similar to what you described you're gonna do here in the short future and I Was hooked I didn't I wasn't joy in being a junior engineer You know I still had to qualify for my stamp in order to you know to document or certified documents I was like ah it seems a little more exciting so to the chagrin of my parents who helped pay for my college They were a little surprised. I wanted to be a Engineer I mean a police officer. Yeah, that is a that's a big change from civil engineer to police officer what? Really drew you to that outside of like the excitement were you worried about like the danger?

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It's more it's more Cellular than that I think Obviously that that would be the danger the adrenaline yeah That's part of it the adrenaline and the excitement being outside not behind a desk You know about more so is what you learn from the military growing up in a military family And then being in the military yourself is a life of service right? providing you know the protection of America the nation and then the service piece is making a difference in individuals lives that you know are suffering become a victim of Circumstances are suffering other unforeseen Circumstances in their lives and ability to help them through that process(...) So tell me more about kind of how you ended up moving up through the police department into Different management roles when you got in did you see yourself as eventually moving into a role like sheriff?(...) No, absolutely not and And you know that's a quick answer right absolutely not because it's honest man. I'm being frank with you so as You progress through life and and you deal with the different Responsibilities of the job you signed up for and you realize hey You know maybe I can do a better job at this and then you then you you know You'll have some supervisor that has confidence in you and say hey. I'm going on vacation You know I want you to be in charge while I'm gone and then you Expressed an interest and an ability to do that and you know in the confidence to do things like that to lead people And you know and make sure that you know what your taxpayers are paying for that you're the people that are under you are actually Doing that job you know and the proverbial bank for your buck kind of thing and responsibility to the taxpayers and responsibility to the mission statement of whatever organization that you are participating in and I started to get the bug for you know first management and then eventually into leadership You know and they asked well, what's the difference between leadership and management and it's real simple you know management You know dots the I's and crosses the T's and does checklists and all the stuff and and leadership is providing some vision for the future Vision you know what what how you could better be more efficient and more effective and and and programming you know programs that would better benefit to what you're trying to achieve as an organization and(...) So I got that bug in short order and so in the police department In every police department's a little bit different But here at the Las Vegas Metro is you progress into you start everybody starts off in patrol And that's the black-and-white car and customer service kind of thing to respond into crimes critical incidents and then if you want to move up into management slash leadership you got to take a Promotional test and that's sergeant and then eventually it's lieutenant and eventually it's captain and then it's a deputy chief and then it's an assistant sheriff an under sheriff and sheriff and so I Through my career of 26 years. I progressed Through each one of those stages. I love that you talk about leadership has a vision And so you obviously saw I can actually add to this and I can help contribute to Some of the issues or gaps that I see being in the roles that I am and I can start helping curate that vision What did that look like at the time for you when you were like? Yes I have a vision and I want to make sure that I'm doing everything I can to try and instill that in well, it's easy to quantify in police work because you know you respond to So the acronym we use in law enforcement is the Sarah model, you know you scan What is the actual issue you analyze it you respond to it and then you assess it and in that case? It was responding to it may be a crime series It may be a specific time of day or night that robberies are being committed and during in the small business Environment and the deployment of your resources to affect that particular issue That's when it hit me, you know because you know the proverbial The proverbial always responding to the same locations. Here we go. We had another burglary occur here. Let me go take a An onerous crime report and then nothing ever comes of it So, you know, you're just a dog, you know wagging the the tail wagging the dog You know in that vicious circle that you don't really see anything Accomplished other than taking a crime report and becoming a statistic

