CEO Special: Laura Penney – Life is a rollercoaster
Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort CEO Laura Penney walks Gaming America through her journey of over 30 years at the Tribal property, always striving and persevering to become CEO – even after several setbacks.
Coming up on hole 17 of the Circling Raven Golf Club in northern Idaho, visitors will take notice of two nesting eagles that go by the names of Gracie and George, long-term residents of the property. In some ways, the multi-year lease Gracie and George have managed to secure symbolizes the values and traditions the resort strives to emulate, even after three decades have passed since its inception.
Behind the operations of Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort is CEO Laura Penney, an enrolled Tribal member who grew up having these lessons instilled in her at an early age. Penney began her life as any Coeur d’Alene member would, picking huckleberries with her mother and grandmother, attending powwows and learning the ways in which her Tribe was unique in its own standing.
While this life would be described as off-the-grid by many, Penney never took notice of her situation, having only been taught to treasure the same values that are passed down to current generations today. Penney’s story goes through a journey of perseverance, balancing her goals with the responsibilities of also being a mother and using the lessons firmly ingrained within her to help navigate challenges such as being the first casino resort to open during Covid-19. Three failed attempts at earning the CEO title did nothing to deter her goals of improving her community just as she had when she originally joined the property 31 years prior, being among the first to help bring gaming to the area.
From her property starting as a bingo hall to becoming a full-fledged destination offering, Penney has been a constant throughout Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort’s history and is already planning towards ensuring its success long after she is gone. Moving between positions in marketing, tourism and public relations, no one is better equipped to oversee the resort’s ongoing attempts to remain true to the history of Coeur d’Alene people while, at the same time, driving success on a business level. She tells Gaming America: “My father always taught me that, if you take care of the Tribe, the Tribe will take care of you. It’s not just about you, it’s about our Tribe and carrying on what has been given to us as Coeur d’Alene people. It’s my responsibility to not only pass on our culture but provide for the Tribe now and for the next generations to come.”
Growing up Coeur d’Alene
Penney began her life attempting to understand what it meant to be a Coeur d’Alene Tribal member, mainly through the lessons her father and grandmother passed down to her. “He served on Tribal council for most of his life, most of my life. Having that value system instilled, working for the Tribe and looking towards the betterment for the next generations to come, that has always been part of me. It’s almost innate. My father always told me to go out and get your education, but to then come back and work for your Tribe.”
Throughout her upbringing, Penney said attempting to capture her father’s approval was one of the motivating forces that drove her. While it is still an achievement Penney continues to worry about even as the CEO of a resort with over 30 years of history behind it, she does believe it is on a “much healthier level” now. As her father prepared her for contributing to the Coeur d’Alene people as an adult, her grandmother was the source from where Penney learned what it meant to be part of the Tribe and its values.
She was taught how to speak the Coeur d’Alene language and honor the traditions that have been long withstanding throughout the reservation’s history. “I didn’t know that we were pretty much living off the grid and that we lived very organically in that we caught crawdads in the river to eat, we ate trout also. In the morning, we picked huckleberries and my grandmother loved her camas in the spring and fall, so we would go out and dig some canvas together.”
While some lessons went over her head as an adolescent, certain teachings still stick with Penney as she constantly looks back upon her upbringing since becoming CEO. “All the while growing up, your parents, your grandparents, they tell you things you may not even understand. But today, I heed their advice. I reference back to what my grandmother always told me, ‘Don’t take the bad too bad, or the good too good.’ I didn’t know what the heck she was talking about back then, but now, I use that every day.”
Penney also remembers how original frustration felt towards her father has now blossomed into the guidance she needed once her professional career began. “My father also told me growing up, ‘you can be guilty by association.’ I used to get so upset, believing he was just trying to deprive me of having fun or hanging out with my cool friends, but today I find myself using that exact phrase. “Life is a rollercoaster, business is certainly a rollercoaster, but you have to not overreact. As a leader, that’s so important. I’ve embraced those words and used what my father said every day now. Being able to sustain our livelihood has helped towards preparing me to work with the casino.”
