This is a transcript of Human Up Podcast Season 2, Episode 12 with Steve Pieri which you can watch and listen to here:
Dave Marlon: Welcome to the Human Up Podcast. I'm your guest host, Dave Marlon, and it's an honor today to have I'm gonna say my brother, Steve Pieri here. Welcome, Steve.
Steve Pieri: Thank you, Dave. Thank you.
Dave: Steve and I were introduced by a mutual friend, Dominic Gentile, less than a year ago. But as soon as I met Steve, and as Dominic assured me, Steve is a very special guy. I was immediately intrigued that you've been an established guy, a father, a local Las Vegan who has a really established restoration company.
But on your own, you chose to fly to disasters around the country and help out. Ca can you tell me about one or two of those and what inspired that?
Steve: Sure. Originally it was because my business partner had wanted to go to Texas during Hurricane Harvey. And we were really looking out there to do some things like high speed, kind of cool guy search and recovery, you know, rescue people, do things like that. By the time we got our collective stuff together, that phase of the operation had passed and we were talking, and I said, Look, really what they need now is what we do. They need restoration work. They've had flooding, they've had wind blown rain, they've got the type of work that we do. So we ended up going out there and bringing our tools. We linked up with Samaritan's Purse, long story how that happened, but ended up linking up with Samaritan's Purse and volunteering. And that kind of sparked a fire to help others. Just that feeling of being there in people's darkest moments in their biggest time of need. You know, if your house floods here in Las Vegas, you turn to your neighbor, you get some food, you go down the street, you go to a restaurant, but when the whole community has been devastated, there's nowhere to turn.
There are no neighbors. The neighbors are in the same situation you are. The restaurants are closed. so being able to be that bright light for them and and that that that helping hand was just it was very it's almost intoxicating, Dave, to to to to come up with the word. Like you get a lot out of it. You know, people always thank you for doing it. And I'm I feel bad receiving a thank you because I'm like, I get so much out of this by helping others, and that led to North Carolina and more hurricanes and more disasters and back to Texas for the floods last year. So it just inspired me to really do everything I can to help people in their darkest moments. Which
Dave: Which made the the connection between you and I serendipitous because
Steve: Absolutely.
Dave: You recognize that while you're scurrying all around the country to natural disasters to help people, that there're thousands of people in Las Vegas who are dealing with a disaster of their own, which is their own life. And what was it like when you first came to Vegas stronger?
Steve: Ooh, eye-opening. If you'd have told me, hey, your passion for helping others is gonna lead you to dealing with the homeless community and and and and and and and and and and you know, addicts and mental illness and the stuff in Las Vegas, I wouldn't have connected those dots that easily. But once I came in and really just spent some time in the building, Dave, I'm gonna give you some kudos here. You know, watching movies is what inspired me, if I'm being honest. Watching you operate behind the scenes.
Not the guy in front of the camera, because when we first met you were running for political office, if you remember. And it's not not to say it's a different person. I don't mean to say that at all. It's just a different vibe, right? Seeing you behind the curtain, seeing how you operate and getting an understanding of what really makes you click and what inspires you has inspired me. Seeing the real work being done, and then obviously, talking to Natalie and the outcomes reports and seeing the results firsthand. I think the biggest thing for me was graduation.
We've talked about that, hearing the stories, seeing the impact Vegas really has. Once I kinda hung around for a month or so, I was in. It's you, we're there, there's a lot of good being done here.
Dave: And I am so glad that you are in. And like I said, I feel like you're my brother already. I I I feel I, a real honest bond with you. And I'm so grateful you're here. You've already started reframing. What I do is, I tell people I run a clinic for the homeless. You reframe that a little bit. Do you know how you reframed it?
Steve: With a little help from Julie, she was just working on some messaging and I said, I I like that. And I've often said, helping raise money for sick kids is probably a lot easier than, for the homeless community. So we wanted to present it a little bit differently. And I think that Vegas Stronger, what we really are here is a is a community impact organization that is focused on
The symptoms and root causes that lead people to be homeless. And I think that that's the magic here is we're dealing with what led them to be homeless in the first place. It's not, hey, you're homeless, here's a house, let's put you in it. We've solved the problem. That does not solve the problem at all. Maybe temporarily. One hundred percent or exacerbates it. It makes it worse. so seeing the work that gets done here and seeing how the clinicians and the case managers address the root causes and the symptoms that led them to the streets in the first place, that's that's the secret sauce in Vegas Stronger, I think. And what really matters is what really makes it successful.