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And so we got to do something better in the process That's where and then when they give you the autonomy whoever's above you gives you autonomy to do that You act on that and you know And one of the biggest motivators and in the human genome is recognition for your job Well done right and and that that's what would occur from that process so when you were Sheriff or honestly in any leadership role but since we're on the topic of kind of your career in the police department a lot of times you have to have other players right in in your office that are going to See out and carry through the vision all the way from the top down How how did you go about that? That's one of the bigger issues for a lot of leaders is really making sure that that top-level vision Gets deployed in the right way through all the different levels of the organization What were some of the tactics or things that you learned? Well? The what I would use is quite often is is you know, it's team building it comes up to team building So you you know, you have the ability to pick your team Okay, it's something in some organizations you can't they have to be promoted through the process and you have to utilize those individuals But you you do your research identify the people you think would best support and implement your vision So you pick your team you give them a lot modicum of training and direction and understanding what your vision is and then You know get the hell out of the way and the reason why I say get the hell out of the way because they got to be able to Implement and you have to give them the autonomy to implement and the last a on that Sarah model is assessment So is is your vision and your assessment of the problem is it working? Is it working and you know and there's nothing worse There's nothing more that an individual employee despises is micromanagement, right?(...) and you have to have enough confidence in your ability to pick your team and provide them direction to Prevent the micromanagement piece, but it's not an absolute right you have to follow up on your your direction And see if it's being implemented as you intended If not you got to provide them better direction or maybe better training and I think that's the best way to approach it Did you have mentors that kind of taught you that Sarah model and kind of just making sure that you utilize that as part of a foundation I love the acronym. Yeah, so um I had two really influential people in my life in my Police career and that was the former sheriff bill young He was a really operational kind of leader You know let's go out and kick butt and take names and solve problems right and then so he taught me how the lead from the front and And then the second one was Doug Gillespie who was a former sheriff too, and he was more pragmatic or

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programmatic and You know like the Sarah model and and he was really concerned about Effectiveness and efficiency in other words. Let's not just you know waste our time and You know and money and effort Or something that just probably doesn't make sense and is it really a problem right and that's the Sarah model when you talk about you You scanning and that and then you analyze that data that you receive and it could be in any business You couldn't equate that model in any business form It doesn't have to be crime basis right foundational(...) and he taught me those systems and the ability to to

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Evaluate the systems and analyze the systems and bill young was more into the the people part You know every every Functionality every small business and everything else is service oriented and whether your your people are interacting with the customers appropriately and You soon learn as a leader you can't be all places at all times without doing(...) Micromanagement right and then you end up burning out and you lose track of the vision(...) And he taught me to rely on your people and you know in your your employees(...) Obviously, you know the the rhetoric is customers or person number one But also and for the excess and longevity of business is your employees are customer number one, right? and and you know they they're humans and they different things affect them and Motivations and courtesy to the customer and all those that service oriented piece and I'll elaborate on that little piece more And when we start talking about the governor's job, but they both taught me the nuances of that I love that you had two different mentors that had different skills and you kind of took the best away from right, right? and I think that's also an important trait to be able to do that because You know, sometimes the people that are closest to you are probably not your best employees. Yeah, that's actually very true I know I I run and help manage a family business and it's very challenging sometimes So I like that they some a lot of people will fail to tell you where you're wrong, right? You know, and that's another aspect that's segue on it is is I pride myself on this it's not surrounding myself with yes people and You know in creating an environment to where they're comfortable to say no to you and you act on that You know without my wife would probably give you a different opinion on that as far as my hair next

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Professionally that's how I try to operate. I Love that. I like that you talk about creating in a comfortable environment where people can say no It's tough especially being in a seat as governor people afraid to Speak up and want to share their thoughts especially if it's something that they don't agree with So let's switch gears now into governor so I can give you a perfect example. Yes before we switch Yeah, so we were going through a you know, every business is always dealing with resources availability and enough resources And any employee that you ever as a leader goes down and talks to And says hey What what can we do to help you with your job and the number one thing the number one thing? They will say is we need more people right and But the real answer is we need to be more efficient and and utilizing different resources to make us more efficient, you know in the proliferation of AI, you know that that's a perfect example, but in

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The police vernacular we didn't have enough people to respond to accidents on a you know

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Expeditious or in a timely fashion where you know, you you're involved in a traffic accident, which is very traumatic to you You may or may not have been transported to the hospital for an injury but as you're sitting on the side of the road, you know, you're disrupting your life and(...) It's important for the police to get there and handle your business as soon as possible Right and for you to be stuck out there for three and four hours It may be this the middle of August here in the Las Vegas Valley

