He made headlines recently with plans to make the 28,000-subscriber afternoon Sun a morning newspaper inserted inside its chief rival, the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The change will mean the Sun will reach the Review-Journal's 165,000 weekday subscribers.

While the Sun -- founded by Hank Greenspun in 1950 -- continues to be the family's flagship, The Greenspun Corporation owns a variety of companies.

Other Greenspun publications include the Henderson Home News, Boulder City News, Green Valley News, South Valley News, In Business Las Vegas, VegasGolfer Magazine, Showbiz Weekly, Las Vegas Weekly, Las Vegas Life, VEGAS magazine, Las Vegas magazine and the Ralston Flash e-mail newsletter. The family also owns KTUD Channel 25 (UPN) and are one-third owners of Las Vegas ONE, Cox cable channel 19.

The corporation also owns VEGAS.com and operates LasVegas.com, Web sites that allow tourists to plan their Las Vegas trips in advance.

American Nevada Company was started in 1974 to manage the family's real estate developments, which include Green Valley in Henderson and Aliante in North Las Vegas.

The Greenspun family also owns a 50 percent stake in Green Valley Ranch Station Casino and an almost 7 percent interest in the Palms.

Brian Greenspun sat down with In Business Las Vegas to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing Southern Nevada and his family's companies.

How do you divide your time among your family's various companies?

I wasn't aware that I was dividing my time. It all seems to hit at one time. A lot of it is reacting. We're very fortunate here. We have a lot of very good people who are responsible for each of the divisions of the businesses that we have. In terms of dividing my time, it's either people having issues or challenges that come to my attention or it's the other way where I have a particular interest, I'll go seek somebody out. There's no set time division that I have. It's either whatever's on my mind or frankly whatever's on somebody else's.

What are your long-term media plans for the Greenspun companies with the recent deal for LasVegas.com and the plans to make the Las Vegas Sun a morning paper inserted into the Review-Journal?

My long-term plans are the same as they have been ever since my parents started the Las Vegas Sun. We live here. Our families live here. Our friends are in this community. Our roots are in this community and we just think that it's important that as much as possible Las Vegas has a varied number of viewpoints; ours being one of them. When you ask me what our long-term interests are, they are to find the ways and means of distributing that information -- whether it's our ideas or our opinions or the editorial opinions of the people at the paper or the various columnists, whether it's the news and information gathering and dissemination of the weekly newspapers, or In Business or Vegas Golfer. So long term we want to be the best at what we do, and that's been our goal. That's been a goal for 55 years now.

How will the Sun maintain or alter its identity when it is inside its chief rival?

I'm not certain that there's an answer to that particular question because the question assumes that we are going to, what, get lost within the Review-Journal? It assumes that something is going to alter us. I think it's the opposite. For 15 years we've been in a joint operating agreement with the Review-Journal. As part of the JOA, we had to go into the afternoon field from the morning. We were approximately 60,000 papers in 1990; the Review-Journal might have been 130,000 (subscribers) give or take. We are now down to 28,000. The Review-Journal's up to 160,000 (or) 170,000. This town has probably doubled in size since the JOA started and I dare say if you go out and ask people, "Do you know about the Las Vegas Sun?" fewer and fewer people will be able to answer "yes" -- or "yes" with any type of real knowledge.

Come September when the Las Vegas Sun is distributed with the Review-Journal inside the package -- it'll be the third section -- our newspaper will gain immediately the same readership as the Review-Journal. All of a sudden we will have six times as many people -- probably another 400,000 people (readers) -- picking up the Las Vegas Sun every single day. We are going to be enhanced and augmented. The challenge we have is what we are going to put in our newspaper because we do not have to be bound by the same traditional design of every other newspaper in this country.

I've been telling people -- I believe it -- we are going to be the first 21st century newspaper and that means we have the opportunity to reach out to people in your age demographic, people younger than you, people who don't read newspapers, people who are getting it (news) on TV or the Internet or however they're doing it and find a way to bring them back to newspapers. I don't think newspapers are going away, but we have to become more relevant to younger people. We have an opportunity to design something absolutely dramatic and that's our intent.

Is there concern that readers will assume they are the same newspaper?

