Conversation with Mike Murphy: Candidate for Clark County Public Administrator
In this episode of The Best Dam Podcast, Jill catches up with Mike Murphy, candidate for Clark County Public Administrator. Mike shares his journey from his early days in law enforcement to his extensive career as Boulder City's first juvenile officer, Clark County Coroner, lead lobbyist, and national public safety consultant.
Mike also reflects on his deep roots in Boulder City, his decades of public service, and his work in death investigations—all while outlining a clear vision to modernize county estate administration. This isn't just a story about running for office; it's about building trust, leveraging modern technology like body cameras and RFID tags, avoiding unnecessary government backlog, and honoring the legacy of public service in Nevada.
DISCUSSION
- Decades of Public Leadership: Recounting roles across Clark County, including serving 13 years as County Coroner, managing Juvenile Justice, and acting as lead lobbyist during state budget cuts.
- Stepping Up in Crisis: Taking over management of the Public Administrator's office during turbulent times and working closely with outgoing administrator.
- Demystifying the Role: What the Public Administrator actually handles, managing unadministered estates, avoiding billable hour traps, and resolving estates efficiently for families.
- Modernizing the Office: Implementing body cameras on field investigators to protect staff and assets, adopting RFID tracking for secure evidence capture, and streamlining operations.
- Prevention & Partnerships: Partnering with senior law groups and estate attorneys to encourage proactive estate planning, preventing government backlog before it starts.
- Medical/Legal Death Investigations: An inside look at death investigations, the critical distinction between cause and manner of death, and teaching "Autopsy to Courtroom" nationwide.
- Work Ethic & Early Lessons: Sacking groceries as a teenager, learning to look forward rather than backward, playing drums in local bands, and absorbing lifelong values from his parents.
- Life Philosophy &"Aha" Moments: Moving stories on learning to listen to understand rather than respond, realizations from global travel, and returning home to Boulder City.
LEARN MORE
To learn more about Mike and his work, visit the MPower USA website at https://www.mpowerusa.vegas/
To learn more about the Boulder City Chamber of Commerce, visit their website at https://www.bouldercitychamber.com.
KEYWORDS
Mike Murphy, Clark County Public Administrator, Nevada Politics, Boulder City, Boulder City Chamber of Commerce, The Best Dam Podcast
#MikeMurphy #PublicAdministrator #ClarkCounty #BoulderCity #PublicService #Leadership #TheBestDamPodcast
Podcast Episode Transcript
Jill: Listeners, we have a treat today, one of my favorite people on earth, and, we've had a long history. We've known each other for many years. Mr. Mike Murphy, thank you so much for being here today.
Michael: Thank you so much for having me, and it's wonderful to see you all grown up.
Jill: Oh, thank you. I finally did grow up. My parents will be happy to say. sSo I know you are with a company called Empower USA, so we'll talk a little bit more about that.
Michael: Sure.
Jill: But really, I want to delve a little bit more into not only your history and the different careers you've had, but I want to know more about why you want to run as the candidate for the Clark County Public Administrator.
Michael: Great, and I want you ... I really believe that everything we do in life puts us in a position for our next steps in life, if that makes sense. So when you have, whether it's tragedy or something wonderful happens in your life, that's preparing you for the next thing that's gonna happen. And I think sometimes we kinda look and go, "Why me?" or, "Why is this happening?" It's the next step. It's the next step for that that preparation step to go forward. And I believe that my career has built that foundation for where I'm at today and what I wanna do, which is to, I wanna be elected as the Clark County Public Administrator.
Uniquely enough, during my time in Clark County, while I was the county coroner, the county started using me, the county fathers, so the fathers and mothers or county management started using me when a department head would have a problem.
Jill: Okay.
Michael: so I ran juvenile justice, and it would always be, "Hey, we only need you to run it for a couple of months until we get a new leader."
That usually turned into about a year.
Jill: Okay.
Michael: So I ran juvenile justice for a year, after Kirby left. Kirby Burgess, great guy. and I had worked with him for years. As a matter of fact, I was Boulder City's first juvenile officer.
So that's where I met Kirby
Jill: Oh, very good
Michael: when he was the juvenile officer.
Jill: I didn't remember that.
Michael: Yeah, so we have that history. Anyway, ran juvenile justice for a year. I worked with Clark County Park Police for a period of time. I became the lobbyist for Clark County, the lead lobbyist for two sessions because during the budget cuts, there wasn't any money to hire independent lobbyists, so they
Jill: Oh
Michael: they just had people. They just grabbed us and went, "You're gonna go lobby."
Jill: Right.
Michael: And so I did that for a couple of sessions. as a matter of fact, my first session,I got voted as the rookie lobbyist of the year. I
Jill: Oh, that's awesome
Michael: which, and I thought I was doing terrible, and then when they gave me that, I went, "Oh, maybe I'm not doing as bad as I thought."
So again, everything preps you for the next thing. As I'm going through all these different things, one of the things that I got asked to do was to come back and be the county coroner a second time. You know, I was the coroner for 13 years, and then I went out into my consulting world and did that.
I worked for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I was the director of special projects, long-term missing kids- for about two and a half years and, I was commuting. So I was living in Washington DC area, but my family stayed in Las Vegas. The kids were already grown at that point.
So, when I came back, the pandemic hits, or I'm doing-
Jill: Oh, man
Michael: I'm doing consulting, the pandemic hits. John Fudenberg, who was my number two, who became the county coroner, took the, the retire- they were offering retirement buyouts. He took it with, two weeks notice, and the county called and said, "We need a coroner.
We're in the middle of the pandemic. Will you come back?"
Jill: Oh my gosh.
Michael: Yes, so they hired my consulting company so that I could come back because, I'm in the PERS system. And so I came back ran the office for another year, and then that's how, Melanie came about, which is Melanie Rouse, who's your current coroner.