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We didn't have enough resources because of all the other responsibilities in police work in So how do you fix it? So if you go to any other jurisdiction in the nation Police do not respond to traffic accidents. The only time they do is if there's injuries(...) Because it's considered an accident and it's property damage versus you know a traditional crime and We Metro responded every accident no matter what level it was Okay, and then we made an arbitrary decision to stop, you know educate the the community and(...) Just only go to accidents with injury and you would have thought we you know committed, you know some heinous crime violent crime upon the You know the public in general as a result of that and in our customers the public They were close to(...) Protesting in the street, right? And so you have to be able to say hey we screwed up bad decision Let's rethink this and figure out how we could just do business better. So perfect example Did was that the point where you guys ended up hiring? People because I know that there was a freeze for a long time on hiring police officers And then that seemed to open up and I mean I had a lot of friends that actually it actually It wasn't it wasn't synonymous to that time, but it was it was How We were recruiting people that was failing us and so it made us evaluate a better way of of that recruitment Yeah, so it's interesting the unfortunate piece in law enforcement You know the pendulum of support by the community and the public it sways pretty quick, you know One day you've got all the support of the community the next day You've lost the trust and they don't support you and you know example that would be ice You know that in at the federal level, you know, the community is pushing back on on the original intent And you know, you got to you got to figure out a way to garner that trust back well, and in those roles, it's extremely difficult to Honestly, please everyone and give the appropriate explanation to get them on board If you had the time where you could have a one-on-one discussion with every single citizen Then maybe they would understand the thought process but in roles like that you don't you have to make that decisions and which brings up another point is is communication, right and and what we also learned as a

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Described it perfectly is no matter how much you communicate. There's still individuals not hearing it And no matter what method form social media podcast, whatever it may be There's still a group of individuals who are never going to hear it

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So moving into the governor's seat you have now a Much bigger role and a bit a change in your vision, right? It's not just about the law enforcement agency and how you can make an impact there But it's now about shaping the future of the state of Nevada Who or what gave you that bug that nudge to want to move into?

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going for governor

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There was two well

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Well, let's start the reason why okay, so We were as a community and as a nation we're going through post-covert or even COVID, you know The current state of mind was COVID and the response of that and whether you considered the previous governor's response of failure or(...) Success either way I perceived it as a failure and in the majority of it and and that was because I Felt my predecessor had a lack of understanding of the person(...) That was in the middle of a business owning a business or an employee. It was affected and all the nuances of Responded to a crisis and I thought we were doing a poor job Responding to a crisis and that's what you do as a leader in law enforcement on daily weekly monthly basis respond to a crisis and How you respond is very important, right? And I thought we could have done a lot better job As as a state but during that process our Fabric our foundational economy was going away and for us to be successful(...) Into the future. We got to figure out how do we become more resilient as an economy versus a discretionary income economy You know gaming and how do we respond to a crisis in a better in a better form? Outside of just handing out money and then suffering the consequences of that response, you know into the future You know and especially when we talk about education and what occurred in education for the K through 12 students and all that That goes along with it. And I said I could do a better job and you know if I Had it full intention to run for a third term as sheriff and then unfortunately, unfortunately, you know decisions were made based off the proximity and the timing of COVID and I thought I could do a better job and I you know and have more of a challenge and which motivates me and(...) Developing the fabric or the future foundation of the state of Nevada You had a bigger influence on a bigger population And so a lot of a lot of the naysayers in that space

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So well, you don't have the skill set, you know You're you're a cop basically and and what it boils down to as you progress through that, you know, you get hired for your technical ability, you know Whatever you're getting hired for sound operator or sound engineer(...) videographer a Desk, you know front desk at a bank or whatever a loan officer at a bank You're you're hired and trained to have that technical knowledge of that specific item

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And as you progress through leadership That tech that technical piece tends to go lesson and lesson and lesson That's what that person was hired for Your your job now is to manage the system, you know, give the system direction So you have to expand your your influence sooner you will fail very fast and The different, you know, if people said well, it's you know, it's different being a cop versus a governor I actually know it isn't because you're at this level. You're not at this level where you were hired and it's about managing people and Processes and It's a simple thing throw the Sarah model into it and manage people and process through that thing That those processes rely on them and all the technical knowledge And so you say the governor as an example, I always equate it to this analogy, you know The sheriff dealt with you know 10 spokes in a you know bicycle wheel, right and a governor deals with all the spokes, you know 100 whatever it may be in the wheel So it's going in every direction so you can't have the technical knowledge and all those directions Nor can you have an under complete understanding? What you got to do is have a modicum of understanding and the ability just to tell your people to tell if your people are being honest with you and whether they're doing their job to affect that whatever area it is and whether they are implementing the vision you have for the overall improvement of the organization and

