TRAVERSE CITY - Jeff Livingston has a diverse resume.
A native of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the 43-year-old was raised by his grandparents and moved a lot, attending 11 high schools in Nevada, Kentucky, Ohio and Florida. He eventually earned a general equivalency diploma and joined the Army and became a military policeman.
He had ambitions to become a major-league baseball player and went from the Army to Arizona Western College on a scholarship. A tryout with a minor league club, however, did not go well.
He later got a job with Bally Gaming, installing slot machines.
From there he went to the Holiday Casino in Las Vegas, now Harrah's, where then owner Bill "Wildcat" Morris started him out as a slots foreman. Morris then made Livingston head of all gaming operations at the landmark hotel and casino.
Livingston shifted from job to job, learning the gaming business from all sides including design and installation of slots for a Japanese company.
"One day, I woke up and moved to Fort Lauderdale and joined the North Lauderdale Police Department," he said.
He spent a year there working road patrol and as part of the department's gang unit, but then got a call from his father to come back to Las Vegas and help out with his business that supplied security devices for gaming. That gave Livingston many new contacts in the gaming industry.
A big break came when he got a call from a friend who told him the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibway Indians in Mille Lacs, Minn., needed an executive to oversee the construction of a new hotel in Hinkley and run gaming in two locations. He stayed with the band for a year and a half before joining Harrah's as vice president for operations in Shreveport, La.
There he heard about the Grand Traverse Band's need for a chief executive officer for gaming, entertainment and economic development. He started here on Sept. 10, 2001.
