Meet Lynn Goya

By: Canvas Rebel

We recently connected with Lynn Goya and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lynn, thanks for joining us today. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?
We were a standard middle-class family when 2008 struck and my husband was laid off from his job. We survived from my freelance writing income which was about a quarter of his previous salary. With his job, we also lost our health insurance and in January I was unable to afford our COBRA payment. In February, of course, my son came down with what we thought was bronchitis, but then he was referred to a blood specialist. We were advised to try iron supplements and by the time he was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma, he had gone from very fit 165 pounds to less than 120. When our neighbors and friends found out, they began to raise funds for his treatment. We never asked them, but they took complete responsibility for organizing garage sales, fundraisers and more. I had strangers come up to me to give me $20 “for your son.” We needed the help, but we never had to ask for it. He was able to get his treatment and recover fully. The spontaneous generosity and outpouring of goodwill is still almost overwhelming to contemplate. It was a large part of what got us through such a difficult time and forever sealed my conviction that humanity, at its heart, is good. I will be forever grateful.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I was elected as the Clark County Clerk in 2014 after 30 years working as a freelance and travel writer. I have volunteered since I was young. We moved from San Diego to Clark County in 1993 — one month after finding out I was having a baby. I was a producer for the Outdoor Nevada PBS show where I specialized in family adventures and covering artists. While at KLVX one day I saw a new publication on the table and reached out to the editor to write for them. I was one of the earliest writers for Las Vegas Life. While raising my three kids in Boulder City, I also began covering Las Vegas for regional, national and international publications where I covered the opening of the new casino resorts, restaurants, shows and visual arts. As a volunteer I helped my daughter with Y-Art, an arts contest for Clark County high school students that was judged by local professional artists. I also worked to bring after school programs to enrich middle school children and began a green advocacy group to help preserve the environment for our children. I was a founding board member for Emerge Nevada, an organization training women to run for office. I also went through the program and met a number of wonderful women who were running for or already in office including judges, county elected officials and state elected leaders. When Diana Alba decided to retire, she asked me if I was interested in running for the office of the County Clerk. The Clerk keeps the permanent public records for the county boards of the County Commissioners. In addition, our office oversees all aspects of marriage for Clark County. Clark County issues more destination wedding licenses than any place else in the world. As the Clerk, I improved government transparency by including full transcripts of the board meetings so that the public and the press could more easily understand the decisions the commissioners were making. I have also made reviving the wedding industry a major goal. Couples coming here to get married had slowed over the previous 20 years and it was hurting the 18,000 people who depended upon weddings for their livelihood. In addition, wedding tourism contributes about $3.3 billion per year to the local economy. You can see our initiatives here: https://weddings.vegas/about/

I was determined that we would not lose our status as the Wedding Capital of the World under my watch. I reached out to the local wedding community, the LVCVA, local government and the broader tourism industry to understand our history, our brand, our challenges and our potential. We started the first (and only) wedding chamber in the world. We began to host events, send out press releases, feature destination wedding couples and speak to the local community about the importance of weddings to our history, our brand and our future.

After nearly a decade, I believe we have rebranded our weddings for the next generation, expanded our reach, embraced our local community and shown the planet that we are still the best place in the world to get married.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
One of our first major projects was reaching out to the airport to see if we could partner. Director of Clark County Dept. of Aviation Rosemary Vassiliadis offered to let us put a temporary pop-up marriage license bureau at the airport. We chose to open for two weeks in February as Valentine’s Day is always one of the busiest days of the year for couples. We sent out a press release and were astounded at the response. News of the temporary bureau went around the world and back again, generating over $15 million in publicity and being translated and retranslated into multiple languages. My favorite multiple translation was when the pop-up marriage license bureau office came back to us as a marriage license “shack.” It was the first time I realized the interest and impact of our global brand. People from all over the world love Las Vegas weddings. It drove home the importance of learning more and maintaining this unique industry not just for now but into the future.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
I was unknown when I took office, so I had to introduce myself to a large, existing industry with global reach but that was in decline but didn’t know it yet. When I reached out to people, I had to gain their trust. I also had no idea how to transform a global market that was in need of a major change. The industry had been losing customers for over 20 years and no one had noticed. Insiders assumed that they were losing business to their Las Vegas competition, rather than losing business because fewer people were coming here. I had to uncover what had happened, help create and build a new brand that reflected what current couples were looking for, understand our increasingly competitive market that had grown over the past few decades and develop a plan to maintain our international brand while seeking new clients. This was not a one person job; I needed the industry behind me. Working with them involved first letting them know that it wasn’t just their business that was struggling. I had a degree in economics and a century worth of data, so I began to pull together the people who could help me get a clear picture of where we were.

Then, then I went to the legislature to get a budget needed for me to try to save the industry. Garnering the trust of the industry meant holding numerous focus groups, private meetings, quarterly chapel and officiant meetings and building the team of stakeholder who would agree to work together to save their industry. Many in private business saw each other as competition or had tried to work together but had been unable to make it happen. As an elected government official, I could impartially lead the change. I was not picky about whose idea we implemented as long as it was great, doable, reflective of the image we wanted to present and would garner good press.

I established an annual State of the Wedding Industry event where I could present the year’s achievements, show in real terms where we were and discuss industry trends. We publish our monthly statistics on our website where anyone can see them and publish an annual database of marriage records (minus all personal information) so anyone can download the database to do their own analysis. I am most proud of the relationship with the LVCVA that we now have, working in partnership to achieve a mutual goal. While there is still a lot to be done it is now much easier to see where the road ahead leads and what we need to do to get there.

Contact Info:

Website: https://weddings.vegas
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vegasweddingcapital
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MLICvegas
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynn-marie-goya
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@vegasweddingcapital