There's always concern about what people will assume in this world. If you have been paying attention to any of the recent letters to the editor that the Review-Journal has been running -- they've been all over the board. Some of them have been from people who you wonder where they're living, what rock they're living under. You can't help the fact that some people want to remain ignorant. All you can do is try to open their eyes; try to provide them with the information that they will need to make better decisions. I'm always concerned but there are some things you can do something about and there are other things (where) you just have to move on. I know there are an awful lot of people in this town who want information, need information to be able to make better decisions for themselves and their families. We plan to help fulfill that need.

Please describe the terms of the existing joint operating agreement (JOA). Was it profitable for the Greenspun family?

The major components: The Review-Journal printed, distributed and sold the advertising for both newspapers. All the revenue went into one big pot. All the expenses were subtracted from the revenue. To the extent there was something left, the Review-Journal got 90 percent of it and we got 10 percent of it. Was it profitable to us? Before the joint operating agreement went into effect in 1990 we were losing somewhere between $3 (million) and $5 million a year in cash and now we actually make money. But more than economically profitable, it kept the Las Vegas Sun alive and basically allowed it to reach this point in our life, which will be equal circulation with the Review-Journal. In that regard, it's extremely profitable.

Could you discuss the highlights of the recently amended JOA and how those changes will affect subscribers, advertisers and employees?

The major change is that the Las Vegas Sun will no longer be an afternoon newspaper. It will be a morning newspaper. The second change is it will not abide by the same formula that it used to abide by, which determined how many pages we would have in the afternoon. We will have eight editorial pages Monday through Friday, six on Saturdays and 10 on Sundays. Right now we have six on Sundays. In that the Review-Journal will sell advertising. They may decide to put their comics page or weather page or other noneditorial pages in there. We could have 16- to 20-page sections most days. That's a major change. We will not produce 40-page and 48-page papers that include the classifieds and all the other things you see in a traditional paper.

The other change will be determining what it is we are going to publish and then how many and what kind of employees we will need -- what the mix will be of writers (and) editors -- to fulfill the mission. In two, three, four weeks we will have that answer or we'll be well on our way to that answer. To the extent that there is a major change relative to employees that's probably the only downside I see. We don't know how big it is because we haven't gotten there yet. This thing came on rather quickly. We have plenty of other opportunities within the Greenspun organization for those few employees that may not be needed come Sept. 30.

Is it still roughly about 10 percent of the employees that will be cut?

That's what I said early on. I said somewhere between 10 (percent) and 20 percent. I don't think it's any more than that, probably not any less than that.

How do you balance the personal emotion of letting employees go with the need to preserve the company's long-term viability?

You always have to look at the long-term viability of your product. In this case, we're talking about a newspaper. Newspapers are kind of rare in this day and age. They don't make them anymore. Ours may be the first, and only, newspaper of the 21st century. No one else has started a newspaper, if you will. We're not starting the Sun but we're restarting it. If you look at the long-term viability you have to say what does it take to get us from here to there and sometimes it takes changes that affect people.

When we did the joint operating agreement the really big change was we were no longer printing our newspaper or compositing it so we didn't need the typographers (or) the printers. We didn't need the salespeople because the Review-Journal was going to do all of the advertising sales. There were hundreds of people. That was very painful to us (because) these are people we worked with 10, 20, 30 years. Financially, we did the very best we could related to those who were leaving and that will be the same case this time, too. If that kind of assuages those bad feelings because you know you're taking care of people as best you can, then that's what I think our responsibility is. Ultimately, this newspaper has to survive and it has to perform its function as a viable newspaper.

We've talked about the changes to the JOA and its effect on the Sun, but what will it mean for In Business, Las Vegas Weekly and other Greenspun publications that compete with Stephens Media Group?

There's going to be very little change in those areas except for the fact that they're going to be competing more. There's nothing in the JOA that prevents them from competing. In fact, it specifically talks about our right and the Stephens people's right to compete. I suspect it's going to get hot and heavy or hotter and heavier and I look forward to that. I think we put out very good products and I think we can put out better ones and more of them.

What is your perception of the future of newspapers locally in Las Vegas?

