On any given day, the spacious conference floors and corridors within the Las Vegas Convention Center are teeming with thousands of attendees – out-of-towners and locals that keep the city’s booming convention industry in business.

What they don’t often see is how these massive convention floors are constructed and organized, and how Lionel makes it happen. Lionel isn’t a person, it’s a “robotic solution” to convention buildout and design, and its reputation among in the convention sector is growing, thanks to UNLV Executive MBA alum Dan Tofigh. 

Dan (Cohort 13) is Business Development Manager with the Las Vegas-based autonomous commercial robotics company August Robotics. Lionel is a “robotic solution providing better accuracy and performance” for the convention and construction industries – two industries that dominate the Las Vegas landscape.

“It’s a floor marking robot, it can move around and mark a convention space or a construction space accurately,” Dan explains. “It helps in a number of ways, but speed and accuracy are the two biggest factors."

“Manually, people are using tape measures and their hands and feet, and that isn’t always accurate. With Lionel, you’re marking out the floor accurately, providing people with the exact space they’re renting out.”

Lionel can solve additional pain points for construction companies, ensuring walls, pillars, pipes, and other materials are set correctly. 

Though he’s an expert at what makes Lionel useful to Las Vegas’s major industries, Dan didn’t start out as a robotics expert. 

“It was a pretty big leap, I was a much more traditional salesperson before,” he says. “My background and education assisted me in getting this position.”

Taking the Leap
Dan has always possessed an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to stay ahead of the game. In 2013, he founded YourParty, a mobile app putting Las Vegas locals and visitors in touch with the city’s myriad of nightlife and entertainment destinations. 

“We were making money, but nothing big enough to justify throwing more money and energy behind it,” Dan recalls. “So I wanted to expand my background in business, because, for as much education that I had gotten, I still wanted to get an understanding of business as a whole.”

The EMBA’s cohort structure also appealed to Dan, as he was able to gain perspective from “other people versus just the curriculum” and see things through the eyes of others, including professionals in the banking, military, and hospitality industries.

After entering the program, Dan took on a new role with Sol-Up, a solar company based in Las Vegas. The experience made him more interested in exploring roles in emerging technologies, and as robotics and artificial intelligence are two of today’s (and tomorrow’s) most dominant fields, he took a shot at applying for a role at August Robotics.

“I really wanted to get my foot in the door so I could have a growth pattern down the road,” Dan says. “August Robotics’s primary business was in conventions, so it gave me a chance to work with a cutting-edge industry.”

No Looking Back
Dan may have felt he was “taking a leap” with his move to August Robotics, but his EMBA experience prepared him in ways beyond what a person can show on a resume.

“I think confidence and being a better-blended individual who can deal with technical people, salespeople, good bosses, bad bosses, I was better prepared for all of that,” he says. “Because of the EMBA, I’m also able to lean on friends and experts in the program."

“For example, I’m not an Excel expert, but I now know people who are. I asked an alum for help and he gave me some tips on how to make [my work] much better.”

The added confidence and understanding of business has given Dan a competitive edge as he works to expand Lionel’s impact in and around Las Vegas. Though it’s still a new business and “we’re still trying to find our footing,” Dan and his team are making tremendous inroads, with Lionel resetting expectations for convention organizers while enhancing Las Vegas’ burgeoning reputation as a hub for tech startups. 

“We have a lot of technologies employed here, from cleaning methods to food delivery systems,” he says. “There are also robotic bartenders and housekeeping solutions."

“For us, my goal is that for any show being done here, at any size or scale – the floor mark out is done with our robot.”