Nevada Week In Person | Nevada Week In Person | Peter Guzman | Episode 85 | PBS

A champion for Latino-owned businesses, Peter Guzman, President and CEO of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, Nevada, is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I’m Amber Renee Dixon.

His roots are in real estate, and his entrepreneurial spirit stems from his childhood in Las Vegas.

Now President and CEO of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, Nevada, Peter Guzman, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

(Peter Guzman) Gosh, it’s such an honor.

It’s always an honor.

I’m an avid watcher of your program, and you do an amazing job.

-Oh, I appreciate that.

That entrepreneurial spirit I mentioned, you told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, quote, I really was that kid, you know, selling lemonade and selling food on the corner.

Was that out of necessity?

Why did you do that?

-You know, maybe it was a necessity, but I don’t really know if I realized that at the time.

I think it was something that came a little bit natural.

Of course, we wanted to put a couple of, you know, coins in my pocket.

But there were valuable lessons in that, right, because my dad finally pointed out to me, he said, “Son, you’re making a profit, but you’re using stuff that I bought and I’m not getting anything out of it.”

So that was a valuable lesson, right?

It was an actual lesson in business.

So yeah, I carry an entrepreneurial spirit within me because I know what it’s like.

-Yeah.

-It’s not always fun, but it’s definitely rewarding.

-So what other impacts did that experience have on you?

You said you learned about, well, if you’re getting your product from someone for free, you’re not going to be– well, with your father, at least, that made sense.

But you learned that business lesson.

What else did you learn?

-I think it also gave me a work ethic early on that, you know, you earn something when you go out there and do something.

Imagine that.

So that was a valuable lesson.

I think it also made me more of a people person earlier on, because I had engaged with people to get them to try to buy something from me.

So I think that was also something that’s carried on with me.

-How did real estate get on your radar, at what point?

-Boy, real estate, it’s so– real quick.

I mean, you know, I’m blessed to be married to my high school sweetheart.

We got married broke and young and lived in my dad’s house the first seven months.

I was parking cars.

She was going through college.

I was kind of in and out of college.

Then my dad said, This is no way to start a marriage.

So save every, every dime you’re making in valet parking– and my wife was working –and buy a house.

So about six, seven months later, we saved enough money for a down payment.

The guy in the circle from my dad’s house who I knew as a kid, he said, Hey, you know, I’m getting divorced.

I’m losing my house.

I was like, You’re losing your house?

So that was my first step.

I went to the library, got a book on how to do a real estate deal, and I bought that house.

And that made me realize, because I was a little bit still, honestly, a little lost.

I didn’t know if college was for me, or what was, but that invigorated me.

I was back to my lemonade days.

And so I went to a two-year real estate program, got my license, and eventually went full time in.

And I’m blessed to say I have over $750 million worth of sales in my career.

I mean, you know, it’s just been a blessing.

There was some rough times, 2008 being one of them.

Had to start all over again.

But it was definitely a blessing.

-Lesson learned from 2008?

-Big time.

-Any– -And more of an appreciation for entrepreneurs.

-What did you learn from 2008?

-I learned that you better know how to pivot.

You better know how to pivot real quick, because sometimes, you know, things change in the business world.

And that’s what I want people to understand, that the entrepreneurial, the entrepreneur, you know, it has it tough out there, and you have to pivot.

You know, the economy is always changing.

People’s needs and desires are always changing.

So good businessmen are always pivoting.

That’s the key.

-Part of that recession was some people living outside of their means.

-100% -Do you agree?

-100%.

Yeah, and, listen, the money was easy to grab.

There were, you know, banks were doing loans, and lenders were doing loans that were, wow, it was like you’re a bartender and you’re getting a $700,000 house.

It’s– so we saw some signs that we can’t let repeat itself.

But yeah, a lot of lessons to be learned.

-I might as well ask you now.

Are we headed for recession, the recession we keep hearing about that we’re so afraid of?

