Nevada economic development is shifting beyond hospitality and gaming into critical minerals processing, advanced manufacturing, and data centers. Tom Burns, Director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development, breaks down the state's strategic plan for economic diversification in a conversation with Kristopher Sanchez, Director of the Nevada Department of Business and Industry, on the Nevada Means Business Podcast.

Nevada holds 36 of 60 critical minerals essential to the national defense and economic supply chains — more than any other state — yet almost none are processed domestically. Burns explains the push to bring environmentally responsible mineral processing back from China, drawing a direct comparison to the 1860s Comstock Lode era when the state's mineral wealth built San Francisco instead of Nevada. The conversation covers Haas Automation's new Southern Nevada facility, which will create over 2,500 advanced manufacturing jobs at wages reaching $45 to $50 per hour, supported by the Debra March Center of Excellence and College of Southern Nevada workforce training partnership.

Data centers are addressed head-on: Burns outlines how modern closed-loop cooling systems have reduced water usage to swimming-pool levels, why power demand remains the real challenge, and why local communities should retain the authority to decide whether data centers belong in their area. The discussion also covers SSBCI, a $130 million federal funding program that helped Nevada make early-stage investments in companies like TensorWave, the state's first billion-dollar unicorn.

Burns details Nevada's network of seven Regional Development Authorities, the Knowledge Fund's role in commercializing university research, and how the upcoming legislative session will focus on adjusting economic incentives to keep the state competitive against neighbors like Utah. The Office of Entrepreneurship, established in 2023, rounds out a statewide ecosystem designed to support startups and small businesses from concept through commercialization.

Nevada farming faces a generational crisis as the state's beef herd nears all-time lows, sheep numbers have dropped from millions to roughly 90,000, and fewer young producers are entering the industry. JJ Goicoechea, Director of the Nevada Department of Agriculture and a fourth-generation Eureka County rancher, breaks down the forces reshaping livestock farming on 87% federally owned land — and the specific programs his agency is deploying to reverse the decline.

Goicoechea details how the Department of Agriculture absorbed food safety inspections from the former Department of Health and Human Services, now overseeing restaurant inspections, shellfish inspection in Las Vegas with a single inspector, and 13 of 15 USDA food programs including school lunch distribution and food bank coordination with Three Square and Food Bank of Northern Nevada. The agency pulled federal grant funds ahead of the 2023 government shutdown to ensure Nevada school districts were reimbursed without interruption.

The conversation covers the return of the Nevada State Fair to the Reno fairgrounds after a 16-year absence, a $10.5 million renovation of the 1867-era property that also serves as the large animal evacuation center during wildfire season, and the agency's push to close a regulatory loophole allowing intoxicating synthetic hemp products to be sold in convenience stores. Goicoechea also addresses water rights across oversubscribed groundwater basins like Diamond Valley and the Humboldt River system, where producers are transitioning from flood irrigation to precision bubblers and soil-moisture monitoring to stretch diminishing allocations.

From USDA low-interest loans for first-time ranchers to ag literacy coordinators working in urban classrooms, the episode maps every lever the state is pulling to keep rural Nevada communities — and the agriculture economy that sustains them — alive.

Nevada's Superintendent of Public Instruction Victor Wakefield sits down with Kristopher Sanchez to address a question that haunts every parent and employer in the state: why does Nevada rank near the bottom in education, and what is the Department of Education actually doing about it? The conversation covers everything from a 99% graduation rate among CTE completers to a sobering reality where only one-third of students reach math proficiency by eighth grade.

Wakefield breaks down the five strategic priorities now guiding the Nevada Department of Education — strong academic foundations, empowering pathways, equipped educators, informed families, and aligned systems. Half of Nevada's high school students now participate in career technical education, and the state recently shifted from a three-year to a two-year CTE sequence so students have room for internships and advanced coursework. Meanwhile, 15% to 16% of Nevada's 16-to-24-year-olds remain neither in school nor employed, a rate that outpaces the national average by nearly five percentage points.

The discussion turns pointed on AI in schools and educational technology. Wakefield describes visiting a second-grade classroom where a student on a literacy program was learning to beat the game rather than learning to read — a moment he calls emblematic of a 15-year failed experiment with screens in classrooms. Carson City's teacher-led stoplight model for AI use in assignments offers a counterpoint, grounding technology decisions in learning objectives rather than novelty.