Bingo beginnings
Over three decades ago, the Coeur d’Alene reservation was deciding whether the inclusion of a gaming offering would be beneficial to the future of the Tribe. As a small reservation of close to 800 members, a committee was put together to decide on the future of gaming for the Tribe, with Penney being included as one of the original decision makers.
“We had no concept of gaming whatsoever. Being on that committee and looking into it at the time, there were just bingo halls and charity bingo halls. We visited the Colville Tribe facility to learn about their operations, but then we heard about the Oneida Tribe in Green Bay, Wisconsin where there was a full-fledged casino resort. We visited their property as well and came back excited about the future opportunities.”
Alongside former CEO Dave Matheson, Penney helped bring a bingo hall to the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in March of 1993. The reservation was backed by seasonal workers, no more than 100 working at the bingo hall during this period. When the Tribe finally opened its doors in the midst of snowy conditions, the warmth of excited hopefuls immediately pouring into the 1,000-seat space quickly filled them with eagerness.
Matheson used his experience with the US Government, specifically the Department of the Interior, to secure a $2.9m loan needed to build the property, with a 15-year note included. Matheson, Penney and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe were able to pay back the loan in just three years. From there, business escalated to the point where they began adding gaming machines as well, building upon the success it had achieved in the short time since the bingo hall was first opened. Penney continued to gain experience within the gaming industry, Penney decided it was the right time for her to throw her hat in the mix to potentially become CEO after 12 years of working for the Tribe.
What more can I do?
While her first attempt at becoming CEO was self-described as “for the novelty of it,” Penney began to believe she could one day obtain the experience necessary to run the Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort. She moved into the communications department, as well as public relations and culture and tourism. As Culture and Tourism Director, Penney sought ways to integrate the history of her Tribe into an expanding resort while also staying true to its original identity.
“People like to hear stories and there is a story here to tell. As Coeur d’Alene Tribal people, we are unique in our culture and our name, so we try to share that information. People tend to associate Tribes with casinos, but I say we’re a Tribe with a casino, not the other way around. We’ve always tried to incorporate our culture into our decor and into our customer service models. This was taking it to another level, where we began educating and informing others as to who we are, what we’re doing and what we’re about.”
As she continued to gain knowledge within multiple sectors of the resort, Penney went for the CEO position a second time, seeing an opportunity to prove her investment in Coeur d’Alene would pay dividends if she were to assume an executive role. She was denied again, however, and was left wondering what more she could do to be seen as a future leader in the area from which she was raised.
“I spoke with the council members and just asked, ‘What do I have to do to be CEO?’ I thought I would be a fairly good CEO and had gained support from some fellow employees, so I got more serious about it. I have all this gaming experience, I’m a Tribal member, I’m vested, I’m engaged, but they said you need your MBA. “It was very difficult, but I had an intention, and it was what I had to do. Part of my plan was to complete my Master of Business Administration while working and raising my two daughters,” Penney explained. “I had to relearn and adjust my whole schedule. Everything was just focused on that degree. I had no social life, and it was a lot of work. It was hard work.”
On the car ride home returning from her first day at the University of Idaho, Penney called her sister crying, ready to move on from her goal and accept she would never become CEO. Like her older relatives, her sister provided the guidance necessary to keep Penney moving, not allowing herself to become intimidated by the task in front of her.
“If you let yourself become intimidated, you begin to open up the possibility of defeating your own motivation. I learned I had to take it one day at a time and stop looking at everything all at once. Do your work, keep chugging forward, that’s what my sister told me, and I was able to do that in the end. It was amazing, very difficult, but I wanted to exemplify to my daughters that if I can do it, they can do it.”