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and So I had the confidence and so it's interesting enough. We're sitting here at Nevada State Bank What it was the podcast call opening doors through the door through the door? and your chairman Dallas Hahn Who I was very close with through my career as a law enforcement officer Gave me a call one day. He says you need to think about running for governor and

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To be frank with you. I was on the bubble until he called me and influenced me to pull the trigger He's good at having people on the shoulder. Yeah. Yeah that he knows is um is qualified for the job Well, it goes back to identify your team, right?

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so being governor and maybe you can give me a little bit of an education on this because When you are in a position like that It's not as simple as you being able to just come in and start making Decisions based on what you kind of see might be gaps or issues in the the process, right? We talk about people and efficiencies and things like that What are some of the leadership qualities or things that you have had to possess or honestly evolve in your role as governor? to be able to Accomplish that knowing that you have to get buy-in and consensus from so many other leaders that are part of that system Yeah, I mean the problem with the I mean you could quantify it and you know You know types of personalities, right? And you know the typical a personality is You know you have this mindset. Nobody can do it as good as you and and you know You're a little squeamish about allowing other people to do it and you stand by an observer without Objecting and you know allowing them to fail and then you know provide them advice along the way blah blah blah and and I had to learn that along the way and so you know and just by the Span of your responsibility you can't keep that That vision or that ability to do that because you know if you're constantly on top of your employee get engaged in their business They're not gonna do their business, right? They're gonna let you do it alright, and or they're afraid to make a decision right and so

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That was something that really I had to work with I had to take my time and work with it Because you get you get that mindset through the military that kind of mindset that warrior mentality

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Mentality you get that as a police officer here You know you run to danger versus step back and you know evaluate and so all those kind of things I guess the word is patience

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That you had to build upon it and personally realizing what your faults are and Ensure that you are putting people on the team that can help you with your faults you know, so I Think that's what was a difficult piece to Wrap your arms around because you know, it's almost an admit mittens of weakness and you got to get past that(...) You know the other the other thing you You learn in short order is you know You you want to leave any position you have is that you moved it forward and not backwards or you were just treading water or not

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But you also have to be comfortable in your old skin When you are moving on the person that is replacing you(...) You got to have the attitude that they're you hope they do a better job than you, right?(...) Because you made the foundation. Hope to do it better job when I found out from many people is

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They'd like to hear oh, we don't like the new guy. We don't like the new guy You know the people that he used to have influence on we miss you and that kind of stuff and I think that's a that's a failed

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Peace and In your ability to move an organization Forward, you know, I want the guy that replaced me for sheriff to do a better job than me That means the police department's doing better. So yeah progress over perfection. It's just like the state, right? It's yeah, there you go progress over perfection. That's a used to synced it in two words Yeah, so yeah, I mean that that's a big deal, you know when I when I transitioned from sheriff to(...) to

(...)

Governor I you know, I Quite often had you know something a lot of my old friends and employees saying yeah, we really miss you I said, no, no, no, we you need to help him Do a better job than I did?

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Everybody's better for it. Well, ultimately a lot of people that are in roles like that I like to believe that they're there because they truly want to make a difference and to serve And to make it better no matter who is leading the ship if you will that they're contributing towards positive movement as governor we interview on this podcast as you know a lot of businesses, so that we just got our survey results because every year we do an annual small business survey and One of the survey results actually showed that a lot of small businesses in the state of Nevada and I've even heard this in past Podcast guests that they feel very positive about the economy last year in 2025 and then also going into 2026 what are some of the things that you can share plans to help support small businesses or something that you would want? Them to know that we're working on as a state

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Well, there's a couple answers there and