Dave: Part of the reason that you are such an amazing part of Vegas Stronger already is that you're a Gorman kid. You're a Gorman dad. You're a UNLV graduate. You were born and raised in the city. you are in Las Vegas. How was growing up here and how did that, how did this city shape you?
Steve: So I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna add Gorman to that mix and how Gorman helped to shape me as well because the city started to shape me in one way and then the roots at Bishop Gorman really helped open my eyes to a whole nother way. Right. I grew up where I grew up, I grew up when my parents were divorced, my dad was on Flamingo and Mountain Vista, my mom was on Tropanella, so we weren't far apart. But but being down there, a lot of my friends weren't going into great places. So a lot of people around me were going to jail. A lot of people around me were doing drugs and using at a young age and getting into gang activity and stuff that I knew I didn't want to be a part of because of my upbringing. You know, my family was very strict and you know, as you know Dave being an Italian in an Italian family you can't get away with much if dad's paying attention. But but the city kind of shaped me into a a high paced. I go to other towns and and and I see the way even where some of my family is, and I'm like, man, I could take this for a couple of days, but what do you do here? What do you do for fun? it's just I think the city's just really paced me or got me to the place where high paced, high energy, high speed environments is what I'm used to. and then being grounded through Bishop Gorman really helped me stay on the tracks a little bit. A lot of our friends went off the rails here in Vegas. It's easy to do. There's a lot of access here that you don't have in other cities. That's something I really noticed when people would visit, they're like they just thought Vegas was crazy and wild. And it is, but there's a great community here too. And you don't have to be a part of all that madness.
Dave: Tell me a little bit more about Gorman and what that influence was.
Steve: Well, definitely, definitely a Catholic influence. and I think I think, being at Gorman, and being around so I had a lot of friends that went to Chaparral, I had a lot of friends that went to basic because that's where I was zoned for, depending on which parents' house I was at at the time. and I saw the direction that those kids were going. and where they did go, right? Some of them did fine, but a lot of them ended up going in another direction. Gorman, I think, with the the values and traditions that are rooted in Catholicism and just, you know, the parents or a little stricter probably. It's why they're sending their kids to that type of an institution. So I think just having the support network around me really helped keep me in line. Kind of similar to Vegas Stronger, right? The support network here is what keeps the clients, you know, on the straight and narrow. And that's what Gorman did for me as well. not to say that there weren't friends there that, you know, took another turn, but the school really helped keep you in line. The counselors were very involved, teachers were very involved. If you fell behind in things, you had to come in for meetings and have conversations about So I I I I feel that the faith mixed in with just the structure, is what made a big difference for me there. And it opened my eyes to a whole nother part of life. Like again, Dave, I grew up on Tropinellis. Kids didn't drive BMWs and Porsches and things like that in my neighborhood. And then all of a sudden I go to the school and kids are driving cars like that. I'm like, wow, what did their parents do? Like it is, it opened your eyes to a whole another part of life.
Dave: Thank you. Very well put. So the faith, the Catholicism, the level of engagement, and and and this is an argument I've had with my children many times. As you know, my kids are 25 and 24, and they had lots of kids telling them, you know, college doesn't make sense. That's an old guy thing. You don't need college. And what I always said is like, well, let's do this. You know, let's chart happiness success, service, income of people who go to college and then people who don't go to college. And there's a giant chasm between those two in life. And I believe the same is the case for people who go to Gorman versus people who go to basic. So w w when when you're put around people who are striving to be better, It is r it raises that tide raises all boats.
Steve: Hundred percent. A hundred percent, David. You could I y you you took the words out of my mouth. Absolutely. The environment around you and seeing people elevate makes you want to elevate.
Dave: And and and to me, to go back to big is wrong or you know, we're a recovery-oriented system of care. And some people call me archaic, but or or old school. But to to me, the fact that we believe recovery is a hundred percent abstinence from all mind-altering substances that we don't have to waver over, you know, smoking weed or or or maybe you know, taking a Xanax or
Or, my problem was meth, so maybe I could use some fentanyl. It just takes it off the equation. And the whole environment here is a recovery-oriented system of care where we're helping our clients get to 100% real abstinence. And this environment helps all of our clients elevate to that.
