Jack Sheehan on the rise of glass ceiling-shatterer Cindy Kiser Murphey, head of New York-New York

By Jack Sheehan

Tuesday, May 13, 2008 | 2 a.m.

It’s tempting to slip into a fictional reverie and report that a huge twister swept through Kansas one day while she was sleeping, and lifted young Cindy Kiser from her bed and onto a Yellow Brick Road that led her all the way to a magical land of bright colors and amazing spectacles.

But that would be too easy. Instead, we’ll just point out some curious similarities between Dorothy Gale’s odyssey to a world of illusion in the land of Oz, aided by a lovable lion, and the actual trek that the now-mother-of-two Cindy Kiser Murphey made from her humble Kansas upbringing to a company symbolized by a lion and the presidency of New York-New York.

(From “The Wizard of Oz”) Dorothy: “It really was no miracle. What happened was just this ...”

“My first regular job was in a brand-new restaurant in Kansas when I was 15,” Cindy recalled recently, one day before she was to be honored as the Alumna of the Year by UNLV’s College of Hotel Administration.

“I lied about my age to get the job. I really liked it a lot, especially the challenge of doing an opening and all that entails, and I thought that restaurants might be my future. I had no idea then that there was such a thing as a career in hospitality management.”

Kiser Murphey had two pairs of loving hands guiding her down the right roads in those early years: There was her mother, Kay Kiser, who had suddenly lost her husband when her two children were in elementary school, and her grandfather Dr. Willard Kiser, a surgeon who had been ensconced in the world of medicine ever since as a young boy he had illegally driven an automobile for the town doctor as he made his rounds.

“My grandfather hung the moon for me,” Kiser Murphey says. “You just had to make straight A’s for him. That was not negotiable. I was going to go to college and I was going to get straight A’s for him, and I did.”

She chose UNLV for its reputation for excellence in hotel administration, and ventured to the desert with a high school buddy, Tim Barnett, who is now director of hotel operations for Circus Circus.

Dorothy: “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Kiser Murphey treasures her years at UNLV, and made friendships with several Rebel graduates who have gone on to distinguished careers in the hotel industry, such as Bill Hornbuckle, the president of Mandalay Bay. (Two other UNLV alums, Scott Sibella, president of the Mirage, and Bill McBeath, president of CityCenter, also provide executive leadership for MGM Mirage.)

“I had a blast at UNLV,” she says. “The school was much smaller in the late 1970s, and you knew everyone. I mean, how cool was it for me, when there were about six women in the hotel department and a couple hundred guys?”

Kiser Murphey assumed that her career path after college would be in the food and beverage industry, and that it would take her away from Las Vegas and allow her to see the world. She had gotten a taste of international travel on a summer academic program in Europe, visiting several hotels, but after weighing post-graduation offers in San Diego and Boston, she elected to take a position in food and beverage at the then-largest hotel in the world, the Las Vegas Hilton.

She had done a college internship at the Hilton, impressed the powers that be, and thus earned her first career-track position as a food and beverage management trainee.

Her next opportunity took her into a labor relations position at the Summa Corp. She got the lead from another college friend, who told his bosses at Summa that Kiser Murphey had supervised unionized employees. The company had a diversity program and was looking to hire women in management, and Kiser Murphey’s resume and people skills fit their needs. She would spend nine years at Summa, handling all the labor grievances for its many properties, including the Desert Inn, the Sands, the Landmark and the Frontier.

It was a high-pressure job typically occupied by a man, but she recalls only one time when a hotel executive questioned that a woman should be handling labor relations.

“I’m not good at addressing the glass-ceiling question that inevitably comes up,” she says, “because I’ve nearly always been treated with respect. The truth is that I owe all my career advancement to professional relationships I’ve had with men in our industry.”

In 1989, the Midwest girl landed the plum position of director of human resources for the soon-to-open Mirage.

“I was there for about two years, and it was the best experience ever,” Kiser Murphey says. “When you get to do an opening and be in on the ground floor, you learn about all the departments. You learn about the casino, the showroom, food and beverage, entertainment. Remember, when the Mirage opened it changed the world, absolutely changed the world. All the talk was that it wouldn’t work, that it had cost too much and couldn’t break even.

“The erupting volcano, Siegfried & Roy, the dolphin pool ... I mean everything about that place was so over the top for a girl from Kansas.”

Dorothy: “There’s Emerald City. Oh, we’re almost there, at last.”

After relatively short stays at the Sands and Main Street Station, where again Kiser Murphey directed human resources, she landed a dream job when she was named HR director for the new MGM Grand Las Vegas prior to its opening in 1993. Her most recent challenge there was handling contentious labor relations contracts, which tested her ability to delicately balance the demands of work and raising, with her husband, Wayne, their two sons, ages 12 and 7.

Then came the nod three months ago from MGM Mirage President and Chief Operating Officer Jim Murren to take the reins of New York-New York.

“Cindy is the rare individual that possesses tremendous knowledge through erudite and practical hospitality experience,” Murren says. “We are very fortunate to have her as part of the MGM Mirage family.”

“I’m very blessed that I had my children after my career was already at a certain point,” Kiser Murphey says. “It’s allowed me to accommodate the demands of my job and still be there for nearly every activity or game the boys are involved in. Fortunately, I’ve never had to make the choice between career and family. If it ever came to that, I’d quit my job in a minute.”

With that, the effervescent Kiser Murphey rattles off all the wonderful attributes of her new property.

• “Did you know that our restaurant Nine Fine Irishmen pours more Guinness than anywhere else in the U.S.?”

• “You should know that we’ve just retrofitted our roller coaster with new cars, because we have one of the best roller coasters in the world. It’s really one of the iconic features of New York-New York. And it’s one of our major revenue producers.”

• We’re very excited about opening a new nightclub, Rok, that will bring in some major stars in the rock ’n’ roll world. It’s going to be unbelievable, really a special place ...”

Dorothy: “Birds fly over the rainbow. Why then, oh why can’t I?”

Today’s is Jack Sheehan’s final column for the Sun.