Longtime business, civic leader headed family enterprises

Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2005 | 7:54 a.m.

Jim Cashman was one of the few Las Vegas High School students who could really frustrate Principal Maude Frazier, a venerable and feared taskmistress.

So much so, she gladly gave Cashman his diploma in December 1943 -- six months before his scheduled graduation -- and wished him well as he got out of her hair by immediately joining the Army Air Corps and heading off to war.

"Let's just say that Dad liked to have his fun," Tim Cashman said of his father's mischievous youth. "His father, 'Big Jim' Cashman, was quite a large force in his life so Dad grew up quickly. Early graduation from high school signaled Dad's early independence."

James Cashman Jr., a longtime local business and civic leader who was chairman of the family-owned Cashman Enterprises and president of Cashman Equipment Co., died Tuesday at his Las Vegas home following a brief illness. He was 79.

Services for the native Las Vegan are pending.

"My father would want to be remembered for being a leader of Southern Nevada at a time when Las Vegas was growing and facing a number of challenges," said Tim Cashman, who today runs the family business. "He made Las Vegas a better place for his children and for many others in this community."

The Cashmans are a significant pioneer family of Southern Nevada. "Big Jim" Cashman Sr. founded his first business in Searchlight in 1905 and moved what would become a multimillion-dollar Cadillac business to Las Vegas in 1921.

Jim Jr. carried on that business tradition, serving as two-term president of the Greater Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and being named a Distinguished Nevadan by the University of Nevada Board of Regents in 1972.

Born Feb. 19, 1926, Cashman served as a gunnery instructor in the Army Air Corps during World War II. In 1945 he married the former Mary Carmichael, a 1943 Las Vegas High graduate, who survives him.

After the war Cashman went to work for his father's business, starting at the bottom as a mechanic and driving the tow truck at nights. In 1948 Cashman joined the Las Vegas chapter of the Junior Chamber of Commerce and went on to serve as state president and national vice president.

Cashman was named the Las Vegas Junior Chamber's Outstanding Young Man of 1955. In 1969 he was named chairman of the United Fund Drive. In 1974 Cashman became president of the United Way of Clark County.

Cashman helped lead the effort in the 1970s to get the land to expand UNLV, he was a member of the Governor's Higher Education Advisory Committee and was on the boards for the First National Bank of Nevada and Frontier Fidelity Savings and Loan Association.

Cashman was a member of the Nevada Planning Board/Public Works Board from 1963 to 1978, serving as chairman for eight of those years.

He received the Time Magazine Quality Dealer Award for 1972 and was a member of the Nevada Franchised Auto Dealers Association. Cashman also was co-chairman for numerous Helldorado Days parades and sponsored local golf tournaments.

Cashman turned the heavy equipment business over to his son James Cashman III in 1979 and the Cadillac company over to son Tim in 1993 and retired.

The family sold the Cadillac dealership in 2000.

In 1995 James III, an accomplished distance runner, collapsed and died at age 45 while training for a marathon. The incident, Tim said, "took a significant toll on Dad. He said it felt so wrong to live longer than your child."

In addition to his wife and son, Cashman is survived by two daughters, Rhonda Evans and Leah Benjamin; two daughters-in-law, Mary Kaye Cashman and Denise Cashman; and a son-in-law, Michael Benjamin, all of Las Vegas; nine grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Ed Koch can be reached at 259-4090 or at koch@lasvegassun.com.