SEVEN TOP MANAGERS ARE LET GO AT MOHEGAN SUN CASINO

Sun cuts jobs for 7 top managers
Streamlining aimed at casino savings

By Brian Hallenbeck Published on 6/18/2009

Mohegan - Mohegan Sun has eliminated the positions of seven top managers, the casino's president and chief executive officer said Wednesday.

Mitchell Etess said the positions were at the director level and above. He declined to identify those let go, either by name or specific title. Six of the managers were informed Tuesday and a seventh was told Wednesday, Etess said.

”It's been a very difficult day here,” he said. “All of these people have contributed greatly to the success of Mohegan Sun over the years.”

Etess said the eliminations came after an eight-month review of the casino's organizational structure, which involved “assessing ways to gain efficiencies among our senior management team.”

”As a result of that process,” he said, “we've eliminated seven positions at the director level and up to senior vice president.”

Directors, he said, typically run a large department, while senior vice presidents run a division. Vice presidents fall in between.

Early this year, amid falling revenues and a grim economic outlook, Mohegan Sun implemented a series of cost-cutting measures, including salary rollbacks for all 9,800 employees, including top management. It avoided layoffs.

At the same time, the Mohegan Tribe, which owns Mohegan Sun, also rolled back the salaries of its tribal-government employees, downsized the government and took other steps to reduce costs.

Etess said the organizational review of the casino's senior management was an in-house process and “something organizations do on a regular basis.”

”It's unfortunate that our business needs required us to streamline our organization,” he said. “As we were looking at costs, it became obvious we were going to have to find ways to save money. We had to look at business trends and at the way we've evolved to see if we had management that could be eliminated.”

The duties of those whose positions were eliminated will be shifted to other departments, Etess said.

"Regional"