Empire Resorts CEO keynote

Sullivan County Partnership meeting

FRITZ MAYER
Posted 10/11/17

ROCK HILL, NY — There was a record crowd at the annual meeting of the Sullivan County Partnership on October 5 at the Ramada Rock Hill at Sullivan Center. Many remarks delivered were related to …

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Empire Resorts CEO keynote

Sullivan County Partnership meeting

Posted

ROCK HILL, NY — There was a record crowd at the annual meeting of the Sullivan County Partnership on October 5 at the Ramada Rock Hill at Sullivan Center.

Many remarks delivered were related to anticipation of the spring opening of the Resorts World Catskills Casino. But Marc Baez, president and CEO of the Partnership, said that his organization is also addressing other areas of the economy.

He said, “We have continued our effort to diversify our economy by assisting firms in the specialty manufacturing sector—yes, I said manufacturing: it’s growing in Sullivan County. Aerospace Materials Division has completed their facility in the Glen Wild Industrial Park.” He also said a new specialty metal fabricator business called Sullivan Fabricators, created by the Resnik Group, will open soon.

But the most anticipated development is the opening of the new casino and the more than 2,000 jobs it will provide the region. In anticipating of that, the Partnership is working with other organizations to try to get a third lane added to Route 17 (I-86) from Harriman to Monticello.

The keynote speaker at the event was Ryan Eller, who is the new CEO of Empire Reports, which will own and operate the casino. Eller has a long history in the U.S. Marines and also a history in the gaming industry with the Genting Group, a Malaysian-based organization that was in fact competing with Empire Resorts in trying to get a casino in Orange County.

The CEO and chairman of Genting Group, a man named KT Lim, is now the largest investor in the project, having put up some $400 million of his own money to fund the casino.

Eller told the audience how Lim came by his vast wealth. He said Lim’s father lived in Malaysia near the equator where it was very hot, and he wanted to build something that would be welcomed by the people in the region. Eller said, “His vision [was] to build a resort on top of a mountain, 6,000 feet above that equatorial region,” and because of the elevation, the climate on the mountain is more like that of California than equatorial Malaysia.

He said the project took many years because of the remoteness of the location, and in order to complete it they had to overcome obstacles like “attacks by tigers and rampant disease,” but it was “that unwavering commitment to pursue that one goal that brought us here today.”

He then ticked off some of the attributes of the facility, “a 90,000-square-foot casino floor, over 2,150 slot machines, over 140 tables, one of the larger casinos in the Northeast,” not to mention seven restaurants, entertainment venues, a water park and more.

He finished his remarks by complimenting the 200 or so people who turned out to the meeting.

He said the Marines are the most effective fighting force because they are a “group of people that were united by an ability to work together to a resolute unwavering commitment to a common goal.

“And this group here, your ability to work together to a common goal, to work as a team, to support each other and work in service to a higher cause, is exactly what is needed to accomplish exceptional things.”

rock hill, sullivan county partnership

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