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First and foremost is Is your state conducive to business right is it an environment for for business? And one of the most important things is does it have a stable regulatory environment? Or is that going to change on an annual basis or there's always a threat to my business model or ability to you know You know provide goods or whatever my business model is in a state, you know and and

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When I Decided to run for governor that was one of my platform pieces to create a business environment That was you know, the regulatory environment was the tax environment was stable Do we have the ability to make government smaller versus bigger and you know the bigger the government gets the more? Onerous it gets on the business environment and you know And it's the education system robust enough and can we work on the education system to to ensure that we have a sufficient workforce for businesses that we're trying to attract(...) You know does the state as itself have an incentive program that's in competition with every other state in the union That would make it conducive for business First and foremost would have been the regulatory environment. So as what I did in that space is I directed each one of my department heads to identify ten

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outdated and or inefficient or onerous regulations that prevented the success of small business and It was a simple exercise and they came forward with those regulations and so we put that into a(...) Process to either modify repeal or leave alone those particular regulations and and as a result in three and a half years we have either modified or repealed over 900 regulations that affect Businesses and every faction, you know every faction or different industry but I mean so that creates an environment right and then Is day one when you got into office were you trying to push back on tax increases? We're trying just to maintain the current level or we actually trying to lessen the burden and you know taxes are a big deal in decision-making(...) Especially for business owners and we were less than some We were able to stabilize son, but more importantly there was a significant amount of

(...)

tax

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Ideas and tax programs that were brought forward in the last two legislative sessions that we I would not sign off on the bills So I think you know That's what I made a promise when I got elected and that's what I did. And so we created we created an environment

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of success for businesses that wanted to come here and The businesses that are currently here to make it easier on them. The licensing piece is another big deal You know permitting and licensing When you're you're putting roots here into the the So are you gonna sit on your hands for two years waiting for your permit and or license, right?(...) And we ensure that we could streamline that and I like to call it the white glove service You know, we we have all the resources here in Nevada that would help you(...) Help yourself(...) You know, we direct contacts to all the Chamber of Commerce's direct contest to all the business loan Act resources

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The incentives that can be provided through the governor's office like economic development to make it easier, you know Not that fear of oh, you know I'm gonna be squandering my first two years in this environment trying to get my doors open And then you know and we'll continue to be available even after your doors are open Especially if you're receiving incentives to ensure that you're meeting Obligations of those incentives and help you build

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Upon those obligations as you work through the process. Yeah, I know that there have been we've had no shortage of obstacles and challenges that we've had to navigate here and just being in Nevada and Las Vegas honestly when I kind of Rewind even during kovat and then the stimulus and everything else that's kind of happened along the way with your first your term Almost over and you going up for reelection What do you see being carried forward if you're reelected as governor?

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Well being carried forward would so now we go through so we went through the three first iterations of regulations And you know for the listening or visual public is is uh, you know Every legislative session as they come out with you know, a dozen or more new regulations because it's a new idea That they can figure out some tax environment to the benefit of the tax coffers is one is to continually push back on that environment and then two is again another iteration of proactivity and repeal of Additional regulations just because we went through it one time doesn't mean we can't go through it again And you know on top of that every legislative session There's more come come come come to bear, you know with the changing of technology change of environment changing of you know economy, you know You know the powers to be think that's a better way to do business and I did I Disagree with that as a better way to do business I think I'm a proponent for smaller government and keeping the government out of the way and Keeping the government what it's originally intended to do quite often the government injects itself into processes and and systems and Industries that it has no business being in and so I think it's that we keep the eye on the ball So as you go into reelect

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It's what we promised in the first, you know

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Four years of administration that that this is what we would do and there's no reason to step away from that is to continue to Chip away chip away and chip away until we can get to where we need to be Do you and more of a found you know, I said get to where we need to be the problem with government It changes every four years, right? And and you have to ensure that you put in systems in the place that prove success that people won't try to mess with Yeah I was gonna ask you that what your opinion on the term limits and things that are set in certain seats of government just because It seems like some of that institutional knowledge sometimes is then gone Because of that and that seems like you starting again at square one and how challenging that can be Yeah, I mean there's there's two factors in there one is is term limits and the other is you have to run for office so the you know you your your ability to For people to question your job and your your performance is through a vote Right. So is that should that be the only functionality and then you have the other You know concern is term limits(...) And sometimes people don't know when it's their term You know, but this is self-induced in in the statutes you know, you see a lot of the(...) you see a lot of the

