After more than a decade in various roles at the city, Chris Craig was recently ratified by the Las Vegas City Council as the municipality’s new director of the Innovation and Technologies Department.
The Sun sat down with Craig, who previously served as deputy director of the department since 2019, to learn more about his goals in his new role and the importance of innovation and technology to the local economy.
The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
Chris Craig
Can you give an overview of the Innovation and Technologies Department?
For me, innovation and technology — the title of the department — says what we do. But really what we do is about the people. We’re here not only to serve our citizens and create experiences for them that’s less friction to enter the government and to do business with the local government, but it’s also the internal people. So we’re considered an internal-services department, so we serve all of our departments across the entire city that ultimately serve our citizens.
And we really just feel like we’re enablers of technology and access to the local government. But my focus primarily is on my internal staff. I have 92 employees on our organizational chart, and my priority is them and making sure that they’re taken care of and enabled to do their job so they can serve our citizens properly.
Why are innovation and technology important at the city level, and why is it important that Las Vegas fosters a tech-friendly environment?
Part of it is that, if you’re not innovative and you don’t have ease of access to government agencies, then you wouldn’t want to move your business here. You wouldn’t want to stay here once you graduate from college.
We have an amazing research institution with UNLV, and there’s a lot of students graduating from there that leave the area. And the only way they’re going to stay here is if they have a place to go to work, if they have good schools for their future families and children to go to school.
And the only way we do that is building on a foundation of access — providing access to everybody, providing access to organizations to want to come here, to have incentive to come here and build their businesses here. And so we not only draw new people to Las Vegas for new reasons, other than gambling and entertainment, but we also provide a wonderful place to work, play and live for those who graduate from here and that are from here. They want to stay here instead of leave.
What are the tangible benefits of innovative businesses coming to Las Vegas?
It’s diversification of the economy for us. So all of us that are here, we want to make sure there’s a tax base that can support the government so we can put in new parks and new recreation centers and new activities and venues for people to enjoy while they live here. And the more businesses we have operating here locally, the more tax revenue that’s generated, the more jobs — the larger the job market.
It all ties hand in hand with creating an amazing place to work and play and live. And that’s really what Las Vegas is about. It’s everything else that we’re currently used to and reinforcing the whole economic growth.
How do you see technology evolving, and how do you see Las Vegas evolving with it?
We’re really at the forefront of it. And that’s what’s important, is that we stay competitive with all the other markets. I mean, as you see changes happen across other states, we want to be that draw and make sure we’re in the front lines of offering these technologies and these solutions, so that we are less restrictive and we’re more accessible and we’re growing.
From an innovative perspective, if you don’t innovate, you die. So, somebody else will if we don’t. And that’s probably the key to the whole thing, is staying in the forefront — staying out in front of it. If we don’t do it, somebody else will, and we’ll lose those businesses to other states or other other regions. And it’s important for us in Southern Nevada to make sure we strengthen that as much as we can here.
What resources are available to help foster that tech-friendly environment we’re talking about?
There’s things that we’re moving toward. One of our key goals is to put things online so people don’t have to wait in line — so you barely have to come here. Because not everybody can just hop in a car and drive to City Hall, or even if you can, you don’t necessarily want to, and then come and stand in the line to get served. So putting things online, and the only way you can put things online is to make sure people have access to what’s online, and that access is through the fiber that’s being installed throughout the region — making sure that all citizens have access to online resources.
And that just opens up the opportunity for them to interact with the government more. And, by doing that, it encourages more businesses to come and more accessibility for everybody. So, it just creates a more equal playground for everybody.
Is there anything else you want to add?
Just that we have innovation centers within the city, where we enable businesses to come and participate in whatever they would like to from their business perspective, and keep us connected. Our partners in Economic and Urban Development can probably speak better to that. But they do exist. We have them here, and they’re helping enable businesses locally.