Jill: Right.
Michael: So I'm back out on the consulting gig again and, traveling the country. I do about 200 days a year right now.
Jill: Oh my gosh.
Michael: And if elected, I will close that business down. I'll quit, going out on the road of course, 'cause I'll need to be at the office.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: So I'm doing all that, and I get a phone call.
I'm down in Texas teaching, and it's the county, and they said, "Have you been watching the newspaper?" And I said I saw something on the front page of the news about a county official being accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a staff member, and it was at the public administrator's office."
And I said, "Yes, I did see that." And they said, "When can you come in and take over?" And I said different than any other office I've taken over, those previous offices, they were appointed officials, so you could remove them and then put me in place. How's this gonna work?"
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: And they said, "The elected official has agreed to have you come in and assist
Jill: Oh
Michael: basically take the office over." So I, two days later, I walk through the door. I'm working in the office, trying to work with this gentleman, and I use that term loosely. I kept saying an old saying that I'd been told, "When you're in a hole, stop digging." I was trying to get him to quit arguing with the reporter, which was Jeff German, in emails and text messages and because all that's, subject to FOIA, Freedom of Information Act. So it's all gonna come forward.
Jill: It's kind of
Michael: and so the... I'm making this long, and I shouldn't. The bottom line is we go through the summer on the week before Labor Day weekend, they advise that all of our text messages, emails, and, instant messaging is all gonna be released to the public, which of course I didn't have any problem with.
but that particular individual did because he had been communicating with his girlfriend via that.
Jill: Oh, shoot.
Michael: So all that was gonna become public. we find out Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend that Jeff's been Jeff German, the reporter for the RJ, an amazing individual. You didn't have to agree with him every time.
He was a bulldog on stories, and I want you to know I'd worked with him for 30 years. had written two books about the mob and had been threatened by Anthony "The Ant" Spilotro
Jill: Oh my gosh
Michael: and survived all those things, and then gets murdered because he's doing a story about government.
Jill: Interesting
Michael: and so he's murdered. That's, he's found Saturday morning. ultimately, without going into all the details of that, Wednesday morning they serve a search warrant on the public administrator's home, and they don't take him into custody that moment, but there was DNA that was taken from underneath German's fingernails that was tied to the individual who was the public administrator. I've try, I try not to mention his name anymore 'cause I don't wanna give him any press. Yeah. He's now serving life in prison. And so, Jeff, again, was an amazing individual, and I wanna give him credit for that. During that period of time, Rita Reid
Jill: Yes
Michael: who was the number two in the office, who you know well
Jill: I do. I love her
Michael: and yes. And she's an absolutely amazing individual, and her husband Bill is great.
Jill: Yes.
Michael: And he did so much for tourism here in Las Vegas. It's amazing what he did. having said that, she gets elected, so she wins out in the primary.
We already knew that in May. She gets elected, and, I stayed with her for the transition period through May of that year.
Jill: Okay.
Michael: And then I went on to, back to my consulting work, and traveling the, the Unit now basically the United States. Since the pandemic I'm not traveling overseas very much. And Continued that process of teaching and everything, and I've gone to the office about once a month and tried to.
When I say tried, worked with her on some different projects and some ideas that I've had. And so she decided not to run a second time.
Jill: she's Yes, I know. She's ready to retire.
Michael: She's ready. She's a Democrat. I happen to be a Republican.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: I don't think it should be a partisan office, to be honest with you.
Jill: I agree.
Michael: As the coroner, it wasn't a partisan office. That was appointed, not elected, by the way. In most jurisdictions, that's elected. I've never once gone to anybody, whether it was a police officer, the coroner, or working at the public administrator's office and said, "Before we help you, who did you vote for? What party are you?”
Jill: Yeah, that doesn't
Michael: Exactly.
Jill: Especially in this type of activity, right?
Michael: Exactly. Yeah. It's about people and service. So she reached out to me and said, "Would you run for the office? I think you have some great ideas. I think you could bring them to fruition, and I really believe that you're the right person for that."
And I said, "I would be honored to do that, and I would absolutely be honored to be endorsed by you." And so she has endorsed me. We are doing that. We're working together on that. I have a plethora of ideas of things that I'd like to put into place. one of them is I think all the investigators, when I say all of them, there's four full-time and about eight part-time investigators that go into your home.
I don't That's another thing. Maybe we should talk for just a moment
Jill: Yeah, tell me what
Michael: about what the public administrator does.
Jill: Yeah. Please do. Yeah. 'Cause I don't know that everybody's aware.
Michael: that's a great... Yeah, I should probably start with that rather than tell you all the changes I wanna make.
So the public administrator is responsible for the estates of individuals who die without a will, a trust, and here's the most important one, or an executor to their estate.
Jill: Oh.
Michael: So you might have a will or a trust, but if you don't have someone to execute it then that gets open to the public domain, so to speak, and the vast majority of time, the public administrator's office will act as your executor.
And of course, that's not free. That
Jill: No
Michael: You know, that's billable hours. Okay. Very, very similar to a law office. There are, individuals that can do it. You could have a neighbor do it, as long as you're of good repute, as they say
Jill: Okay
or, good moral character. But there are some cottage industries that have opened as a result of that acting as, administrators to estates. I'm not saying that that's inappropriate. I'm just telling you that's, that can get a little unique because, at the end of the day, it's billable hours. There's been some questions about some organizations and it's come up with the commissioners where, if the estate had $200,000 worth of equity, the... it just happened to get $200,000 worth of billable hours. If it had
Jill: Oh
Michael: $100,000, it gets $100,000 worth of billable hours. So you wanna make sure that whoever's doing that is doing it with the right purpose, which is to get in, get it done, and get out.
Jill: Interesting.
