Longtime exec helped transform gaming industry

By Liz Benston

Friday, March 21, 2008 | 10:03 a.m.

John Gallaway, an Ivy League-educated hotel executive from New York City, seemed like an unlikely recruit to the casino industry in 1980. That's when he briefly ran Caesars Palace and Caesars Tahoe before joining Aztar Corp.'s Tropicana casinos and, later, Isle of Capri Casinos.

Gallaway, who died Wednesday at his Florida home at age 69, isn't a well-known name in Las Vegas. But insiders know him as one of a select group of businesspeople who helped legitimize an industry that was sloughing off its mob roots and would eventually become a global powerhouse. Gallaway is best known for his role at Biloxi-based Isle of Capri, where he served as president and chief operating officer from 1995 to 2003, when he retired from casino management.

The forerunner to casino giant Harrah's Entertainment, Isle of Capri was the first to capitalize on riverboat expansion in the 1990s, opening the nation's first riverboat casino and quickly morphing into one of the country's largest gaming companies. Gallaway promoted a business casual atmosphere and friendly attitude with customers, dubbed "Isle Style", at a time when Las Vegas casinos were intimidating to the general public. "When we first moved to Las Vegas, at some casinos the dealers weren't allowed to talk to the customers. It was a very cold environment," said Brett Gallaway, one of the former executive's three sons.

At Isle, "it was a polo shirt environment, even for executives," and all employees wore nametags, he said.

With his Columbia and Cornell credentials and 17 years with the Loews hotel chain, Gallaway introduced database marketing techniques and an outsider's view that casinos should be more friendly places.

"He was a big fan of Disney's customer service - there was a certain magic about how they treat their customers," said Brett Gallaway, a financial services executive in San Antonio. "We'd visit Disney World as kids and after a trip he'd say, 'Wow, they really have it figured out.'"