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Craig Hart Neilsen (August 31, 1941 in Logan, Utah — November 19, 2006 in Las Vegas, Nevada) was an American gaming industry executive who founded Ameristar Casinos, Inc. and formed the (Craig H. Neilsen Foundation ) to fund scientific research and quality of life programs for people living with spinal cord injuries. ==Early life, Career and Spinal Cord Injury== Craig Hart Neilsen was an American entrepreneur, gaming industry executive, and philanthropist. Neilsen was born in Logan, Utah, to Ray and Gwen Neilsen. The family later moved to Twin Falls, Idaho, where Neilsen graduated from high school in 1959. After receiving a degree in political science from Utah State University, Neilsen enrolled at the University of Utah where he earned a Master’s in Business Administration in 1964 and a law degree in 1967. After law school, he moved back to Twin Falls and practiced law for the firm Parry, Robertson & Daley.〔Staff. ("Craig H. Neilsen" ), ''Twin Falls Times-News'', Twin Falls, ID, 26 November 2006.〕 In 1963, he married Anita Joy Seiter in Salt Lake City. They had one child, Ray Hart Neilsen, born in Salt Lake City on March 9, 1964. The couple divorced in 1976 and in 1977 he married Nickola J. Miller, but they divorced the following year. In 1970, Neilsen joined his father’s company, Neilsen & Company, a Twin Falls construction and development company which also had a one-third ownership interest in Cactus Pete's.〔Dugan, Dana. ("Ketchum-area developer dies unexpectedly" ), ''Idaho Mountain Express'', Sun Valley, ID, 29 November 2006.〕 Cactus Pete’s casino began as a gas station without electricity or phone service, but with slot machines. Peter V. “Cactus Pete” Piersanti, had a small gaming business in Island Park, Idaho. When Idaho banned gambling in 1953, Piersanti relocated his machines across the border in Nevada. Two years later, Cactus Pete's, located in what would become Jackpot, Nevada, hired Neilsen & Miller Construction to build the Desert Inn, a 15-room motel. In 1967, Craig's father, Ray, became a partner in the business, which had also acquired the nearby gaming property, The Horseshu.〔Crump, Steve. ("You don't say: Whatever happened to Cactus Pete?" ), ''Twin Falls Times-News'', Twin Falls, ID, 13 April 2010.〕 On March 26, 1971, Craig's father Ray Neilsen died of a heart attack at the age of 57. Craig Neilsen, with his mother Gwen Neilsen Anderson, continued to operate Neilsen & Company and the Neilsen Trust.〔Staff. ("Craig H. Neilsen" ), ''Twin Falls Times-News'', Twin Falls, ID, 26 November 2006.〕 On November 9, 1985, Neilsen was involved in an accident while driving in a snowstorm from Jackpot, Nevada to his office in Twin Falls. He was treated at the University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics and the Good Samaritan Rehabilitation Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. Neilsen survived the accident but was rendered a quadriplegic; he was unable to move his arms and had minimal function only in his left hand. He required around-the-clock nursing and assistance with daily activities for the rest of his life. Neilsen returned to work in July 1986 and in 1987, two years after he became paralyzed, he engineered the buyout of two other shareholders to become establish sole ownership of Cactus Pete’s by the Neilsen Trust.〔Vuong, Andy. ("Betting on Black Hawk" ), ''Denver Post'', Denver, CO, 15 April 2006.〕 As states began to relax gambling restrictions, Neilsen began to expand his gaming enterprise. The Mississippi Legislature legalized dockside casino gambling in 1990;.〔(Gambling in Mississippi: Its Early History ), by Deanne S. Nuwer, at Mississippi History Now〕 Two years later, Neilsen acquired a riverfront property called Delta Point in Vicksburg, Mississippi. That property and the Jackpot casinos were combined to form Ameristar, which Neilsen took public in 1993 to finance the development of the Vicksburg dockside casino. In 1996, the company opened Iowa’s largest riverboat casino, Ameristar Casino Council Bluffs, on the Missouri River across from Omaha, Nebraska. Neilsen, along with his son and Council Bluffs General Manager, Ray Neilsen, made a concerted effort to raise the quality of riverboat casinos and in 1999 the casino received the country's first AAA Four Diamond Award for a riverboat.〔Leu, Jon. "Ameristar wins 4-Diamond Award"], ''The Daily Nonpareil'', Council Bluffs, IA, 6 March 1999.〕 In 1998 Ameristar relocated its company headquarters from Twin Falls, Idaho, to Las Vegas, Nevada. That same year the company opened the Reserve Hotel Casino in Henderson, Nevada in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. In 2001, Ameristar sold this property to Station Casinos, Inc. The 2000 purchase of additional casinos in Kansas City and St. Charles, Missouri, from Station, doubled Ameristar’s annual revenues. Additional growth continued through the completion in August 2002 of a new facility in St. Charles much larger than the temporary casino it replaced.〔University Libraries. ("Ameristar History" ), ''UNLV Center For Gaming Research'', June, 2015.〕 Neilsen was also named the American Gaming Association's Top Performing CEO of 2002.〔Staff. (" Ameristar President and CEO Named Top Performing CEO " ), ''American Gaming Association'', 19 September 2002.〕 In 2004, Ameristar purchased its seventh property, Mountain High Casino in Black Hawk, Colorado.〔Vuong, Andy. ("Betting on Black Hawk" ), ''Denver Post'', Denver, CO, 15 April 2006.〕 At the time of Neilsen’s death in 2006, Ameristar had annual revenues of $1 billion.〔Miller, Sandy. ("Ameristar Casinos reports best year ever" ), ''Twin Falls Times-News'', Twin Falls, ID, 01 February 2007.〕 Upon his death, the Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho memorialized its native son in an editorial titled “Remembering Craig Neilsen, a One-of-a-Kind Entrepreneur.” “In style, Neilsen was a capitalist from another generation – making intuitive decisions that sometimes confounded business partners and employees. “He had a vision that I’ve never found in any other person, said Twin Falls developer Ken Edmunds, a long-time associate. “He could visualize and move toward an objective even when no one else could understand what he was doing. That’s how he created Ameristar Casinos. He could conceptualize and envision a project when no else could see what was there. He would often do things that would drive other people crazy because you couldn’t understand,” said Edmunds. “But he was always right.” Said the Times-News, “He was a gambler, but somehow Craig Neilsen usually ended up holding all the cards.”〔Staff. "Remembering Craig Neilsen, a One-of-a-Kind Entrepreneur" ''Twin Falls Times-News'', Twin Falls, ID, 21 November 2006.〕 Neilsen is survived by his son Ray, his daughter-in-law Nancy Neilsen, and stepdaughters Jaime Stam and Amanda (Howard) Byrd.〔Oliver Staley. ("Ameristar Casinos chief dies" ), ''Denver Post'', Denver, CO, 20 November 2006.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Craig Hart Neilsen」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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