Michael: It's not about billable hours. It's not about milking the process to get as much dollars as you can get out of it, and to do everything you can to find heirs so you can give that up. Now, how often does that happen? Few thousand times a year
Jill: Really?
Michael: and we are years behind in cases. And we
Jill: You're kidding me.
Michael: No, the cases are behind for a variety of reasons. and so two things that don't go well, you know, in when I was the coroner, time does not, is not favorable to a decedent.
You wanna get them and get them into refrigeration, get them to the funeral process as quickly as possible. Guess what? Property doesn't go well with time either.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: If it sits vacant, we now have people that will try to squat. They'll come in, these squatters will come in and come in with fake leases and try to take over.
Sometimes they turn into crack houses. sometimes the homeless get in and they set fires in them. And then if you have cars, let's say you have a $15,000, Honda in your driveway
Jill: Yeah
Michael: and when you die. So if it sits in the storage lot for two years, the tires go flat, the sun, the dirt and all that, the battery's got bad, the gas is bad, and so now it might have been worth maybe, two years ago it might have been worth 8, $10,000, $12,000.
Now it's worth a couple hundred.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: And so nothing gets better with time. So the goal is, I don't want to, I don't want the office, and Rita's not running it this way, by the way, don't want the office to start buying houses or taking the houses and cutesying them up and flipping them. That's an industry that should be left to the private.
Jill: Right. You know? I agree.
Michael: It, to me, it should be sold as is, where is, and then it goes from there, and to get that money back to the estate and hopefully to the heirs.
Jill: Now And help the heirs get closure.
Michael: Correct, so that we can provide resolution.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: I try not to use closure, and I'm not trying to correct you.
Jill: Okay.
But when I was in the coroner's office one day, I said to a lady, we just wanna give you some closure." And she said to me, "Oh, can you close the hole in my heart? Is this like the chapter of a book And I want you to know, if I could get small and crawl underneath the door, I would have.
So I kind of removed that word.
Jill: Okay.
Michael: And I know it's used a lot, and I don't mean it in a negative way. No, but
Jill: I love your idea.
Michael: But yeah, so I say let's give it some resolution.
Jill: Resolution.
But the concept here again comes down to let's provide the service. I've had some people say to me, "I don't wanna leave anything to my kids."
That's great. Then leave it to the little dogs and the cats, or leave it to children at St. Jude's. Leave it to the chamber, or leave it to whoever whatever your favorite charity is. But don't leave it to government.
Jill: Yeah, I agree with that.
Michael: We're the... no offense, but, we don't... we can operate.
We don't need that, those funds.
Jill: Well, it also creates an extra layer of extra work and time
Michael: Sure
Jill: that it takes away from the people
Michael: Absolutely
Jill: who really need the assistance.
“ichael: Absolutely. And another thing that the office has not been very good at over the years, because they've been so busy, it's kind of like the old saying, "It's tough to remember you were supposed to drain the swamp when you're up to your neck in alligators."
Is the, what happens is they've been so busy with the day-to-day operations
Jill: Yeah
Michael: they haven't done any preventive maintenance. And what we need to do in preventive maintenance is we need to partner with different organizations. There's a senior law group, Judge Voy, who used to be the, the, he's part of that senior law group now, but he used to be the juvenile court judge.
I worked with him for years. I've talked to him. I have his endorsement. They provide services for seniors that can't afford to get their own will done.
Jill: Oh, okay.
Michael: We can partner with estate attorneys that will help people get their wills and their executors so that we don't get involved.
Even when I was at the coroner's office, we did a lot of prevention because I'm like, "I don't need the work."
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: "I don't want you to come here until it's time for you to be here." Right. You know? We'd like for you to live a good, to a good, ripe, old age. We don't want you getting here early so to speak. And so there's a lot of preventive that we could do in the office, and so that's one that I think we need to do. Not I think, I know we need to do, is the preventative. Another one is we should put the investigators on body cams.
Jill: Oh.
Michael: And then we can have... Now there's a couple of organizations now that have products that the body cam will write the report. It has to be approved
Jill: Yeah
Michael: cause AI does a little trickery. and so you wanna make sure you do that. But we could utilize services and technology so that we get a bigger bang for the buck, and that we do better. not too long ago, the investigators went out to a home. They took $186,000 worth of cash and 300 firearms out of the house.
Jill: Holy crud.
Michael: Yes. Now they're trusted individuals. I'm not saying I question them in any way, shape, or form. How do we know that wasn't 286,000?
Jill: They need to cover their butts too.
Michael: And how do we know that... Exactly.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: How do we know that wasn't 400 firearms? And how do we prove that? Now, I can't tell you the number of times, even when I was the coroner, that a family member would say, we'd give them the jewelry and the family member would say, "Grandpa had a Rolex.
This isn't a Rolex." And we'd go, "No, Grandpa had a Folex." He told you it was a Rolex. And so there are times, and all of that, if you document it, then we're protecting the employee.
Jill: That's what I'm thinking too.
Michael: Yes. Yeah. And protecting the estate and answering those questions.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: And if you talk to law enforcement, and of course I've been in law enforcement long enough, I watched the transition into body cams.
Initially everybody was against it. Now they've proven it saves 100 jobs to the one that it might
Jill: Oh
Michael: actually cost
Jill: I agree
Michael: because they found out you did something wrong. So it actually lets you prove that you're doing things right, not wrong.
So that's another one. we need a better evidence capturing system. Everything should be on RFID tags, so when it's captured at the scene, it's tagged, it's bagged, and it doesn't have to be reopened or rechecked. So it's, less hands on it That's smart ... means less chance for errors, that kind of thing. And so there's several things that we could be doing.
