New Leader Of Mohegan Tribe Facing Many Challenges

There certainly have been better moments in recent history for Lynn Malerba to take over as the first female tribal chairwoman of the Mohegan tribe.

After a stunning run beginning in 1996, gambling revenues are tanking. There are serious questions about whether Connecticut has had its fill of casinos.

The tribe has a giant resort — Mohegan Sun — that it must fill with gamblers 24 hours a day. Competition now looms over nearly every border for the Mohegans, operators of a billion-dollar operation that employs 10,000 people. The golden goose of gambling remains virtually the only source of income for the 1,800-member tribe.

Rick Green: CT Confidential Blog

Troubling, but if you're a Mohegan with a sense of history, you might not really see it this way.

This is a tribe that was down to a couple of dozen members a century ago. For generations, Mohegans kept their culture alive through a small church in Montville, even as they were forbidden to speak their language and children were shipped off by the state for a Christian upbringing.

Survival is a story that the Mohegans know well.

"Our tribal culture isn't something that I had to learn," Malerba, 56, told me as we sat in one of the tribal offices last week, not far from the gleaming glass towers of Mohegan Sun and a few days after she had replaced Bruce "Two Dogs" Bozsum as tribal chairman. "That's what makes people have confidence in Mohegan."

It is a not-so-subtle reference to the neighboring Mashantucket Pequots, whose tribal chairman was recently placed on involuntary leave as the tribe struggles to pay the massive debt incurred through the development of Foxwoods.

Malerba, who won the most votes in recent Mohegan elections, grew up in a family active in tribal politics. Her mother, Loretta Roberge, spent decades on the Mohegan tribal council and played an important role in the tribe's successful bid for federal recognition. Malerba took over the top job just four years after her election to the council.

She is a descendant of Uncas, an Indian leader still legendary across Indian Country. Revered by Mohegans, Uncas is remembered by European descendants as the "great friend" of Capt. John Mason, who vanquished the Pequots centuries ago.

"There is somewhat of a male stereotype about Indian leaders," Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, director of cultural and community programs for the tribe, explained to me when I called. The Mohegans, she said, have long had a tradition of strong females.

Malerba, who put herself through nursing school years ago, is the latest in a line of Mohegan women who have stepped into the lead at critical moments. Her forebears include native females such as Gladys Tantaquidgeon, the pioneering Indian anthropologist of the 20th century, and Emma Baker, a medicine woman who emerged as a tribal leader in the late 1800s. The last speaker of the Mohegan language was a woman, Fidelia Fielding. She died in 1908.

Long before the 1994 recognition and gambling riches arrived, Malerba spent decades as a nurse at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, where she is still a hospital director. She later ran health care programs for the tribe before being elected to the tribal council. Last year, she earned a master's degree in public policy from the University of Connecticut.

"I am very low-key. I worked my way through school. I'm one of seven children," said Malerba, whose husband works for the tribe as a plumber. They have two adult daughters, including one who works for U.S. Rep. John Larson, a Democrat from the 1st District.

In the past four years, Malerba has made a name for herself by not only reading the stacks of reports and spreadsheets but asking the follow-up questions as well. Although the council sets policy and direction for the billion-dollar casino operation, it's also the local government for the 1,800 cousins that make up the tribe.

"I've always been in critical care," Malerba said, referring to her years as a nurse. "My decisions have to be well-reasoned. We need strong leadership."

No doubt about that. Slot revenues were down 11 percent in August, continuing a recession-long slide. During one recent financial quarter, revenues were down $25 million over the previous year. The casino's shiny hotel towers remain impressive, but so is the $1 billion debt that comes with them.

For years, gambling boosters spoke of an ever-expanding gambling market in the Northeast. Now, even sober Wall Street analysts shake their heads at the rapid reversal of fortune.

"Was a lot of this gaming spending pure bubble spending? We don't know yet. The statistics do not suggest we've necessarily reached the bottom yet," said Keith Foley, a senior vice president with Moody's Investors Services. "The question you have to ask yourself is how do Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun get themselves out of it?"

"What do you do? Diversify? That helps the tribe. That does not help the gaming operation."

Moody's has forecast that the Mohegans, deeply in debt and with "limited financial flexibility," will struggle to "invest further in product quality and quantity, just when it is needed most." Connecticut's casinos "will remain on the defensive," in a struggle to avoid "deep cuts in their current customer base."

Malerba acknowledges these challenges and tells me that the Mohegans will rely on the "level of service" that the casino resort is known for. Experts say it will take far more than this.

"We need to look at new markets that bring in new customers. It won't be more slot machines. We have enough slot machines." Malerba declines to be more specific about what she calls "non-gaming diversification."

The tribe is eager to open a commercial casino in Massachusetts, a state about to again consider gambling. Its successful gambling-at-the-track facility at Pocono Downs in Pennsylvania might add table games. It hopes, with another tribe, to open a casino in the state of Washington.

"Gambling is not recession-proof. We need to broaden our portfolio to protect the tribe," Malerba said. "It's not about making individuals wealthy."

The easy money is gone. The future, although still lined with slot machines and poker chips, must now be about something more than gambling.

Rick Green's column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. Read his blog at courant.com/rick.