-I’m not ready to call it a recession.

But you know, part of my– yeah, I don’t know if you know, I got appointed to the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco.

So I’m in these meetings and learning so much information.

There are signs of positive things, but there’s also signs of high credit card debt, savings accounts being drained.

So we shall see.

I don’t know if it’s a full recession or not, but I think there could be rough waters ahead.

Could be rough waters ahead because of inflation, cost of goods.

My members are getting killed with gas prices.

If you’re a landscaper and you’re a successful one and you have seven, eight trucks, think about what $2 more a gallon does to your business.

-What kind of advice are you giving people ahead of what we may be facing?

-Keep as much debt low as you can, cash is still king and always going to be king, and learn to pivot.

Listen to your customer.

What are they saying?

What they’re saying is what you need to know.

-Back to real estate and home ownership, particularly.

It’s personal to you, and you advocate home ownership, correct?

Why is that?

-Because when my father came here, and my father talked to me often about, you know, how we came here from Cuba, escaping communism and dictatorship.

You know, homeownership was something that is, around the world is taught, you get to America, the American Dream is owning your own home.

And so, for me, I’ve always had that instilled in me.

So now being in a position to be able to help people get their house, that was a big deal for me.

And you know, listen, that– real estate still makes the majority of wealth in this country.

I think 75% of all millionaires are made through real estate, some kind of buying and selling.

And so, you know, I’m a big advocate for real estate.

-Yeah.

That’s where you think people should start?

-Without a doubt.

-According to Las Vegas Realtors, for people who do want to start or buy another house, the median home price in July was around $500,000.

That is out of a lot of people’s price range here.

You have said that you’ve been recognized by members of Congress for your ideas on affordable housing.

What do you think your best idea is?

-Well, and that’s, that’s something that’s always pivoting and changing as well, right?

When I said that, I said it a long time ago.

And still true today, a lot of things that I’m going to say.

You see a lot of raw land around us.

It’s owned by the federal government.

We got to find a way to loosen up some of that land.

We got to do public-private partnerships for affordable housing.

I’m a big fan of public-private partnerships like Nevada Hand.

But they got to speed that process up.

It takes too long, too much paperwork.

Let’s get construction underway.

And so I don’t understand why projects take so long.

So that’s one way where we can get more affordable– I like to call it dignified housing, not affordable housing.

But– -Why?

-You know, because everybody, when you say affordable housing, they think a connotation of, you know, poverty, low-income areas.

You know, listen, dignified housing can go anywhere, right?

It’s just a matter of, does it pencil out?

Because you still have to allow for capitalism.

You still have to allow for profit.

The way you can do that is public-private partnerships.

We need to increase that.

-Get rid of some of the red tape.

-Get rid of the red tape.

-Back to the Latin Chamber of Commerce, Nevada.

What are issues that Latino-owned businesses may face that others do not?

-Well, immigration issues is always a thing, whether that’s them or a family member that maybe– you know, Latinos live sometimes two, three generations in a household.

Could be somebody there that’s undocumented.

And so there’s a nervousness.

And that prevents them from expanding their business and exploding their business sometimes because out of fear.

That’s something I don’t know any other culture deals with as much as Latinos have to deal with it, because we don’t have comprehensive immigration reform.

So that’s one.

And I think– but there’s positives, too.

Like, even during COVID when we were allowed to be open, Hispanic businesses, you know, they pivot.

Gotta get more family members working there?

They do that.

Got to work more hours?

No problem.

You know, they come from chaotic places, so they know chaos and they know pivoting.

And they come here and we have this infrastructure set up to succeed, and that’s a good thing.

And so the Latin Chamber of Commerce, that’s what we focus on a lot is making sure that environment to succeed, being “business friendly,” it has to stay here.

-What else does it take to make Nevada more business friendly?

-Well, I think it takes getting rid of red tape so that people can get under construction.

I just talked to a guy yesterday.

He’s building a restaurant.

Things have been stalled.