Wakefield arrived in Nevada 15 years ago to lead Teach for America's Clark County program across 50 Title I schools, later served on the State Board of Education, and completed doctoral research on Nevada education reform. Governor Lombardo appointed him as the state's superintendent, and he spent his first six months touring 13 of 17 school districts. The statewide strategic improvement plan, known as the STIP, is set for a six-week public comment period before formal adoption.

Nevada's education system serves more than 450,000 public school students across 17 county districts and one charter school authority, and the conversation makes clear that the gap between pockets of excellence and statewide scale remains the central challenge of Wakefield's tenure.

Nevada's Transportation Authority and Taxicab Authority are closer to merging than at any point in their combined history, and administrator Todd Park — the first person to run both agencies simultaneously — explains exactly what that merger would change for Las Vegas transportation regulation, enforcement against illegal operators, and autonomous vehicle oversight. This episode of the Nevada Means Business podcast, hosted by Department of Business and Industry Director Kristopher Sanchez, breaks down why two separate state agencies with overlapping mandates no longer make sense in an era of rideshare companies, self-driving taxis, and a growing illegal transportation problem along the Resort Corridor.

Todd Park traces his path from 19 years in a Salt Lake City homicide unit to a cubicle job at the NTA, then to enforcement chief, and finally to dual administrator of both agencies. That career arc — from undercover policing to regulatory leadership — gives him a rare vantage point on the enforcement challenges facing Las Vegas, where illegal operators use real-time communications to evade NTA and TA officers in a nightly cat-and-mouse game along the Strip. Park describes how statute misalignment between NRS Chapter 706 and the 1969 Taxicab Authority charter creates enforcement gaps that a single merged agency could close.

The conversation covers the legislative path forward, including aligning statutes written decades apart, consolidating two separate budgets funded by different mechanisms, and creating parity across industry stakeholders from traditional taxi companies to TNCs like Uber and Lyft to autonomous vehicle network companies. Park and Sanchez also address the labor displacement concerns raised at the recent IATR international conference, the safety advantages of removing distracted human drivers, and why Nevada — the first state to license autonomous vehicle testing — now faces pressure to modernize its regulatory framework before the next legislative session.

Nevada Department of Transportation Director Tracy Larkin-Thomason explains why the state's 5,400 miles of highway face a growing maintenance challenge — and what it will take to keep pace with explosive population growth, a surging mining industry, and stalled infrastructure funding. With a fuel tax unchanged since 1993 and construction inflation exceeding 60%, the gap between what Nevada roads need and what the highway fund can deliver is widening every year.

The conversation covers NDOT's full scope of operations, from managing 1,200 bridges and 50 fueling stations to coordinating emergency response across four states after the 2024 I-15 closure that shut down northbound traffic into Las Vegas for 48 hours. Larkin-Thomason details six new interchanges planned along I-15 from the California state line to Sloan, ten more between Kyle Canyon and Mercury, and the challenges of building new capacity while the existing system erodes.

Brightline West, the $3 billion high-speed rail project connecting Rancho Cucamonga to Las Vegas, has finalized all contracts and encroachment permits with NDOT. Larkin-Thomason calls it one of the first passenger rail expansions into the interior West and a nationally significant infrastructure milestone. The episode also addresses Nevada's critical mineral boom — with 13 essential minerals, lithium extraction at Thacker Pass, and new operations near Tonopah and Beatty — and the strain that mining super loads, workforce housing shortages, and heavy truck traffic place on two-lane rural highways.

Larkin-Thomason, a 30-year NDOT veteran who rose from tech trainee to director, outlines the agency's legislative priorities heading into the 2027 session. The highway fund currently splits revenue among NDOT, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the Department of Public Safety, with 67% of the transportation program funded by federal dollars. Deferred projects now stretch past 2035, and the director frames the state's central question plainly: decide what Nevada should look like in 20 years, then fund the infrastructure to match.

Harry Reid International Airport faces a massive modernization challenge as Terminal 1 facilities designed in the 1960s strain under modern aircraft carrying nearly double the passengers they were built to handle. James Chrisley, Director of Aviation for Clark County and a former U.S. Air Force civil engineer, details the multi-billion-dollar plan to rebuild the Las Vegas airport while keeping it fully operational through Super Bowls, Formula One races, and a wave of new professional sports events over the next three years.