Steve: And I love that you're considered old school Dave. Old school works. Old school works, man.
Dave: Especially for two Pisans like you and me, who both happen to have Sicilian roots.
Steve: Absolutely.
Dave: t tell me how family plays in right and loyalty, how does that play into your heritage?
Steve: the loyalty part and the heritage, you that's strong, right? so hard work ethic, you know. My grandparents were immigrants when they came over, and worked hard. My grandfather was a tailor. Anytime I could I picture him, I picture him, you know, doing his work. My other grandfather, my father's dad, big big reader, you know, big reader. Always wanted, you know, family dinners, sit around, talk about your day, you know, tell me about what you did today, tell me about your week.
How are you? These questions were always asked. So they were getting that engagement constantly. and you know, looking back, they were checking in, right? Ask the questions, dig a little bit, see what you said, get a reaction. But I think that you know, the loyalty and family values around being Italian, especially Sicilian, are very, very deep rooted. you keep things close. and you know, my fondest memories are dinners with my grandparents, my parents, and just, you know, family time.
Dave: Same. Same. My grandfather used to take us out to dinner at a restaurant every month or two. And we and we'd all go. And I knew my grandfather was a big and important man in the community. But seeing that this man would watch me at seven, eight, nine years old, he'd watch me eat, and I'd be like, I don't understand this, but me eating somehow was making that guy happy and and and and feeling that you know doing the right thing, I knew it made them proud and made them happy. so loyalty, hard work, family. Now you've been in Vegas your whole life. You even work with some famous people. Did you work for Tony Spilotro at one point?
Steve: Did, I did. I would never use his nickname like that because you wouldn't like that. But no, I did. My father and him were good friends and you know a lot of my dad's friends were friends with Tony and I worked for him fourteen and fifteen years old, I believe I was. I worked at the old food factory. He had an old burger and rib joint on Twain and Swenson, you know, great neighborhoods over there. But but yeah, I used to work for him flipping burgers and making ribs and
Yeah, I worked in a restaurant. It was great. Good times.
Dave: Do you have any old stories from that time?
Steve: Yeah. So there's a couple. There's a few stories. one one that I think that I've told you before that you liked, but so I was working graveyard one night. Is this you wanna tell the story? Is this a good story to tell? It's a great story. So we're working graveyard one night and I didn't know anything about what a whip was. And for those of you that are listening to the show or watching the show, a whip it is you know, you take that little CO two cartridge from a whipped cream can.
Dave: Nitro zone.
Steve: Nitrous oxide. And you could either suck the the gas out of the can or you could buy those little things and zap them. But some of the kids had discovered that there were two fresh cases of whipped cream in the freezer or in the cooler, and they were going in there and doing whippets. So a couple of days later, Anthony was in the restaurant. He was going crazy talking to the manager about wanting a refund.
On this bad whipped cream that he had been sold. And he was demanding, you call the rep, get a refund. It was Anderson's dairy. If you've been in Vegas for a long time, everybody knows Anderson's. And the general manager's right,
Dave: German mafia and Italian mafia.
Steve: That's right. So he's like, I don't know if we're gonna get this. So he's looking at him and you could tell he's struggling. He wants to tell him, and he finally comes out with it. He goes, Anthony, he goes, I think the whipped cream was fine. He goes, It was great a couple days ago. He goes, I think the kids in the graveyard are doing whippets. Well, he didn't know what a whip it was either.
Starts going crazy. What the hell's a whip? What do you mean? These kids are using it while they are at work, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he turns and he sees me on the grill and he's like, You were working graveyard two nights ago. I go, yes. He's like, come with me. So he brings me into the cooler, into the freezer, basically the walk-in refrigerator. I go in first. He opens the door for me to go in. I go in. So now I'm at the back of the freezer and he shuts the door and he's blocking the exit. it's me in the back, him, and then the door.