The office in Washoe County handles maybe a third of the cases that our office does in Las Vegas, and they have almost double the employees. Now, I'm not saying that we need more employees, but what I am saying is we need to work smarter. And so there's a lot of things that can be done and I'm a change agent.
I have established in my career, through my whole career, that I have the ability to come in and make changes in a positive way, and I believe that there's only two types of employees that have ever come in contact with me, those that worked with me and those that worked for me, and you either love me or you hate me, and I'm fine with both of those.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: And it's usually one of those lead, follow, or get out of the way, but let's get it done. And I've always, in my belief, always left it better than I found it. And so I'm gonna build on that reputation. I want that opportunity. I'm not a career politician. It's the first time I've ever run for office, and I do not want this job more than four years.
I wanna get in, get it fixed, get it balanced get it caught up. Put all these things in place, and then hand it off to somebody else and let them do the next level.
Jill: Well, I know it's my personal experience that you've always left things better than the way you found them. I am really excited to be able to visit with you more today and to learn a little bit more, and help educate the listeners on who and what you are, and what your experience is, and why it's so important for you, and why you feel so passionate about this opportunity.
So I really appreciate that.
Michael: Thank you for that.
Jill: So I know that, let's talk a little bit more about some of the specialties that you've been part of.
Michael: Sure
Jill: So one of... law enforcement. No yes, we all know that. death investigations, but I love this word, medical/legal.
Michael: Correct.
Jill: Will you explain a little bit about medical/legal death investigations and
Michael: You bet.
Jill: why that's important?
Michael: As a matter of fact, I'm on a plane in the morning to, Birmingham, Alabama, to teach a class the following day on medical/legal death investigations, and it's... The class is titled Autopsy to Courtroom. And what we will be doing is teaching medical legal death investigators and law enforcement officers about, the dos and don'ts and lessons learned in death investigations.
So a medical/legal death investigator is an investigator that's assigned to a coroner medical examiner's office. The doctor, the forensic pathologist... I might mention, by the way, there are 3,000 vacancies in the United States, and they're graduating about 30 a year.
Jill: Oh my gosh.
Michael: So we are in a huge deficit. Vegas has been-- Las Vegas has been Clark County has been very fortunate. I think we're one short right now, but we have a cadre of six, seven. We fly 14 in from around the United States specifically to come in and assist with the overload. So it's a growth industry. I have a granddaughter who's starting college.
Jill: Yes.
Michael: that's her goal.
Jill: Congratulations.
Michael: She's in her second year, and she wants to be a forensic pathologist. But a male medical/legal death investigator has to come out with the how this injury occurred, not who did it. So police are looking at the... They own the crime scene. They're looking at who committed the crime.
The medical/legal death invest- investigator works on the body itself, and with the family to determine, one of the things we look at is what they call med-soc, which is the medical social background of an individual. But we're also looking at how did that injury or how did this disease or infection occur that caused the death?
The doctor will tell you that, yes, it was a gunshot wound of head, is how they refer to that, of head. Now, the question is, was that a suicide self-inflicted? Was that an accident that, you're messing with a gun, and they don't call it accident now, they call it negligent discharge. and then, was it or was it a, a, a homicide, meaning someone did it to this individual?
Or we might have an undetermined case, which means that we can't come to a successful conclusion. So the medical legal death investigator puts together the circumstances around that death to provide that information to the forensic pathologist so that they can determine what's known as cause and manner of death.
Cause of death is the medical reason why someone ceases life. Manner of death is the method by which they died.
Jill: Oh.
Michael: There are only five: homicide, the taking of one life by another; suicide, the taking of one's own life or death at one's own hand; accident, any unforeseen or unexpected event; undetermined which means we can't come to a successful conclusion beyond a degree of medical certainty; and then the last one is natural death
Jill: Okay
Michael: which is when we succumb to any of the natural disease processes of the body. So the medical legal death investigator is looking at it not from a criminal prosecution side, but looking at it from a how did this happen and what happened?
Jill: Kind of that middle man
Michael: Correct
Jill: that provides all of the details needed so that the prosecution end, if needed
Michael: Correct
Jill: can then take that and run with it.
Michael: Right. But prosecution works with not only the medical legal death investigator, but they're working with police Police because now they have to identify the suspect or who's responsible.
Jill: Gotcha.
Michael: and then the, forensic pathologist, the medical professional they will tell you, "Yes, this is a gunshot wound, left to right, up to down. It's close, it's contact, it's distant," or, you know, "Yes, this is an incised wound," which is a wound that's caused from a sharp force injury versus a laceration by a sharp- by a blunt force trauma. And so all of these things, I like to refer to them, are pieces to a puzzle. We drop the pieces in and when we get done, we have a picture.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: And that should tell us what happened.
Jill: Yeah. Impressive. I don't think people really realize how much goes behind the scenes. We're all seeing NCIS
Michael: Right
Jill: and all of those and you get in 40 minutes,
Michael: You bet
Jill: everything solved from start to finish, but really there are so many levels and so many different variants that you really need to take into consideration, and a lot of individuals who have to have hands-on with this one particular case.
Michael: Correct. And sometimes people think they're competing. They're not competing interests, they're hand in glove, but they have different roles to play
Jill: Yeah
Michael: so that they come out so that ultimately we come with a total answer.
Jill: Right.
Michael: CSI: Vegas, of course, opened this up to the world and opened us up to the world
Jill: Right
Michael: in reference to what was going on. I always used to say we don't solve crime in 60 minutes with nine commercials.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: and different than a lot of things we do, when we walk in the door, we turn on the lights.
I don't know if you remember
Jill: They're always in the dark
Michael: CSI did everything in the dark with a flashlight.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: We figured there's a little switch on the wall. If you flip it you'd be surprised what happens.
Jill: I love it. Somebody needs to let them know that, right?
Michael: Yeah. it's not as dramatic.