On her final day of class, Penney once again called her sister crying, but this time out of the happiness it felt to finally accomplish the goal that would lead her to become CEO. She had gotten her MBA, she was raised Coeur d’Alene and she had been working in the industry for over a decade. Nothing could stop her now on a third attempt to be hired for the role.
Except she didn’t get it. A third failed attempt despite all the value Penney knew she brought forward for the property. As most would, Penney became angry and distraught, asking herself what more there was to possibly do for her to become CEO. In what may have been a callback to the advice her father passed down to her throughout childhood, she tried to remember what her responsibilities as a Coeur d’Alene Tribal member were and the investment she had made up to that point.
Having told herself she had given too much to the Tribe and the Resort, Penney used the time after her third failed attempt to try and understand that perhaps it just wasn’t her moment yet. It didn’t mean she had to give up, it meant she had to keep chugging, because although she didn’t know it at the time, she would soon be looked towards to guide the property through its most difficult period to date.
New role, historic challenge
In October of 2019, in her fourth and final try, Penney became CEO of Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort. She had accomplished her dream, now in charge of the property she had helped build from a single bingo hall into the destination it stands as today. As the Winter months approached, Penney could now look to move forward with her plans of improving the resort and possibly even work on her golf game once the spring season came back around in 2020.
Then, the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort shut its doors for the first time in over 30 years of operation. As an original member of the committee that brought gaming to the reservation, Penney was forced to walk the empty floors of the property she had become CEO of less than six months prior. “It was eerie. I understand the full relevance as to why we’re in operation is to provide revenue and jobs, so to see an empty parking lot and an empty gaming floor was scary. Some other casinos actually turned off their machines and ran into many issues because of that. We did not turn our machines off thankfully, but we ran into other crazy issues.
“Our sewer plant wasn’t flowing which led to us getting creative, I think we put some rabbit food to feed the bugs and make sure it was being maintained. We had to decide as far as how many people to keep on staff. We still needed security, we still needed some surveillance, and it was just strange times overall having been there from the beginning.”The closing of her resort only fueled Penney with the determination to find a way to reopen its doors and welcome guests back as quickly, and safely, as possible. Taking a page out of the beginning of her career memoir, Penney and the Tribal council of Coeur d’Alene formed a task force committee meant to meet weekly, if not almost daily, to discuss how they would respond to the pandemic.
Eventually, it was decided that they would reopen to the public, as the data and analytics the task force had overseen showed mitigated risk as compared to other areas in the country, and Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort became the first property to open its doors while Covid-19 was ongoing. Penney remembers snow flying through the air, just as it had during the opening of the original bingo hall, as she welcomed guests back to her destination, still wearing protective masks but excited to return to some resemblance of normal life.
Although Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort had set a historical mark, it left the space, and the woman behind its operations, open to scrutiny. “People asked me, ‘did you make a point to be the first to open?’ We had to consider the scrutiny, as there was some concern that we were being greedy and not being very thorough, but that was not the case. It was a matter of how important it was that we provide for ourselves and allow others to work. We knew that all eyes were on us, so it was very stressful, but I had to provide strong, stable leadership during that time.”
Behind the results and examinations the task force had completed, as well as the number of highly progressive medical facilities and medical professionals Coeur d’Alene contains, Penney stood her ground and brought business back to her reservation. She even attempted to bring others with her, not wanting to see competition fall despite the advantages being the only operational casino resort in the country was displaying.
“Everyone said ‘go ahead, go ahead. You know we’re not ready. Our council is not ready. We’re concerned.’ We totally understood, but I really respect our Tribal leadership and the bravery they had to say, ‘we can do this.’ Having no competition was nice for a minute, we had record numbers, but we were also sure to tell marketing to make sure you get all their information because perhaps they had never heard of us. If they had a great experience, let’s keep them coming back. We’ve tried to hang on to those people who came in from different states, even from the Midwest, and a few of them are still coming here post-Covid thankfully.”
