Clueing you in on new player in recall drive

Stephen J. Cloobeck earned a reputation as a successful businessman when he turned Diamond International Resorts into one of world’s top timeshare vacation companies. He left the company in 2016 to pursue other business ventures and remains a major Democratic donor and local philanthropist, once chairing the board of the Nevada Cancer Institute.

Here are seven other things to know about him:

■ He’s longtime friends with former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, one of the most influential politicians in Nevada history, and considers him a mentor.

■ He was the first board chairman of Brand USA, a nonprofit organization created by the Obama administration in 2010 to promote international travel to the United States.

■ He appeared in multiple episodes of the popular television series “Undercover Boss.”

■ He authored the book “Checking In: Hospitality-Driven Thinking, Business, and You,” on how the hospitality industry should take care of its customers.

■ He chaired the Las Vegas Beautification Project, a joint private-public partnership that added landscaping to the Strip in 1996.

■ He considered running for governor in 2018 but never committed. Instead he threw his support and money to fellow Democrat and then-Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak, who went on to win the election.

■ He graduated from Brandeis University with a psychology degree by what he called “the seat of his pants,” only to learn later that he had been struggling with dyslexia.