The conversation covers the 15% design plan expected by the end of the calendar year, the integration of Zoox autonomous vehicles at Terminal 1 and Terminal 3, and how the Boring Company loop system will eventually connect to the airport. Chrisley explains why the airport adopted common-use gate technology decades before most competitors, allowing any airline to log into any gate and operate within minutes.

Clark County owns 6,000 acres in the Ivanpah Valley, 30 miles south of Harry Reid off I-15, where a supplemental airport with two parallel runways — including a 15,000-foot runway for international wide-body jets — could open as early as 2037. The FAA environmental impact review resumed in May 2024, with a record of decision expected in 2028. Three separate congressional acts secured the land, protected the site from encroachment, and authorized stormwater infrastructure across the valley.

Henderson Executive Airport and North Las Vegas Airport both have master plans in process that include runway extensions and terminal remodels to absorb the growing business jet traffic that fills those airfields to capacity during every major event weekend. Chrisley notes that nearly 50 percent of all Las Vegas visitors arrive through the airport system, making modernization critical to the regional economy and the city's position as the sports and entertainment capital of the world.

Las Vegas A's president Marc Badain explains how the city transformed from a nascent sports market into one of the most dominant sports and entertainment destinations in the country — and what the new Las Vegas A's stadium means for the local economy, small business owners, and aspiring sports management professionals. Badain, a 36-year sports executive who started as a Raiders intern and helped build Allegiant Stadium, offers a rare insider perspective on franchise relocation, stadium financing, and the economics driving professional sports infrastructure.

The conversation covers the Raiders' move from Oakland to Las Vegas, the public funding mechanism behind Allegiant Stadium, and why Badain believes the Las Vegas ballpark — a 30,000-seat facility designed by Bjarke Ingels and currently 14 months into construction with $620 million spent — will anchor the southern end of the Strip by 2028. Badain describes the differences between NFL and MLB organizational culture, why minor league sports and large-scale stadium projects offer the best career entry points, and how franchise valuations have compounded at staggering rates over the past decade.

Badain also addresses how the A's organization has embedded itself in the Las Vegas community through 117 outreach events in two quarters, player appearances at Three Square and Sunrise Hospital, and partnerships with local Little League and softball programs. For small business owners, the stadium project has already allocated 17% of construction participation to small and minority-owned businesses under SB1. The episode captures a pivotal moment in Nevada's economic diversification as professional sports franchises generate thousands of construction and operations jobs beyond the traditional gaming and hospitality economy.

Marc Badain reflects on leadership lessons from coaches like Jon Gruden and the importance of transparent communication, managing down rather than up, and eliminating verbal tics through deliberate practice — principles applicable far beyond the sports industry.

Nevada's transportation regulatory framework faces a collision between a 1919 utility structure and the rapid rise of autonomous vehicles and rideshare platforms — and the Chairman of the Nevada Transportation Authority is working to fix it before the 2027 legislative session. Vaughn Hartung, former Washoe County Commissioner and current NTA Chairman, breaks down the policy gaps holding Nevada back and the comprehensive reforms needed to modernize how the state regulates everything from taxis to self-driving cars.

The conversation covers why non-emergency medical transportation has no direct statutory definition in Nevada despite serving a rapidly growing aging population, how the NTA and DMV split oversight of autonomous vehicle network companies under NRS 706B and 706A, and what Hartung observed firsthand while riding in autonomous vehicles in Arizona. Hartung explains the critical difference between utility-model regulation — rooted in monopoly-era railroad oversight — and the dynamic market-model regulation that governs Uber, Lyft, and autonomous ride services.

Hartung details the inconsistencies between Clark County and statewide taxi regulations, the lack of standardized first responder interaction protocols for autonomous vehicles, and why the NTA's 20-year-old technology platform is being replaced with a digital system. The episode also previews a comprehensive transportation policy paper being developed in partnership with the Lincy Institute at UNLV, aimed at giving legislators a unified framework heading into the 2027 session.

Kristopher Sanchez, Director of the Nevada Department of Business and Industry, hosts the conversation and outlines plans to merge the Nevada Transportation Authority and the Taxi Authority under a single administrative structure. The discussion highlights how Nevada's biennial legislature creates a regulatory lag that leaves agencies struggling to keep pace with rapidly evolving transportation technology, from AI-driven learning models in autonomous vehicles to the digital transformation of government services.