2004 GREAT WOMEN OF GAMING
Proven leader
Claudia Winkler
President
GHI Solutions, Inc.
Life has taken Claudia Winkler a lot of
places. Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania,
Winkler lost her father at nine years old. "It
was just me, my mom and my younger sister,"
she says. "My mother had to go back to
work—and I had to grow up. I had a job from
the time I was old enough to get a work permit."
One day when Winkler was in college at
Penn State, she attended a guest lecture by a
representative of the Governor's Commission
on Law Enforcement and Administration of
Justice. She found herself fascinated—so fascinated
that she ended up accepting an internship
and then working for the commission
beginning in 1974.
Winkler is nothing if not multi-faceted; she
had majored in psychology, was attracted to
marketing, and had a keen mind for technology.
The technology side prevailed. "I was the
girl geek long before it was fashionable,"
Winkler says. In 1976, she accepted a position
at PRC Realty Systems in Las Vegas, where she
installed the first online computer system for
the Las Vegas Board of Realtors. That led to a
job with Unisys, in 1980, where Winkler
worked on systems for banks. "Unisys (formerly
Burroughs Corp.) had most of the
banks in state of Nevada at that time," says
Winkler. "That job taught me more background
in some of the things that I do today. I
was selling and installing ATMs—when no
one was ever going to use them, I might add.
At that time the thought of not going in and
giving the teller your paycheck was horrifying
for most people. But those were the first
kiosks…I was really working with the things
that relate to currency handling and money
processing in our business today."
In late 1981, Winkler married and moved
to Lake Tahoe. It was the height of the first
technology boom, and she ran a computer
mail order company, with freelance assignments
setting up call centers. Six years later,
Winkler went to work for Harrah's. "I was
hired to be the telemarketing manager for
Harrah's Tahoe," she says. "After two weeks I
went to my boss and told him I couldn't do the
job. There was no data. There was no consolidated
information on their customers. I wrote
a report explaining what I saw as the issues.
And in less than two weeks, Phil Satre, (at the
time, Phil was Harrah's president of Northern
Nevada) came by. We talked about the lack of
data. Very shortly after that, all the marketing
people had a meeting and we started to talk
about database marketing. And that was the
start of Harrah's patron database."
Winkler's position evolved as Harrah's
became more corporately centralized. But the
next few years would bring a flurry of opportunities
and hops around the country. "I wanted
more responsibility," says Winkler. "I wanted
to be a director of marketing… and I felt
like I needed to spread my wings." After a brief
stint in Colorado in 1992, Winkler became
director of marketing for a casino hotel in
Reno. In 1994, she got a call from a headhunter
and went to Mississippi to close and
reopen a riverboat property. She was part of
the management team that closed, moved and
reopened the property within sixty days.
Next was Kansas City, where Winkler
opened a property for Station Casinos; then it
was on to Tunica, Peoria, New Orleans and
back to Las Vegas with Boyd Gaming. "In
2001, I decided to make a move," she says. "I
wanted to get back to my technology roots. I
joined a small technology company in Las
Vegas called Tech Results. They are incredibly
talented and I knew I could help them with
their business and product development. Then
we had 9/11. Technology took a hit. And I had
the opportunity to go out on my own." In the
summer of 2002, Winkler founded GHI
Solutions, a technology consulting company—
"an extra pair of hands in system selection and
implementation," she says. Today, Winkler
uses her deep product experience and relationships
with all of the major system vendors
to serve an extensive client list including
Colony Resorts, Wynn Las Vegas, Pinnacle
Entertainment and many Native American
enterprises.
It hasn't always been easy for Winkler, and
at first being a woman in gaming wasn't either.
"Early in my career, being a woman was
incredibly difficult," says Winkler. "There
were very few women in executive positions,
so there were very few role models. But as a
founding member of GOLD (an organization
for business women in gaming), I've seen
tremendous progress with women in major
leadership positions. Today, it's not uncommon
to see women in C-Level roles with most
of the major gaming companies. The strides
that have been made in the past 15 years have
been significant."
She has keen insight into her own success.
"For those people that know me, they know
that I am not easily intimidated," she says. "If
I have an objective I am going to do whatever
it takes to get there. That came from watching
my mother as a small child. (She was) taking
care of me and my sister, going to school,
being the bread winner and doing what needed
to be done. I remember my late father
telling me that I could be anything I want to be
when I grew up. Most importantly, I am
blessed in a marriage with a husband who has
always stood beside me and encouraged me to
follow my dreams. Today I see more men taking
a very active role in family and domestic
responsibilities.
Still, the well-rounded, well-traveled
Winkler looks back, and upon, great challenges—
the loss of her father, the demands of
a highly technical job, the prospect of aging
parents. "That's life," she says. "You take
whatever gets thrown at you. You can't look it
as 'oh, woe is me'; you look at it as, where is
the opportunity? There's always a solution. As
my mother always says, 'and this too shall
pass.' That's one of life's lessons that I've finally
learned."
Copyright 2011, Great Women of Gaming. All rights reserved.