It's been clear to me for a long time that this town could not support two separate, independent business operations. That's how the JOA came about, but it is a vibrant, strong, growing town. There are people moving here by the thousands. Those people have no idea what happened before they came. There are a lot of people here who came for new beginnings but they're also looking to put down roots. The way you put down roots is to learn about what came before you. The way to get that information is to have newspapers that perform that function of providing you information, providing context to that information. When you say what is the future of newspapers, are we always going to be printed on dead trees? I don't know. We've all got Blackberries and computers. You might be reading your newspaper on your watch in 10 years. But will there always be a need for reporters and editors, people to gather information and put it in a way that can be disseminated to the public in a way that they can understand and appreciate it? I think that's always going to be here.

Is LasVegas.com profitable and is it the plan to make it your company's main Web site since it has a more intuitive Internet address?

Las Vegas Sun President and Editor Brian Greenspun responds to a question Monday in his office at the Sun. Photo by Steve Marcus

Is it profitable? I haven't the slightest idea. I know it's expensive. Ask me a year from now if it's profitable or two years from now if it's going to be profitable. We've taken a major risk in acquiring the license to LasVegas.com. We felt it was important to have it. We have VEGAS.com, which is the other intuitive name. Having them both gives us some scalability. It gives us the opportunity to market the two intuitive names. Whether they're going to be profitable, it's far too early to tell. I think there's a future. In terms of it being the more intuitive name, you'll probably get a fight with our folks at VEGAS.com. They tell me the young people say "Vegas" and the old guys like me say "Las Vegas."

Your family's company is also involved with television broadcasting. What do you see as the future for cable channel Las Vegas ONE and KTUD-TV (UPN channel 25)?

They have different missions. Las Vegas ONE is a partnership among Cox Communications, Channel 8 KLAS-TV and the Las Vegas Sun. It was conceived and remains the goal of the partners to make Las Vegas ONE the source for news and information on a 24-hour basis. Television news being what it is, you get 30 minutes of it if you're lucky and they're little snippets. Las Vegas ONE people have an opportunity to actually go on and talk about what their issues are and explain them to people. Our goal is to keep that growing and make it something that is vital in this community. As for UPN, that's kind of a fun one. They're doing quite well over there. They're a marvelous group of people. It's got its own audience and that's growing. I can't tell you it had nowhere to go but up but there was a lot more room up than there was down. We're heading in that direction.

How active a role do you and your siblings play in the management of The Greenspun Corporation's interests and how do you resolve differences in opinion?

We ask my mother. Each one of my siblings -- my brother and sisters and I -- have different interests. Certainly since my dad died about 16 years ago now, we've all kind of gravitated toward those interests. They don't overlap a lot. They certainly overlap in charitable endeavors. We all speak basically of one mind. We all speak of the same mind when it comes to our business interests whether it's real estate or publishing. We certainly have political differences of opinion. We have differences of opinion when it comes to food, the important things. We usually resolve them by listening to my sister Susan. She yells louder. In seriousness, we have a great deal of respect for one another and whatever differences we have, they're very minor. We learned a long time ago that we're all in this one together and we really don't have those kinds of problems. We're very fortunate and I've been fortunate that they've allowed me to run these businesses. I won't say without interference. There's always interference in families but it's welcome interference.

The Greenspun Corporation has grown dramatically over the years. How difficult has it been to shift from managing a small family company to a major corporate endeavor?

That's probably the hardest and the easiest thing at the same time. We have been very fortunate in that we've been able to attract some very talented individuals to come work with us. What I've found early on is the more talent you have, the more apt these people are to challenge themselves and challenge me to let them do more, respond more, run more. If there has been a big challenge it's mostly been mine. That is I've got to learn -- and I have learned -- to back away many times and let people use their judgment. They're a lot smarter than I am. They know a lot more about running their particular areas of expertise than I do. The hard part for me was backing off and letting them make mistakes that I knew they would make and that I wouldn't have made because I've already made them once or twice. They have to learn to make those mistakes so they can grow from that. If something happened to me tomorrow, I'd miss this place but it would do very well.

You and your family have numerous business interests. How do you determine which investments to make and which to pass up?

I've got a coin I keep in my pocket. Again, we've got talented people who look at a lot of this stuff every day. They are constantly advising me that they think this is good or they think this is bad, what it takes to make a bad one good and what happens when the good one turns bad. At the end of the day, you're still investing and making business decisions based on the people involved. Everybody's got a great product. Everybody's got a great idea, but you don't see all great products and great ideas out there. They fail from time to time. The major difference is the ones that have the right people.