Jill: So on the, the consultant side
Michael: Yep
Jill: You've got a lot of years of actual, whether you were a police chief or a coroner or a lobbyist, all of that plays into all these levels, all those years, like you said, building blocks on
Michael: Correct
Jill: What's happening next. And so that has led you to such a robust knowledge that plays right into what the public administrator's position would be. So that you understand, you've worked with the families.
Michael: Correct.
Jill: You've worked with the person who's passed.
Michael: The decisions, that's right.
Jill: And then you've also, now you're working on the government side, and so it's interesting that it's coming full circle.
Michael: Yeah, I think so, and I believe it's, I'm at the right place at the right time. I have a good understanding of Clark County government and how things work, so I don't have to go in and figure it out. One of the things that came up in a talk recently is somebody said, you're not an attorney. Isn't this a legal thing?"
First of all, there are attorneys that do this process, but I want you to know I wasn't a medical doctor when I ran the coroner's office.
Jill: Right.
Michael: It's not about... I don't have to be the attorney. I have to have management experience. So I have a master's in public administration, I have a doctorate in public administration or in business administration, I should say.
And I would tell you that my doctoral project was to determine if there were a need for, standards in coroner medical examiners' offices internationally.
Jill: Oh.
Michael: And then I wrote those standards that are now being used today, and I'm one of the auditors. So I, rather than stay in criminal justice, I specifically went into business because at the end of the day, everything we do is a business.
If you're gonna run the coroner's office, you have to run it like it's a business.
Now, you wanna be compassionate, you wanna be good to the constituents, you wanna make sure that, you're good with families who really are your clients. but when you go to the public administrator's office, same thing.
You're still running a business. You have to make decisions, you have to put processes in place, you have to write policies and procedures. When I went to the, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, I was sent there or was asked to go there specifically to codify or to write the policies and procedures for their cold case review
Jill: Oh
Michael: for long-term missing kids. And so that was one of the projects that I did. So I'm very familiar with the processes and procedures and how to get that done, and I know how to work within that governmental system 'cause I've been there. The other thing that people don't realize is that in many instances, the coroner, and during, from 2008 forward, I was asked, when I was asked, the Coroner's Office started taking over the field response for the Public Administrator's Office in the middle of the night to lock out houses, to seal them when there was no legal next of kin
Jill: Oh
Michael: because the Public Administrator's Office didn't have enough investigators, and they were in budget cuts. So I've already been the deputy public administrator during that period of time while I was coroner. And then when I went back during the Tellus incident
Jill: Yes
Michael: I finally am mentioned the guy's name.
Jill: Sorry.
Michael: During the... I'm sorry. So during that incident, I, I spent a year then helping run the office.
Jill: And already knew what this was
Michael: Yeah, so I know the ins and outs.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: This is not one of those I gotta get in the door and figure it out. If I get the privilege of being elected, the day after the election, I'll go to the office and start working with Rita on the transition plan.
And I'll have a first 100 days of what I wanna get done, and we're gonna run and gun. I don't have the time to go slow.
Jill: Right. No, no, no, and have to learn the process.
Michael: I wanna get after it.
Jill: And the cases that are there, they deserve that type of action, right?
Michael: Yes, they do. and unfortunately, they're way behind, and it's for a variety of reasons.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: But they need to get... and, you know, that creates frustration for families. again, you gotta and this should be a private public partnership. the office should be in partnership with a lot of private industry. I don't believe the office should be in competition with private industry.
Jill: No, I agree.
Michael: If, we had a, a city councilman when I was at City of Las Vegas that was really big on shopping carts and graffiti. I'm a believer in both of those. You get... It's like the broken window. You wanna get the shopping carts
Jill: That's right
Michael: off the street, and you wanna get the graffiti.
But a company, a, there was a company that opened, a couple of them in town, that opened and started be- They were cart wranglers, and they
Jill: Yeah
Michael: started grabbing the carts
Jill: Yes
Michael: and then selling them back, or getting a fee for bringing them back to the
Jill: Right
Michael: to the... and they still wanted the city employees to do it.
And I went Now that there's a private industry doing that, why would you ever want to do have government do something else?
You don't want government in competition
Jill: No
Michael: with private industry.
Jill: Absolutely, 100,000 times
Michael: Yeah, agree with you. So anyways, that's
Jill: Okay, so
Michael: That's my shtick.
Jill: I love it. So that gives us a lot of insight.
So now I want to know a little bit more about Mike.
Michael: Okay.
Jill: Okay. So have you had an aha moment in all of this, something that just opened your eyes, changed your thought process, something that, it's just an aha moment?
Michael: You, I've had hundreds of them, to be honest with you. I don't... I think if you don't have a lot, you're not listening, right?
Jill: Okay.
Michael: One of them that I've learned, recently, was the concept of we need to listen to understand, not to respond.
I had that aha moment with my wife, and that was, in law enforcement, we train our people to respond, not to understand. They go out on a domestic disturbance. We have trained a lot of large groups of people how to you know, how to respond to that.
And they really don't care if you're fighting over money or you're fighting over somebody's having an affair,
Jill: Right
Michael: whatever it is. It's you're fighting, here's what our response is. They're not listening to understand. They're listening to respond. That works fine in those instances.
Jill: And that's how they're trained to do their job.
Michael: That's how they're trained. And they're not doing anything wrong. No, and the training's not wrong. But when I'm dealing with you as an individual, whether you're a family member or a friend or a constituent if I'm listening only to respond, I'm not understanding from your viewpoint. So that's one of my ahas.
Another one that was really important was a number of years ago, I was teaching in Russia. I was there for a month and a half, or right at a month, with, the FBI. I'm a graduate of the FBI National Academy, and they'd put a cadre of instructors together, and we were teaching community policing and that kind of thing.
