St. John's New Gaming Queen

Gaming is exploding, with casino permits appearing faster than you can say "Craps!" (Or whatever you say in that game. We never could follow.) St. John Properties has named Tina Berzins to lead its new gaming division, and she'd like to add two to three casinos to its portfolio within five years.

Tina, who has risen from office manager to partner in just 11 years, went to Owings Mills High School and grew up in Reisterstown, where her parents still live. (Above, she's snapped in '07 with her dad, Herman, who immigrated from Switzerland when he was 29 and still runs commercial contracting company Herman’s Rigging.) Tina went to the University of Baltimore on a full academic ride, earning a bachelor’s in jurisprudence (even more impressive considering most college students have absolutely no prudence at all) and along the way interned for Gov. Parris Glendening.

After school, she traveled the country for seven months for Michael Fox Auctioneers and at 23 signed on as office manager with St. John. A year in, she told Ed St. John (with Tina above in '05 when he was honored at the Juvenile Diabetes Gala at the American Visionary Art Museum) that she’d like to do something closer to her degree. So, St. John made her a contract administrator, and from there, Tina worked her way over and up to director of acquisitions and head of legal.

The company also is willing to take a chance on alternative investments, she tells us hence its acquisition of its first enclosed mall, in Harrisburg, Pa., 18 months ago. And now it plans to expand on its two casino investments: Reserve Casino and Hotel in Central City, Colo. (acquired 2010) and Boomtown Casino and Hotel in Reno (above, 2012). In May, St. John brought management of those properties in house, and now Tina heads a division that oversees 600 employees on the other side of the country. That number will grow as the company buys more casinos.

While her job spans the country, her personal life remains intertwined with Baltimore. She married KLNB’s Brad Berzins seven years ago in a Cinco de Mayo 2007 destination wedding in Charleston, S.C. They'd met on what was each of their first and only blind date after KLNB’s Joe Nolan and one of Tina’s coworkers separately suggested they should meet. The fairy tale has progressed to a house in Lutherville next to Pine Ridge Golf Course and to three kids: 5-year-old Maria, 4-year-old Ella and a 18-month-old Hank.