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Concern and more so in the legislative office versus the Executive office with term limits. I think that the term limits that were put in place several decades ago in the legislature(...) were very detrimental because(...) It um You know, we're lucky to get even people even to put in for that job I think it's woefully underpaid and and it's very onerous for a person to be an individual legislator in State government and when you have somebody that wants to do it and they're doing a good job Why not let them stay there? And you know that brain drain is is a real thing brain drains a real thing And quite often is when when they're subject to term limits the person that replaces them Will bring up ideas that were brought up years before and said no, we already tried that it didn't work So let's not waste our time on it. So I think that's a problem with a lot of business leaders honestly in every different industry is there's a Significant amount of folks that are kind of sun-setting or moving on and all that institutional knowledge Goes with it. So how do you preserve that? content or that Information to make sure that you can then call upon it and use it in the future Well, you hope you have you know students of history and they they do when they're in the position No, I remember that and you know or your staff that you can rely on staff say no this has been tried before

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So there's there's a lot of different aspects you could help to support that system But the actual decision makers are the ones that decide to put it up for a vote whether it gets passed or not And you got to make sure you have good records, right good records and and the ability to draw on You know you one thing I learned in short order was even though I got to the top I still talk to the people who were there before me and say what did you do in this situation, you know, and you got to Have enough Confidence in yourself that that's not it's not showing a weakness It's actually a strength to be able to get a difference of opinion Well, you talk about that earlier too with the people that you surround yourself around and making sure that they know they can push back And they can challenge you or they can tell you if something isn't a good idea has there ever been a moment where You've had to take a step back because you realize you're digging your heels into a particular topic that maybe You need to stop and think about and be like wait a minute I set this room up so that I did start to think about different angles. Well, yeah, it was it was a you know You get too close to it to the your idea and there's no way you want it to fail right, and so you start to ignore the the

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the red flags and And then you got to be comfortable having your people tell you hey, you're going in the wrong direction Yeah, this this just wasn't a good idea You know and it's probably is a lot of it is from unintended consequences or the lack of knowledge of the whole issue And they bring up something say well, you know, this is a problem with that idea And you gotta you gotta be strong enough to know it(...) It takes more leadership to say no than it does to say yes. Yeah, we simulated a legislative session in leadership like just a couple months ago and I was I was real surprised on how(...) Much

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Information people get I know that there's obviously a lot of other Discussions and meetings that are had well before you actually go through the vote, but I was just fascinated over like wow There are a lot of people in the room a lot of different folks talking to people that are making those decisions and Really wanting everyone to understand the ripple effect of every single decision that is made It doesn't seem like an easy thing to do(...) Because you're judged on every decision that you make right? Right? Right good or bad? Well, I mean it always goes back to the boss right always goes back to the boss and you know, it's Interesting pieces. I probably get confronted at least once a week from some constituent that it talks to me about some particular issue they're dealing with and They're asking me to help solve the issue and I say, you know that that's not in my

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Responsibility. I have nothing to do with that. Well, why can't you fix it? You know because you know, you're the governor, you know the head of government and no I could get you to the right person But that's you know, that's actually not what I do as as a governor So sometimes it's lack of knowledge and sometimes it's just I just need help. Nobody's listening to them Yeah, but you're you're right though. It's a You know, it's very difficult to if you use the legislative process as an example, it's very difficult you know, we're a part-time legislature here in Nevada, we have a constitutional mandate to to start and end after 120 days every other year and And they try to jam a lot of stuff in a small period of time That is very complicated comprehensive and wide-reaching and In an example would be last session. There was 1200 bills presented(...) 120 days 1200 bills you think a bill that's going to change a law or implement a law requires more than Then you know 10 minutes of evaluation. Yeah, and that's all you get Yeah, and it has drafting on it and everything else that goes along with it and you know Two houses of votes and then eventual ratification by the governor and and that's unacceptable Yeah, I mean you gotta you gotta be able to triage that As leadership. Well, and that's one of the reasons why you called a special legislative session. Do you?(...) See that being something that you might have to do a little bit more frequently(...) well, you know