And I saw this lieutenant at breakfast, we were down in Sochi, long before the Olympics were there, and he was trying to get his eight-year-old son to eat a piece of sausage at breakfast. And this kid was not having it. I mean, was not having it. And this is a lieutenant, and he's very proud of his rank and his ability to command and do the things that he was doing, and you could tell he was monstrously frustrated that he was at odds with this eight-year-old. And he didn't do anything inappropriate, but you could see the frustration on him, and you could see that he's, looking around to see if anybody else sees what's going on.
And at that moment, and it was one of my first overseas trips, and at that moment I realized all of us, no matter where we live in the world, this was after the fall of communism. We're much more alike than we are different.
And that we need to embrace the things that we're the same and understand the things that are different.
Jill: Right.
Michael: And we will have a better society, a better life, If... Just pause a minute and
Jill: Yeah
Michael: listen from a different perspective.
And I realized that guy's just trying to feed his family.
He's just trying to do, you know get the kid his breakfast so he can go to the class. and so after that, I ended up in several of the Russian Bloc countries. I've been to, Africa about 14 times. Uganda and Tanzania. I've had some of those same experiences. I've been to almost every continent except the Antarctics.
And I'm gonna tell you that, I have come to the conclusion that we're all much more alike than we are different.
Jill: I love that. you knew my parents.
Michael: Yes.
Jill: And they were very much aware of the, the idea that we needed to see the world.
Michael: Yep.
Jill: So my brother and I were sent all over, all over the world, and had got to tour when we were very young.
And it really did changed our mindset
Michael: Yep
Jill: to realize, number one, you are just one very small piece of sand in this big beach of a world, and that, there are other cultures, and those cultures are not just what the news tells you
Michael: Correct
Jill: or what on television. And as you interact with them, you realize the same thing.
Michael: Sure.
Jill: That they are people. They have the same feelings, the same concerns, the same worries, the same joy. And so I absolutely agree with that. And I really, I hope that more people get to experience that, that we don't get so, that the world isn't so dangerous that we're too afraid to travel.
Michael: I agree.
Jill: I really think there's a lot that we can experience and learn.
Michael: I was gonna say, my last trip was Dubai. I went on a dive trip
Jill: Oh
Michael: with my oldest son when he got his master's as a little gift. I would tell you that for me, as I look internationally, and I've traveled, and I want you to know there's no place like home.
I'm originally from Kansas City, so I can say there's no... I'd click your heels and go home.
Everybody wants to come here. Everywhere I go, they always say, "Will you sponsor me? Can I get here?" I'm not saying, I don't ever wanna say I haven't enjoyed all my experiences in all these different countries, but I'm also gonna tell you there's nothing more satisfying, two things for me.
One is either getting to come home and coming back on American soil and going, "I'm home." I'm only American by the luck of birth.
Jill: That's right.
Michael: And so I want you to know I'm very grateful that, for that. It's one of the things I'm grateful for every single day. the other thing is, I've had the opportunity multiple times, 'cause I've been, I've worked through the embassies, and to be on embassy soil on a variety of countries, some more dangerous than others, and, those young Marines and those folks that are taking care of that, when you step across that line, you are now protected.
Jill: Yes.
Michael: And you don't realize how different it is when you're not and when you are.
And all of a sudden, now you're on sovereign soil, so to speak, and, the sacrifice that our military folks make, I think we need to remember that.
In our family, we try to wear red shirts on Fridays. We remember everyone deployed. I know a variety of people do that. I know down at the marina, the Griffon Tugs do that.
Jill: Oh, they do?
Michael: Yeah, they do. And, and kinda my crew, if you wanna call it that, our guys, we try to do that every Friday if we can.
And I appreciate our military. I was very fortunate to get, some endorsements by veterans in politics and some others. Not being a veteran, because I left high school. When I say I left high school, I graduated 17, turned 18 in November, and I was on a PD by February, and so I went straight into police work.
So that's probably out of all the things I've ever done, one of my regrets is that I never
Jill: Oh
Michael: I was never in the military because I went right into law enforcement.
Jill: Well I'm grateful for your service. whether it's in the military or on our streets, we're grateful for that. So you just mentioned a little bit about Lake Mead Marina
Michael: Yep
Jill: And Griffon Tugs, and so you've got a houseboat out there. We do. So you're here in Boulder a lot.
Michael: Yep.
Jill: So that has reminded you that Boulder City is the best place to live, and so you're coming home.
Michael: We are.
Jill: Yay.
Michael: I'm coming home. We've, purchased a home. We're, excited. It's down by Veterans Cemetery, which happens to be where my mom and dad are buried.
Jill: Yes, that's right.
Michael: And, it's a special place. I started my Nevada law enforcement career here in Boulder City. Started out as a patrol officer, became the first juvenile officer, was ultimately a captain, which was equivalent of deputy chief back then. Did all the, one of my jobs was special events.
One of the things I've talked with my wife about is I've said, you do understand that they have a special event a month minimum, and sometimes it's one a week?"
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: I said, "There's so much going on all the time." she's
Jill: I need to meet her.
Michael: I, she's wonderful. Yeah. 'Cause I
Jill: might need a volunteer.
Michael: Well, I want you to know she'd love to do it. she, excuse me, she at one point was, one of the executive assistants to Jan Jones.
Jill: Oh, wow.
Michael: Back, she's with City of Las Vegas.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: I would tell you that, Boulder City is so unique. My 10 years here was wonderful. I only left because of a job opportunity to go to Mesquite.
I loved my time in Mesquite. I've never been anywhere I've been unhappy. That's great. If I was unhappy, I wouldn't stay.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: But I've talked about for years, we've had the houseboat now for a number of years down at the lake, and we've talked about coming to Boulder City or moving back. The ... I've said moving back to Boulder City it would be her move. And we've just decided now's the time and we wanna make that happen. And so we found a place. We're very excited, and we're coming. We, I am coming home.
