Gordon Ramsey comes to the rescue of failing restaurants. Jon Taffer saves bars on their last legs.
And Drew Skeen works to salvage casinos.
Skeen has been asked to save casinos where money was scarce. Casinos where the IRS and vendors loomed. Casinos where it was hard to find employees who wanted to work.
He’s now in South Dakota, working on a property deeply in debt. But the line running through all of Skeen’s work remains the same.
“When you look back at it, they needed to make money,” Skeen told CDC Gaming. “But number two, you’re protecting jobs in small communities.”
“You go in and you train people that are trainable, that are motivated, that were skilled enough to find a job somewhere else, off a sinking ship,” Skeen adds. “Technically, you go through and you’re helping people keep jobs, and you’re helping the casino to stay open, obviously, but that creates jobs. I look at it more as a people business, a little more so than just a casino where you’re making some wealthy guy that owns it rich.”
Skeen has worked with casinos in Nevada, Wisconsin and Arizona in addition to his current posting at Rosebud Casino on the South Dakota/Nebraska border.
“Drew is a calming force in casino workplaces that are typically a scramble,” says John Wholihan, a longtime casino executive who has worked with Skeen during stops including at the Rosebud Casino. “Specifically, I have visited Drew as a friend to check out some of his (former) workplaces like Sturgeon and Ely (both in Nevada) and to see the challenges he was facing.”
Skeen started as a freelance consultant in the casino industry in 2006. His first job was at the Flamingo Laughlin in Nevada, which he helped transform into the Aquarius Casino Resort. He’s worked in Hawthorne, Nevada; Winnebago, Minnesota; and other specks on the map in Arizona and New Mexico, where gambling is almost an afterthought.
He saved them all.
One of Skeen’s proudest accomplishments came working with Sturgeon’s, owned by Vic Salerno, a member of the Sports Gambling Hall of Fame and the man often credited with computerizing sportsbooks.
“They owned a little property in Lovelock, Nevada, a town of 2,000 people,” Skeen says. “That little casino – they already had the plywood in the parking lot, ready to board it up when I walked in to see if I could save it. And I saved it.”
Salerno says the place would have been shut down if not for Skeen’s efforts.
“He has a wife and a family, and he would drive up (to Lovelock) on his own,” Salerno says. “If he needed equipment from the kitchen or whatever, he would find it down here (Las Vegas) and drive it up there on his own.”
Salerno says Skeen’s accomplishments included getting the casino’s kitchen up to code, refurbishing rooms, and boosting employee morale.
“He just was a self-starter, and you didn’t have to tell him what to do,” Salerno says. “He knew what to do. He took care of it like it was his own. I mean, just one of the best employees. He’s got a great family. I just wish I had a couple more like him, to tell you the truth. Never disappointed me.”
Skeen admits he’s not as outrageous as Ramsay or Taffer, although he was approached about doing a television show similar to Kitchen Nightmares or Bar Rescue until COVID struck and those plans were shelved.
Instead, he prefers to go about his business quietly, his satisfaction stemming from a job well done.
“I’m not that flamboyant, but that’s what you’re doing,” Skeen says. “You’re having to go in and break down every department and rebuild.”