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Yeah, I wouldn't say frequently

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I think(...) Personally, I think that I would be more comfortable if we did two sessions, you know a session each year You know one could be a policy session. You know, and could be a budget session because you know besides the 1200 bills

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We got it we have to Balance that we have to provide a budget and certify a budget for the state 48 billion dollars(...) During that same session So how do you you know you got to separate the responsibility of 1200 bills in a budget? And that takes a significant amount of time But and you know, I've made that recommendation for this valuation But it just is never received the vote, you know, even during my tenure and before me I think as a state part-time legislature made sense because it was less government But that was back when the population might have been a hundred thousand right or less than that and we're to the level now and the diversity of the economy that has Completely different effect on a lot of different areas that we need to reevaluate that system No, I would agree with that I was just doing a little bit of research just on the time that I've lived in Las Vegas I moved here in 2003 and the population here was around 500 something thousand and now we're pushing close to 3 million and to have(...) infrastructure and everything else not really move at the pace that maybe our Population is it can start to create a lot of significant challenges and then how do you combat that when you only meet every other year? Right and so back to your original question Do we need to have more special you more frequent special sessions and I think special session as itself(...) Is flawed to where you need to have a I think it's better to have more regular session So you can do your due diligence because you know as you go into a special session You know you want to you know The goal is to get in and out of there because one of the cost that goes along with it It was which wasn't original attended costs the disruption of the legislators lives and in all parts of the government

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But are you are you picking the right things to put into the session? And so let's use Texas as a perfect example there. I think there's only six part-time legislative States and Texas is one of them. You're like wait a minute you said population. Well. Yeah, Texas I know how many whether they have their 30 million people. I don't know close to that and They are constantly in special session constantly boom boom boom boom to where it's almost like they're a full-time legislature And I think that's a poor way to to address the issues(...) Do you think about your legacy often or what you want your legacy to be? Being governor like if some if Jeremy Agouero were to talk about your impact What worse would be some of the things that you'd hope would be mentioned?

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Well when I went into this We talked about diversifying the economy and then and to you know That's the basis of any community's economy and to was the education system and Nevada has notoriously been

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Identified as having a poor at public education system and and You ever since I got here You know in 1976 and you know in the rankings have always put us in the bottom tenth percentile and and I couldn't figure out why we can't we couldn't change that and I had made a promise to my constituents and my voters and and myself that I Wanted to do something significant in both those spaces both in the economy and its resilience and and education because education

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You know It's it's synonymous with the economy right both in your workforce and ideas and technology and everything else that goes with it in quality of life for individuals and

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So I guess to boil it down to is I would hope People say I helped move both of those issues forward and not backwards(...) Well, I think you have and I really appreciate your time here. I know you know, it's a big elephant, right? It was taking bites of that elephant and we got to keep consuming it. No, exactly my dad How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? But you're right when you have a significant issue and it's ever evolving and changing because our community is changing constantly That is something that you you chip away out over time and I think that we've made some positive strides You can't you can't change a big, you know It's hard to turn a battleship quickly, right and that's no different than the education system and economic systems and all that and to make sure that you You know you keep chipping away and and those chips are moving it forward and not backwards And so I guess the answer to boil it down again is you know, Nevada's had it has moved forward under Governor Lombardo and we'll continue to move forward(...) So my last question and I asked this of every guest but what is a guy favorite ice cream? Yeah, well, no, but you could tell us that too. What is a guiding principle that you have in business or in life? That you want to share with others

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That's a great question I've never actually been presented that that you know that I would never be embarrassed from my actions Otherwise I would be pride prideful(...) Of what I do on a daily basis and what I've asked the people to expect of me So it's a you know lead from I said it from beginning to lead from the front and I wouldn't do anything I wouldn't do myself ask somebody to do something that I would do myself and and I pride myself on that Thank you so much governor. Yeah, you could tell me your favorite ice cream too after this But thank you so much for tuning in to through the door the insiders perspective on running a business

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