Jill: I love that. And I
Michael: do consider this home.
Jill: I thank you very much for that, and I can't wait to get to meet her and have her feel just right at home.
Michael: Thank you.
Jill: Will you tell me what your first job was? How did you how did you start out in the work career?
Michael: That's great. My first job was working in a grocery store.
Jill: Really?
Michael: Yeah. I was a sacker. Okay. Back in the day when they had sackers. I was a sacker, and I That, within a couple of months, they pushed me into produce.
And, the gentleman, the guys that I worked for, it was two brothers. It was a mom and pop kind of grocery store, and they were when I say they were hard on employees, they expected a lot from their employees.
Jill: Okay.
And it really established some of my young work ethic.
Jill: I love that.
Michael: I was coming out of a refrigerator unit
Jill: Okay
Michael: One of those walk-in refrigerators, with a stack of lettuce on a dolly.
Jill: Okay.
Michael: on a truck, two-hand truck, as they call it, or a hand truck. And, I was going backwards out of the
Had loaded it, was going backwards, 'cause they're easier to drive backwards when you first start driving them.
And, the owner was behind me and I didn't know it, and he let me bump into him, and he stopped me, and he said, "What are you doing, son?" And I went, "Well, I'm gonna take this lettuce out," and you trim it and you put it out for, And he goes, "Why are you going backwards?" And I said, "Well, I'm trying to get the, you know, it's crowded back here." And he said, "You don't need to, you don't need to be looking where you been. You need to be looking where you're going."
Jill:Oh.
Michael: And that was, again, one of those kind of aha moments where you go, "Oh."
And at the time, I'm not sure I fully absorbed it. Later I did.
If I could tell you one more. I flunked high school biology.
Jill: Oh, wow.
Michael: Oh, yeah, miserably. And I want you to know my whole class flunked. It was that bad, and it wasn't the teacher. And, but we had this wonderful, very heavy accented German teacher, and he loved biology. And we were terrible students, and he would say this all the time.
He would say, "Look at this slide. Look at this. Look at the wonder of the universe, and look at the wonder of nature." And he would say, "Do you have eyes that see?" And we were- terrible. and we would go, "No, we don't have eyes to see. We're blind. what does that mean? Of course we have eyes to see."
That's not what he meant.
Jill: No.
Michael: And it took me years to figure out, to understand, I should say, as I matured, I started to learn. it took me a while to recognize what he was really saying to me is, "Do you see? Do you understand what you're seeing?" "Do you have eyes that see? Do you have ears that hear?"
Not just hear, but listen, right?
Jill: And look a little deeper.
Michael: Correct.
Jill: See a little bit more. Correct. Listen a little bit better. Yeah, I can imagine that probably passed right over your heads as kids, but that was profound.
Michael: Oh, it was very profound.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: And how terrible of us to be the way we were. And I went back years later to apologize, and unfortunately he had passed away. No. So one of the things I try to do as I go through life, I try to impart these little... I call them little sayings, right? and these little things. And I use them still to this day. Bob Lowery, who was the police chief when I was captain here, and Howard Tindall, if you remember them.
Jill: Totally.
Michael: So I, and I ended up speaking at Bob's funeral.
Jill: Yes.
Michael: I was, pallbearer at his wife's. I unfortunately buried one of his sons. but Bob and I became great friends, and he had all these little sayings and little things, and I still to this day will use those. And I've had some wonderful mentors, and you need to remember where you came from
Jill: Right
Michael: and remember these things, 'cause they are priceless.
Jill: Oh, absolutely agree. So what's something maybe people don't know about you?
Michael: I played drums for years. I was in drama in school. and I played when it was the... I played drums in a band four nights a week at the Gold Strike.
Jill: I never knew that.
I had no idea.
Michael: Yeah, we had a... It was the standard. They call it a bar band, you know
Jill: Yeah
Michael: Where you played like the country
Jill: Yeah
Michael: rock kind of thing. and it Chris Long, who worked for the city
Jill: Yeah
Michael: was the bass player.
Jill: I had
Michael: He played for two... He played for Junkyard Dogs also, which was, here in town.
Jill: Really?
Michael: Yep. And, Robin Lowry, which was Bob Lowry's
Jill: Bob's son,
yeah
Michael: One of his older sons, he played, lead guitar. And then we had a fiddle player. and, it was electric fiddle. And anyways, and the bottom line is we did that. We ended up playing down on Water Street at a couple places.
Jill: I had no idea.
Michael: We played at a place called the Windy Bar in North Las Vegas, right across from Wimpy's Hamburger. And so at one point, we played at the Fremont Hotel.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: And so yeah, it's probably something that people don't know. So I'm a full-time cop, and I'm playing gigs on the weekend.
Jill: Well, I'm sure they appreciated knowing that the bar was safe.
Michael: Yeah. And I did the Holiday Inn and Ramada Inn club circuit in the Midwest when I was in high school.
Jill: Oh, my gosh.
Michael: Yeah.
Jill: You actually have some talent that I
Michael: I gotta tell you knew about ... about 10 years, but I've done a lot of...
I am unfortunately, I'm the jack of... What did you call it? Jack of all trades Jack of all trades and a master of none and a master of none. I guess is what I am,
Jill: That's awesome. Okay, so what book are you reading right now?
Michael: So I just finished, Ryan Gosman's book. and it's called, Leadership and the Royal Coachman.
Jill: I've never heard of that one.
Michael: It's kind of an obscure when I say obscure, Ryan is a, medical legal death investigator.
Jill: Oh.
Michael: But he also at one point was, an executive for Fortune 500. He's a fly fisherman and used to, and would do fly fishing tours in Washington State. Ryan is, so he wrote the book during the pandemic.
