Leading Las Vegas: Mayor Carolyn Goodman reflects on leadership during Women’s History Month

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - As we continue to celebrate women’s history month, FOX5 goes one-on-one with a woman who continues to make history in Las Vegas: Mayor Carolyn Goodman.

“Right from the get-go everything was women,” Goodman told FOX5′s Kim Passoth. Goodman explained she was born into a family with two girls and her father was a gynecologist and obstetrician.

“Then I went to a K-12 all-girls school and all-women 4-year college, so I grew up feeling pretty good. I felt, you know I can do anything,” Goodman recalled. Goodman moved with her husband Oscar from Philadelphia to Las Vegas with that mindset.

“Both my husband and I are so fortunate that we choose to move here in 64′. It has been the best life,” Goodman beamed.

While raising her four children, Goodman simultaneously earned a master’s degree in counseling from UNLV.

“I am a firm believer that women can have it all. Men can’t have it all. Women can have children, raise children, and a career, so I go, ‘yes go girls, just do it all,’” Goodman contended.

When her husband, also a 3-term Mayor of Las Vegas, hit turn limits, she was initially reluctant to run.

“I am not interested in political office,” Goodman told FOX5 in 2011.

For her 3rd term, she was elected with more than 80 percent of the vote and sworn in while battling stage 2 breast cancer, but she maintains nothing about being a woman has held her back, it has propelled her.

“Men of today are a little different than they were in my generation growing up but when I go into a meeting that is pretty predominately male… I just love to sit quietly and then wait for the opportunity, but I have to be right in what I am saying, I have to be enthusiastic, and I have to be able to take charge with what I am doing and what I am saying,” Goodman explained.

In 2019, her final term was extended a year due to a state law shifting all municipal elections in off-years to even-numbered years meaning she will get an extra year as the leader of Las Vegas, one more than her husband.

“The best thing is I have 13 years, he only had 12. He said to me a couple of months back, ‘You realize it is a quarter of a century of Goodman?,’ and I said, ‘Wow that is awesome,’” Goodman shared.

FOX5 asked Mayor Goodman about her legacy and what she would like to be remembered for most. Goodman again touted family, not only her own but the family of Las Vegas, a place where diverse people from all over the world come together as one community.

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