Opportunities for growth
As normalcy returned to the gaming and hospitality industry, the resort saw competition rise once again but plans for expansion could also be underway sooner rather than later. Penney spoke on flashy, new competitors, but also how she is responsible for ensuring her property is always keeping pace with those around it. “We are a mature property. I’m looking at adding another hotel wing, as well as freshening up some of our older wings and perhaps even building a new RV park. I would say I have a three-phase plan that I’ve yet to bring to our Tribal council for approval, but I hope to do that by the end of next month. We also have to maintain our freshness and look to bring in new groups of people as well.”
Penney stated she will look to combine the new amenities with the surrounding area where Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort resides. Described as a “great escape,” some are disillusioned into believing the resort is well off the beaten path; but really the property stands only 30 minutes away from its primary market, featuring rolling hills, tall pine trees and a creek that supports the natural wildlife surrounding Coeur d’Alene. While she does admit the location can hurt business at times, she still believes the getaway offers a “homespun family atmosphere” that will continue to entice guests for years to come.
The next generations
In regard to the future, Penney talked about how a former mentor left a lasting piece of advice with her that she currently works towards fulfilling each day. Having been told “when you leave, make sure you can say you did your best to leave it in a good place,” Penney is now looking to build a program that will assist Tribal members such as herself in becoming executives and obtain other high-level roles within the reservation. “I’m not going to be here forever. So, I think it’s important that we support and educate our young ones to fill these positions. We have some bright prospects here. There is a member who started out in marketing and now got his master’s degree. He is working in hospitality, becoming well rounded and while he’s still young, I think he could be great in my position one day.
“There’s also a lady who is currently working with our Gaming Director as well. When we were without a Gaming Director for over a year, she really stepped up. She’s put in the time, doing the analytics on the machines and gaining confidence. One day soon she’ll be our Gaming Director, and I think she’s just doing amazing. We have a lot of potential superstars in place who could be leading our future.”
One of the main reasons why the Tribe opened the facility in the first place, Penney stated, was to provide jobs, help seniors and children, and generate the funds needed to buy back land from within the reservation. She also explained how, as a CEO, she is of course expected to generate high revenues and stay innovative in how she grows the business but also maintain a good environment for her employees and customers.
Penney also feels the added responsibilities of being one of the very few females to hold a title such as hers in the gaming and hospitality industries, especially for Tribal properties. In dealing with this added pressure, though, she still looks at how much growth there has been as she continues to be joined by more and more women establishing their names in a male-dominated space.
“When I first started, there were hardly any lady Tribal CEOs. Thankfully, I’m seeing more now and I’m excited to see that grow as we have much to contribute. I think we have every right to be at that table. We have a voice, a mind and a heart to take things in a different way and manner at times. We’re very collaborative as well, not to say that men are not, but I think that there’s an opportunity for us to get out there and represent Tribal women in these industries.”
She also continues to fight the same issues her ancestors faced, such as maintaining the Coeur d’Alene land, providing clean water and protecting the Tribe’s identity and culture. Through the perseverance and tenacity Native Americans have shown throughout history, Penney believes her community can continue to maintain a strong balance between its businesses and protecting its people. While plenty of opportunities remain for Tribal gaming, the Coeur d’Alene CEO will always put her Tribe first, remaining true to what her father instilled upon her.
“It’s important to stay up on technology and the relationships between the states and the Tribes as those can be very turbulent and at times act as a barrier as to what we could do or should be doing. It’s important that we recognize what we can do within our capacity to benefit our Tribe in a credible manner, then set forth that path and strategy so we can turn around and educate our legislatures or Governor as well.
“There are plenty of great opportunities and we are proper in how we go about pursuing those. I think the future is bright. As Coeur d’Alene people, we’ve always been here, and we will always be here to build towards the future of our reservation.”Life is a rollercoaster, business is certainly a rollercoaster, but you have to not overreact. As a leader, that’s so important. If you let yourself become intimidated, you begin to open up the possibility of defeating your own motivation.
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