Lane Spina
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Lane Spina captures every medal in Freestyle Skiing, then turns to Engineering at UNLV.
After serving 10 years on the United States Freestyle ski team, including 2 Olympic medal winning performances, he chose to enter Engineering school at UNLV to pursue a formal education in technology. The 1988 Silver, 1992 Bronze Olympic medalist, culminated his ski career by winning the 1991 world championships at Lake Placid, NY. When offered an Olympic and US Ski Team scholarship, he packed his skis up and headed for Las Vegas where he still lives today.
After receiving his Mechanical Engineering degree from UNLV, Lane took up doing 3-D solid modeling for the Gaming company Bally Gaming to design and manufacture gaming device, a leading engineering industry in the Las Vegas area. After 3 years with Bally, an opportunity to create a new business offering the first wireless gaming terminal was too much to walk away from. He partnered with two other Bally Engineers to formulate Excel design. After completing the design the partners were able to sell the technology to Online Gaming, a company needing a wireless terminal for their Online gaming system and software. Although Online gaming never caught on in the United States, the experience lead to an opportunity join one of the leaders in the gaming industry during their time of need. WMS Gaming hired Lane on to manage the development of their new CPU-Nxt operating system, which was the major tool to the companies re-emergence. This reemergence was due to a flaw in their previous operating system and was the basis for their comeback. After 2 and 1/2 years the new operating system hit the market in the new Bluebird cabinet designed specifically for the new operating system. Celeste Cooper, Lane's superior then recommended Lane for WMS Employee of the Year, another tittle which Lane now holds.
Since that time Lane has evolved to looking after the entire line of products offered by WMS Gaming while raising two sons. His wife of 16 years, Laura, Enjoys the annual family trips to the very places where Lane used to complete in his ski career. Annual visits to Paris and Park City, where the family spends time with former US Ski Team member Fuzz Fedderesen and his wife LeeAnne, who are raising two children of their own. It seams Lane has come full circle, lending what he has learned and knows to the next generation. As stated by Lane at his last ski trip to Lee Canyon, outside of Las Vegas, "I told the kids that i would meet them at the bottom of the run", then he proceeded to point the skis straight downhill and get in touch with gravity. at the end of the run he was making his last turn before the lift and looked behind him only to find his oldest son following right in his ski tracks. Surprised as he was, he said "is that as fast as you can go"? The response was "nope" by his son Trevor. Kyle the younger son was laughing when he made it down the hill, because he saw the whole thing.