And he starts grilling me on what happened to these whippets or to this whipped cream. And he wants to know who did it. He wants to know who was involved, how many, you know, how many of the guys were doing, blah, blah, blah, blah. I wouldn't say a word. Like me, I didn't want to say anything. Of course, I knew who was involved in that because I was there that night. I didn't partake, thank goodness. But he didn't say anything. And he was visibly really upset. I mean, he had never yelled at me, he was yelling at me and pointing his finger at me and trying to intimidate me the best he could. And it was working. I was terrified.
and I don't know how many people have ever gotten locked in a refrigerator with him and walked out of it. But I was able to walk out of it that day. And I get you know, I called home to my mom. This is, you know, 80s, right? So that we don't have cell phones and things. And my mom's like, You need to go to your father's house right away. I don't know what's going on, but your father wants to see you. So I raced to my dad's house. I sit down and he does the same thing. He brings me in a room, shuts the door behind him, must be an Italian thing, right? Locks the door, sits me in a chair, and he starts grilling me about what happened.
And I'm looking in my father's eyes and he's like, Do you know who did it? And Dave, I don't know if you've had this experience with your dad, but I'm looking at him and I don't want to tell him the answer. But it's my father and I can't lie to him. I'm like, Dad, I go, here's the deal. I said, Yes, I'm not gonna lie to you. I know who did it, but I'm not going to say. And he grilled me for a couple more minutes and then he smiled and he looked at me, he goes, I just want you to know, he goes, Anthony's furious, but he loves that you won't rat.
Dave: Yeah.
Steve: He loved the fact that I wouldn't be as mad as he was. He respected and loved the fact that I wouldn't tell him. That's
Dave: That's amazing.
Steve: I'm locked in the freezer.
Dave: So you were locked in a freezer in Tony the ant spilator and he locked and pointed to your chest. At 16. That's so cool. You know, and to me, it's part of what made Vegas special, you know, back in the time. And I and I hear more often than not that we like to vilify those times, but there was actually some order and some good things about those times as well that we all acknowledge.
Steve: Right. They kept things in order. They had their way, right? But these things were controlled a little better.
Dave: Now you are a dad and you have kids of your own right now. It's from my experience, you spent a lot of time with your kids.
Steve: My favorite thing in life.
Dave: What has being a dad taught you?
Steve: A lot. patience, temperament for sure. not every I think unconditional. That's something that I'm not sure that I had really experienced before my kids. And it's just it's an overwhelmingly powerful thing. I mean, I don't know what they could ever do to make me, they could never do anything to make me turn my back on them. I mean just it's just I guess that my biggest take was unconditional love and that absolute joy in your children.
Dave: Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. Now you're running a restoration company, you're running development for Vegas Stronger, and you're an active dad, helping two kids get through life. How do you balance those three things and keep your sanity?
Steve: It's not easy. a great team. So at work at Immaculate, we have a really, really great support team and a great network. We've just promoted one of our long term employees to take over operations, which really just happened. We're in that transition right now. It happened about 60 days ago. But that move has actually really helped to r free up some of my time and having great team members around me. I've kind of reduced my role there a little bit as if I've increased my role here.
It's just balancing having great people around me. Same thing here, the development team. I've enlisted the help of a very good friend of ours, Nerman, that's been extremely helpful and just amazing. She'll laugh when she sees it's the technology part. I like I'm I'm technically very challenged. So she's great at that, but just helping to organize and keep things moving for us.
Dave: Yeah, agreed. Her organizational skills. She's also obviously been a corporate vice president. She's the way she addresses things. She's an angel, and I'm so glad that you came as a team.
Steve: Yeah, she's great. She it she she sees things very differently than I do, which is great. We need that. Like even in marketing and messaging and all those things, she gets all of that because of her previous experience and her business, you know, her other business as well.
Dave: In your experience at Vegas Stronger, what has changed you and the way you see homelessness and addiction?
Steve: Man, a lot. So I've always been compassionate. I've always wanted to help. I've always rolled down the window and talked to people that are there panhandling. And I've always given a couple bucks or, you know, in the summertime, I carry a cooler with water in it just for that reason. You know, guys on the corner want to hand them a bottle of water, whatever. I've learned through my time here that a handout necessarily isn't a hand up.
And a lot of the things that I was doing were actually helping people stay more comfortable in the environment that they were currently in. And I think that some of what I do now, like even yesterday, you know, there's a lady on the corner and she came up to the window and I handed her a golden ticket instead of a dollar, you know. And I feel like if she were to take advantage of that golden ticket, and we talked for a moment before the light changed, but if she were to take advantage of that golden ticket, that's a major hand up in life. And if she's ready to walk through that golden door.