Your family has been involved with real estate for a long time. Has Green Valley evolved beyond what your dad thought it would when he purchased the land?

The easy answer is absolutely yes. I'm not so sure it's the truthful answer. When he was very ill I brought him out to Green Valley in 1989 -- we were going for a ride and by that time the Legacy Golf Course was under construction -- and I asked him a question as we passed these churches and parks and schools and homes. He always used to tell us he envisioned a place away from the Strip where people could come to their homes and their parks, free from all the hustle and bustle of the Strip. I asked him, "Did you really see all this?" He told me, "Absolutely yes, I saw it all." This is a guy who showed up in 1946. You can't imagine what this community looked like. In fact there was no community. I kept driving because I couldn't believe it. I could barely see in front of the car. Then he said to me, "I was just wrong in one respect. I thought my great grand children would build it." Here was a guy who was putting together all this land to build a community and he never thought he would be around to see any of it. Yet, he was here to see most of it.

Do you expect the company's development in Aliante in North Las Vegas will become as integral to that community as Green Valley is to Henderson?

I think there's a very good opportunity. Aliante is the first 2,000 acres of what I think is a 7,500 or 8,000-acre piece that the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) ultimately will release. Green Valley was about 8,400 acres. Henderson was just a tiny town when Green Valley started. Now you've got Anthem, McDonald Highlands (and) Seven Hills that all grew out of the success of Green Valley. I expect there's going to be an awful lot that's going to grow out of the success of Aliante and it's already evident out there that it is turning North Las Vegas into a first-class city. It is growing up to meet the needs and challenges of that kind of a city. There's no reason to expect that Aliante will not do for North Las Vegas what Green Valley did for Henderson.

You and your family own a 50 percent stake in the Green Valley Ranch Station Casino. You've said publicly you never thought you'd own half of a casino. We know Green Valley Ranch is very profitable. Has it exceeded your expectations and are you happy with your decision to go into casino ownership?

It has not exceeded my expectations because my expectations were to build, or be part of the building, of a high-quality hotel that would bring the kind of amenities to Green Valley that match the rest of Green Valley. In other words, it was not going to be a hotel that would detract from the community we built. It would have to enhance the community and it does. I believe it enhances the community by a lot. To that extent, it continues to meet expectations. I'd be a fool to say economically it hasn't exceeded expectations. I never thought about how much money it could or should make. Our partners were the ones that said it should do this and it exceeded what they said it should do. I never really had economic expectations. I was driven by building a place out here that we could all be proud of. Do I regret my decision to go into the gaming industry? No.

When do you intend to announce who will operate the master-planned casino in Aliante in North Las Vegas?

As soon as we know. We don't know yet. There are a number of people who are very interested in partnering with us out there. We have a very good relationship with our partner in the Green Valley Ranch Station Casino. We have good relationships with a number of people, most casino operators in this town. It's no secret that Aliante has a fabulous site for gaming but we're just not there yet.

We've discussed your publishing, television, Internet and real estate endeavors but not your movie involvements. Your movie credits include producing the 2003 flick National Lampoon's Gold Diggers and acting as a reporter in the 1998 film Elvis and Me. Are we likely to see your name on sets in the future?

The simple answer, I'm a little bit old to look forward to a movie career. The good news about Elvis and Me is I had a brother-in-law who was directing the movie so it was easy to get in there. I was actually very good at it. In terms of National Lampoon's, my daughter is a budding producer and I think she gets me into these things willingly. Hopefully that will be the least of the successes that my daughter will have in her movie career and if it means that I have to extend my acting career, well heck, why not?

You and your family are one of the largest donors at UNLV. Why is education a high priority in your philanthropy?

We grew up that way. My parents were huge proponents of education. You cannot grow a quality community unless it's educated. Given the kind of industry that is the No. 1 industry in Las Vegas, there is a conflict. There is a constant conflict between hiring people who go for these pretty good paying jobs that don't require a lot of education and then the people say I will educate myself later. Then there's the rest of the community that requires the better things of life and in life, which demands education. You have this constant conflict. The only way to resolve that is through education. We can't continue to be a blue-collar service town with highly educated aspirations.

