Page 34 - BusinessWest May 1, 2023

Robert Carter
Lead Pastor, All Nations Church: Age 39
Arlen Carballo
Executive Director of Finance, MGM Springfield; Age 37
Arlen Carballo’s career in the casino industry provides ample proof that, once someone enters this field, there is no telling where the
business may take them.
Indeed, Carballo, who was born and raised
in Costa Rica and came to this country with her mother when she was in high
school, graduated from the MGM Resorts Management Associate Program in 2008
and, since then, has taken on a variety of roles at several different MGM resorts.
“It’s a very large company, and we have almost every job title under the sun,” she told BusinessWest. “There are
a lot of opportunities ... you just have to take them.”
And she has.
She started at the Bellagio in Las Vegas
as a housekeeping supervisor before shifting her focus to the finance side
of the equation. At Mandalay Bay, also in Law Vegas, she served as executive
housekeeper, responsible for more than 800 employees and 4,000 rooms. During
her time there, she also played a key role in rebranding the hotel to ‘Delano,’ a
project that included the remodeling of 1,000 rooms and successful training of the entire
housekeeping staff.
Later, she was part of the opening team for
MGM National Harbor in Maryland, a $1.68 billion resort and casino located just outside
Washington, D.C. Serving as manager of Financial Planning and Analysis, she managed the pre-opening budget, including payroll schedules. During her time there, she also established the analytical reporting framework for the property, which has become
one of the most profitable regional casinos in the country.
Carballo has been part of the MGM Springfield team since the property opened in 2018, serving as the resort’s first director of Financial Planning.
This is a broad role, in which she serves as a key business partner to all operations and strategic functions, while directly overseeing casino accounting, financial planning and analysis, cage and count operations, warehouse, and purchasing.
She said the casino has faced a number of challenges since opening, especially COVID, but she believes it is “hitting its stride — we’re heading the right direction.”
During her time in Springfield, she has made her mark in several ways. Professionally, she was a recipient of the HACR Young Hispanic Corporate Achievers Award, a program that spotlights young Hispanic professionals in corporate America. Meanwhile, in the community, she is a mentor with Dress for Success and serves on the board
of trustees for American International College, becoming the first Latina to join the board.
—George O’Brien
Robert Carter’s career in IT and robotics has taken him to a number of positions, ranging from 11 years at MassMutual, where he worked his way up to robotics
process automation developer — tech lead, to CVS Health, where he currently leads a team of developers as a robotics process automation consultant.
As an immigrant from Jamaica 17 years ago, he’s gratified by all of that. “My life and journey is multi-faceted. I’m
very proud of what I do in corporate America, being able
to rise up to where I’m leading teams, leading projects that impact many people across the country. I’m proud of those accomplishments.”
But he also has a passion for ministry, and for lifting others up, through his work at All Nations Church, where he transitioned from a congregation member into leadership roles and eventually lead pastor. He oversaw the church’s move to a 20,000-square-foot facility on Leete Street in Springfield when it outgrew its previous, 5,000-square-foot site, while expanding ministry outreach programs.
Committed to life-long learning, Carter is currently working on a doctor of ministry degree at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, with a focus on leadership in a changing church culture. His wife, Rebekah, is All Nations Church’s minister of worship.
Carter has long been community-minded, from his volunteer work on the board of Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center, to his work advising, mentoring, and financially supporting young people and budding entrepreneurs. So it’s natural that his ministry leadership would be similarly outward-looking, not confined to within the church walls.
“I’ve recognized that the church has to be a bit more
involved in the community — not to go out with
a messiah complex, to save the community, but recognizing that we exist within a community and we should engage with the community and be part of that,” he said. “What, specifically, does the 01108 need?”
One issue in the Forest Park neighborhood is food insecurity, so the church has operated a food pantry for the past two decades, distributing close to 400,000 pounds of food. Carter envisions a
time when All Nations might create its own nonprofit, a separate
entity from the church, to tackle
a host of community needs,
from drug use to immigration issues to broken homes.
“It’s a low-income area; we don’t want to deal
with just the symptoms of hunger, but why is there hunger in the neighborhood? What we’re aiming to do is strategically engage with the community and help them where they are.”
—Joseph Bednar
A14 2023
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