It’d be life changing for her. I was just talking to two gentlemen outside a few minutes ago. And the one guy's like a good looking guy. I'm like, blue eyes, the guy looks like he should be a movie star. And he stopped me and he started talking. He's like, Hey, I've seen you around the past couple of weeks, blah, blah, blah, blah. Started telling me a story a little bit. A couple of guys that we pulled out of C C D C and I said, what's your experience here like? They're like, Life changing, like we're showing us a different way. So how it's changed my perspective, I think that, a lot of times I had a friend that showed up at my door homeless. So I already had that compassion piece and some firsthand experience. He taught me a lot about the challenges. And I just had no idea how many challenges there are for these folks. And even being behind the curtain a little bit here, it just seems like the system is not really set up to help people. Vegas Stronger is absolutely set up to help people. I think every city should have a stronger model because it works and there's a lot of programs out there and I know that we partner with a lot of people and I know there's a lot of good work done, but the results that are happening here are real and the people that are coming here are getting the help that they need. And seeing people cross that finish line at graduation, you know, again, I didn't think this was the kind of thing I would really get behind, but hearing the stories and the success stories, and even this morning in our meeting, people being reunited with their families, having time with their children that they've never had, being involved in their kids. Like it's it's very powerful and the work being done here is incredible.
Dave: Speaking of incredible, you are a founder and operator of a company called Immaculate Restoration. Could you tell me how to help restore properties and help people rebuild their lives? How has that changed your experience and taught you about second chances?
Steve: It's a great tie-in because you take a destroyed building, right? This this nasty mess of a building. I'll I'll use North Carolina Hurricane H Helene as an example. First house I walked into, one thirty six Edwards Avenue. great family. I hadn't met them yet, but I walked into what was nine inches of mud throughout their house. Things were hanging on the fixtures because the water level had risen above the roof line. The house was completely submerged underwater.
So you're looking at this disaster. So I'm going back to how we compare it. I'm looking at this absolute disaster of a mess. And you're like, where do you even start? Where do you even begin? How can this be beautiful again? But you start with the hard work. You break out the shovels, you start scraping out the mud. It's like a guy walking through the golden door at intake. You start asking questions. You start finding out what's going on. And you realize as you peel the layers back to this ugly building, there's some real beauty underneath here. It's just been hidden for a while, or or maybe not a while. It's just, it's gotten messy. And as you start to rebuild that house, it's very similar to what we're doing here in rebuilding someone's life and putting them on the path back to believing that there could be a different way for them. Right. You take this, I don't want to use the word ugly, right? You take this mess of a building or this mess of a current life situation and you restore it by doing the hard work.
And doing the little steps a little bit at a time. But if you stay on the course and you keep swinging the hammer and you keep showing up for therapy, eventually you have a beautiful building and you have a beautiful person with a new life. So I think it's very similar. Restoring lives, restoring houses, taking something that somebody thinks, hey, that's not that's not worth putting anything into, and all of a sudden you do the hard work on it and you've got something beautiful there at the end.
Dave: That was very well put. Great culmination of this discussion. Now I started this podcast over a year ago and I call it humin' up. And I'm gonna put you on the spot here and ask you, what does humin' up mean to Steve Pieri?
Steve: Human up. to human up, I think well, part of that when I first hear that is hey, as a human being, sometimes we're looking at it at people that we eventually become our clients. You know, people in the streets, you don't look at them as human, right? So humaning up is realizing like, hey, I'm a human, that's a human, like be human. Everybody, everybody has hopes and dreams. Like that person had hopes and dreams and compassion and desires at one point, somewhere something got turned. But to human up, I think, is to realize that we're all humans to take care of each other. And then the other part of me is when I hear you say human up, it's it it reminds me of Nike, just do it. Like I think that's one of the greatest slogans in the world because there's a lot of things we don't want to do. Right. There's a lot of times you don't want to do it. Like you might, whether you're a mountain climber or just a guy trying to put on his boots to go to work at the union today, sometimes you just don't want to do it. But that slogan, just do it.
Just do it. Do it anyway. Right. And that's human up. Hey man, human up. Show up, be a good human, be a good person, and do what you can for others. That's to me, that's human up.
Dave: That is so beautiful. And I'm gonna say you're spot on. My name's Dave Marlon. This has been the Humin Up Podcast with my brother, Steve Pieri. Steve, thanks for being on here. This is an absolute
Steve: Thanks for having me, Dave.
Dave: pleasure.
Steve: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.