So you know, the Latin Chamber, we made some calls, and we kind of nudging that through the different departments to get that thing going, because construction is jobs, you know?

It’s jobs.

It’s money in our economy.

-What’s the holdup in that situation?

-Well, you know, sometimes things get into a, you know, on a table, a desk in the building department, you know?

I’m not calling anybody out, but we got to get the red tape going.

We got to get things moving faster.

And I know each municipality is trying to do that.

But the more we do that, the more success we’ll have.

And then laws that come out of Carson City that we have to allow for, for real estate.

We have to allow for small businesses to succeed.

And sometimes the laws have unintended consequences.

They’re not intentional, but unintended consequences sometimes can devastate a small business.

-Is there one you can think of off the top of your head?

-There was some real estate stuff that I thought was over the top, and the governor vetoed some stuff.

And I was very– I was, I was very pleased with that.

-Okay.

-Because there are seniors in this town, just so you know, that supplement their social security with a few rentals.

You can’t throw them into the same arena as guys that own, you know, 5,000 doors.

-So you were talking about some of the legislation that would crack down on landlords– -Correct.

– –or make it, as the governor put it, just difficult on landlords?

-Correct?

I mean, landlords are not all the bad people that sometimes you read about, okay?

So yeah, so that’s one of– spot on.

You got it.

-One of the examples.

I’m glad you brought up the governor, because you served on his transition team, continued to– -Yeah, I was actually chairman of his transition team, put 17 teams together.

-What would that even be?

I can’t think of 17 categories.

-I look back now.

I’m not sure how we did it.

And we did it during– still a lot of things going on in the communities, but we did it.

Education, real estate, small business, I mean, you think about it, there was a committee for it.

And what was so beautiful about that is we continue to meet today by Zoom, and the governor continues to be involved in those and listen to those.

And today he had a press conference about education.

That came right out of the Education Committee.

Accountability, dollars, that came right out of suggestions of those committees.

-So eight months in and his transition team is still in action?

-I would say we shouldn’t even call it a transition team anymore, because– well, maybe we are; we’re still transitioning, and it’s going nowhere.

-Speaking of transitioning, your transition into leading the Latin Chamber of Commerce, Nevada, well, that was about what, seven, eight years ago now?

-So I just finished five complete years.

I’m in my sixth year now.

-Oh.

-But I’ve been with the Chamber– -A long time.

– –25 years.

-Part of that transition was aided by Otto Merida, former president, -My dear– my dear mentor in life, Otto Merida.

What a great mentor he was.

And he taught me that, you know, while you’re climbing, you got to be giving.

And so that’s why I was a volunteer on the Board for a long time, because he said, You’re doing well in real estate, but what else?

You got to get involved in the Chamber.

So I got involved in the Chamber, and he mentored me.

My wife’s first job was at the Latin Chamber of Commerce at 15 years old.

So I met him first time when I was 15.

And little did I know that he was probably mentoring me for this position the whole time, and I didn’t even know it.

-Do you think he knew it?

-He mentioned it a couple times that he did.

He thought I was gonna be the right guy.

So I’m just fortunate.

It’s a wonderful position.

To have impact every day in your community is a wonderful responsibility.

-And lastly, you’ve mentioned the influence of your father at several interviews.

Why has he been so important to you?

-Well, because, listen, my father came from a country that saw despair, and he made it here.

And he instilled in me that this is the greatest country, that here kids can actually dream, where in Cuba, kids don’t dream because there’s nothing to dream for.

Think about how strong that is.

And so he was my best friend.

I feel like he hugged me when I was born and never let me go.

And he was the best man at my wedding.

He’s just my best friend, my hero.

And I’m a guy who really believes that family matters.

And he showed that it mattered, that that structure that he gave me mattered.

-Peter Guzman, Latin Chamber of Commerce, Nevada, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you for recognizing the Latin Chamber of Commerce.

-And thank you for watching.

For more interviews like this, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

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