Lobbyist knows local government from the inside

Sam Morris

Terry Murphy served for a year as head of a key department of Clark County.

Monday, Nov. 23, 2009 | 2 a.m.

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For more than a decade Terry Murphy has been one of the Las Vegas Valley’s go-to people whenever businesses or organizations need someone to deal with local governments for them.

She started her consulting company, Strategic Solutions, in 1997, after spending five years working her way up to the director position in Clark County’s Department of Administrative Services, then spending a year in charge of that department.

That stint as a county employee allowed her to get the inside view of how things get done in Southern Nevada, but her outside view began almost two decades earlier.

She arrived in Nevada from Brooklyn in 1979. The desert was the new home of her pipe fitter father and housewife mother. Murphy, then 19, intended to stay only a few months.

“When I got here, it was only 400,000 people and I thought, ‘This is one godforsaken desert.’ ”

But she wound up enrolling at UNLV and earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sociology.

And she began making the connections that would prove so valuable in a city where knowing the right people is the best currency.

While earning her bachelor’s degree, she tutored the UNLV basketball team that made it to the 1987 NCAA tournament Final Four under coach Jerry Tarkanian.

In 1989 she worked for the Southern Nevada Homebuilders Association, supported by the developers who transformed the city from a burg to a megalopolis, when a little-known creature would start to dominate development concerns: the desert tortoise.

“It was just about to be listed (as a threatened species) and nobody knew it was going to be a problem,” Murphy said. “They told me to look into it, and I suddenly found myself in the middle of a very large issue critical to the economy and to the state.”

She became the epicenter of negotiations between business, government and environmentalists — names she still keeps in her Rolodex.

The culmination of all her contacts, access and experience is a client list that now includes such heavyweights as Wynn Resorts and Station Casinos.

Behind the scenes she lobbies county commissioners or city council members on behalf of those clients. Most of the valley’s people in power have known Murphy for decades and consider her a straight-shooter.

But that doesn’t mean Murphy has been immune to the historic economic downturn. She had to lower her rates.

“It’s just the way of the world right now,” she said. “You either adapt or you leave. And I’m not leaving.”

Discussion: 8 comments so far…

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By okra

Nov. 23, 2009

6:53 a.m.

Suggest removal

Thank you, Ms. Murphy!
Without your "behind the scenes" help, home builders might not have been able to use tens of thousands of illegal immigrants to build houses here. Without your help, developers might not have been able to transform this "godforsaken" wasteland into the strip mall and stucco-box paradise that it is today.
Well done, I say!
By dodgerchuck

Nov. 23, 2009

7:48 a.m.

Suggest removal

arent they supposed to cool off for a year before they can began lobbying the people they used to work with in their former capacity
By afveteran

Nov. 23, 2009

8:02 a.m.

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This article shows us that lobbyists are influential in transforming societies and industries, to either a good side or a bad side, take your pick.
By wwunlv

Nov. 23, 2009

10:03 a.m.

Suggest removal

Terry is great. She is a huge benefit to UNLV, and we owe her a debt of gratitude for her service. Also, it is my understanding that she is one of the more respected lobbyists.
By okra

Nov. 23, 2009

11:09 a.m.

Suggest removal

Exacly what this town needs--respectable insiders willing to go behind the scenes for the big developers and casinos.
By Burrittobandit2

Nov. 23, 2009

11:59 p.m.

Suggest removal

I'd let her buy me a beer!!
By wizardofOz

Nov. 26, 2009

7:02 p.m.

Suggest removal

After all the real eatate brokers scams, mortgage brokers scams, developers scams, construction and builder scams, FBI arrests, and fugitive politicos fleeing like greased lightning,

this nice lady

won't know anybody, 'cuz they'll either be in jail, on the run, out of office, or out of the country.

(Excuse me Miss, but anyone you may have "helped" come to mind...?)