People like culture. They like art. They like movies. They like plays. They like libraries. They like those finer things in life that have never been a priority because people frankly have been working too hard, trying to build this community. Those people who have done well in this community have a responsibility to give back in the best way they can. The best way in my mind is through education.

What do you want your family's legacy to be?

I'm not so sure it's what I want it to be. We all are very clear that the legacy we require it to be -- through our actions -- is the same one that my father had. He came to a town that provided him incredible opportunity to spread his wings, to grow, to be as good as he could be, which is the same opportunity it provides anybody who comes here. We are just continuing what we believe is his legacy: That this town grow responsibly, that people who come here looking for first chances or second chances have that opportunity without being shut out by powerful forces who prefer the status quo, that we grow in a manner that continues to make us the envy of the rest of the country.

You were on the governor's 2003 tax task force and favored a gross receipts tax to broaden the state's tax base. Nevada's economy has improved since then. Does the state's gaming and sales tax-driven tax base remain an issue?

It's always going to be an issue. Constitutionally, Nevada is prohibited from assessing an income tax, which is probably the fairest way to tax people. They did that because for a long time gaming taxes were doing well and sales taxes were doing well. You lay 30 percent or so on the tourists and as long as tourism is good, there's not an issue. You have a 9/11, tourism goes away and look what happened. The state went on its behind. You have a growing population with all these demands for services -- education being the major one -- and you have kids who don't even have schoolbooks. You have a state Legislature and a governor throwing up their hands saying, "Gosh, we don't have any money, what are we going to do?"

It becomes very evident -- certainly what we learned on the tax commission -- that those are probably the two most unstable taxes you can have. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have them. It just means that there are a whole lot of people who have moved to Las Vegas who are doing quite well, who are "undertaxed." They are not contributing to the payment of government services in this community. I grew up in this town when gaming handled 60 (percent) or 70 percent of all the needs of this state. It was marvelous but all of the sudden the state became six times larger. There comes a time when even gaming can't handle that. Gaming should always pay a lion's share, but so should I and so should you and so should the guy down the street who's basically getting this great life for nothing. But for all of us to really believe we're in it together, we've got to hel p pay it together. Everybody does well when times are good. It's when times are bad that you find out what you're made of.

You have been a strong critic of the federal government's plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Do you think businesses have done as much as they need to?

No. I think a number of people have. The businesses have their heads in the sand. This thing is not over, not by a long shot. It's been wounded, but as you've seen in the past when the federal government looks mortally wounded they come back with a little different iteration and they sneak up behind you and it's over before you know it. Businesses here, it's the same attitude about taxes: let the other guy pay for it. A lot of people come here to do well, and I'm glad that they're doing well, but they don't think three years and five years and 10 years down the road. They think next quarter and next year and that's about it.

If they thought about Yucca Mountain and what it might mean, what one accident -- and we know there will be an accident -- we don't know whether it will be here or in Chicago or in Salt Lake City, but we know there will be an accident. If there were one accident in this town, on I-15 behind one of those hotels, with a spill, the headlines in every newspaper in the world will be high-level radioactive spill shuts down Las Vegas and the prophecy will come true, whether it's for three months, six months, two years, who knows. But as a tourist, are you going to come to Las Vegas to visit high-level waste? They did everything they could to get rid of it, they're not going to come visit it. That's what these businesspeople aren't thinking about. They don't want to think about it because it requires action on their part. It may require a little more money, a litt le more of their time, a little more of their energy. They're just assuming that our politicians are taking care of it. Our politicians, some of them are trying and some of them aren't.

Do you see the family's business interests expanding beyond Las Vegas or even Nevada?

My father told me a long time ago -- he was always good about telling stories and half the time I only remember the punch line -- but the punch line was basically keep your knitting close to home. Do what you do best and do it where you know how to do it. I have learned a few times venturing out to other states to do, let's say, real estate for example, you find out that you don't know as much in another city. We never did well. We just ventured out into Arizona. We just made a major purchase of some land in southern Arizona and we think we've figured out how to do it the right way. It makes some sense to diversify your interests -- your economic interests -- just from a prudence standpoint, but I can't imagine that we will ever as a family have business interests to any major extent outside of Las Vegas. We love it here.