He asked me to critique it. I read it, and I'm rereading it right now. And it really touched all of the management principles that I believe in. And now what he did that's unique, that I'm not gonna say puts me off, but it's not my world, is each chapter is named after a, a fly tie.
Like for fly fishing.
Jill: Okay
Michael: And so that's where it comes The Royal Coachman is the, is that concept. So but he wrote this really solid book on management and leadership. There's a million of them out there, and almost all of them talk about some very basic principles. Making good, making decisions.
You know, whether you like Elon Musk or don't, I would tell you that what I think you have to respect about him is he always fails forward.
Jill: That's right.
Michael: He can blow up a rocket and go, "Ah, we'll do another one tomorrow." When he rolled out the truck, I'm not a fan of the truck, to be honest with you, although I think it's got some really cool things.
I'm not really the... Anyway, but, and it's got amazing features. Having said that, when he rolled it out initially, I don't know if you remember, he had this steel ball and he threw it through the window and it was supposed to not break.
Jill: I remember this.
Michael: And it broke, and then the second... And he went, "Ah, we'll fix that in production," and he went right on.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: Other people would a lot... I don't know what he does behind the scenes, but at least publicly, he's like, "Hey, mistakes happen." And I want you to think about the concept that everything we do, every invention we have, started with a failure.
Jill: That's exactly right.
Michael: And so why do we not understand that failure is this first step towards success?
Jill: That's right.
Michael: And so that, that's... And so Ryan's book is like that. Another one that I've gotten to where I give to every young person that's transitioning in that middle school into high school time.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: Or, and if I happen to catch them late and they're going into college, I give it to them now, and it's called Make Your Bed.
Jill: Yeah, I've never heard of that one either.
Michael: And I want you to know, yeah, that one is, written by a, the individual that ultimate he was the oldest individual to ever go through Navy SEAL training.
Jill: Really?
Michael: He ended up being the commander of the Navy SEALs. This was a graduation talk that he now expanded into a book.
And it talks about that you make your bed, it's the, it sets the tone for the day. Tone for the day. And that is the first success you get, and that might be the only one you get.
Jill: Oh, I love that.
Michael: So your first accomplishment's to make your bed. And so I have to tell you, like I said, I'm traveling about 200 days a year.
I make my bed in my hotel room. And I've had people go, "You do what?" I get up, I make my bed. There's a number of reasons. You don't get back in it when it's made.
Jill: That's right.
Michael: The second thing is it's done, and when I come back from the end of the day, it's there waiting for me, ready for me to turn it down and have and have a good night's sleep. So this concept of it sets the tone for the rest of your day is real.
Jill: I love that.
Michael: Yeah.
Jill: I absolutely love that.
Michael: So that's, that's, well, I know you asked about what I was currently reading, but that's one of my favorites.
Jill: I love that. I'm gonna go back and find that one for sure.
So I know that you have so much respect for your mom and dad. I do. And they made such a great individual. So what's something that you learned from them that you still use in your life today?
Michael: Sure. I would tell you that, my mom died in 2015. Dad died here in, when he was here in Boulder City. They were high school sweethearts. He left high school to go to World War II in the Pacific Theater. You notice I'm getting emotional.
Jill: Yes.
Michael: My parents- I'm a mama's boy. Be the first one to tell you that. Thank you for that. My parents, taught me a lot of things. Some of them I listened to early and some of them I didn't.
Some of them I needed to hear multiple times. But I will tell you, at the end of the day, I was raised by goodly parents who taught me to have good faith.
They taught me to, be a good person. They taught me to be a rule follower. And I would tell you that of all the things that I am good or that I've done well in my life, has been as a result of following those principles and those teachings. And in the times that I've made some mistakes, and I've made some doozies. and one of the other things they've always taught me is admit your mistakes no matter who you are.
Jill: Yeah.
Michael: So as a police chief, as a captain, as a whatever, when I made a mistake, I said, "Hey, I made a mistake."
And I've had people go, "I've never had a commander admit mistakes." And I go, you've met one now and you better get used to it." Because if, how can you expect others to admit it if you won't?
Jill: That's right.
Michael: So what they taught me was that of all the things good, that's how I became a good person. Of anything that I've done wrong, and I've done some and I've wronged people in some instances, it's because I went against those teachings.
I did something that was more of convenience or personal interest, not necessarily what was the right thing to do. I've tried to minimize those especially the older I get, but I've done them. And so I want you to know, I think one of the things you have to do is ask for that forgiveness and at the same time forgive yourself. but I think the other thing that you have to remember is remember where you came from.
Jill: Oh, yeah.
Michael: And remember the good and that's what they taught me. They taught me that good and that work ethic.
Jill: And that will roll over into making you an amazing public administrator.
Michael: I certainly hope so.
Jill: So I do too. I thank you so much for your time today, for sharing. It's been so much fun catching up with you, learning a little bit more about the ins and outs of what the public administrator actually does.
Michael: I appreciate that.
Jill: As you know, I'm good friends with Rita and have loved her for a long time. So knowing that is a tough job, that she's put a lot of dedication to it and her
Michael: A lot of years and hours
Jill: endorsing you that's such a great thing and, welcome home.
Michael: Thank you very much and I want you to know I cherish that endorsement greatly.
Jill: I bet.
Michael: And I want you to know I appreciate your words.
Jill: Oh, thank you
Michael: that means a lot to me. for me sitting here with you today is kind of a full circle moment.
Jill: It has been, right?
Michael: I don't know if you feel like that.
Jill: Yeah, yeah.
Michael: But yeah, it's a full circle moment.
Jill: It's awesome. So thank you so much
Michael: Thank you
Jill: And, I can't wait to say congratulations.
Michael: Appreciate it.
