Jenny DesVaux Oakes

Assistant Vice President
Public & Community Relations
Sierra Health Services, Inc.
P.O. Box 15645
Las Vegas, NV 89114
(702) 242-7155

Jenny DesVaux Oakes is Assistant Vice President, responsible for public and community relations for Sierra Health Services, Inc. She initiates/coordinates public relations activities, projects, programs that support the company’s marketing strategies and commitment to community. She serves as liaison between Sierra and the civic, service, governmental, business community and the media.  Prior to joining Sierra, she served for six years as chief of staff of the Southern Nevada office for Governor Richard Bryan and as his congressional representative during his first year in the U. S. Senate.

She is past chairman of the Leadership Council of United Way of Southern Nevada’s Success by 6 initiative that strives to prepare children in “at risk” neighborhoods to be ready to learn/succeed when they enter school.  She presently serves as chairman of the College of Southern Nevada Foundation Board of Trustees and is immediate past Chairman of the advisory board of the Clark County School District Partnership Program and the Volunteer Center of Southern Nevada Advisory Board.  A former member of the board of directors of KNPR Public Radio and the Sun Camp Fund, she presently serves as Vice Chair of the board of the Southern Nevada Area Health Education Center.  Jenny is past president of the Corporate Volunteer Council of Southern Nevada, Women’s Democratic Club of Clark County, served for eight years on the board of trustees of the LV Chamber and presently is a member of the Prospectors and the Board of Advisors for the Chamber. 

DesVaux Oakes  was a 1997 inductee into the Clark County School District’s “Excellence in Education” Hall of Fame and in 2003 was awarded an honorary associate of Arts and Humane Letters degree from the Community College of Southern Nevada.  In  2004, she was the recipient of the “Community Service” award for the Women of Distinction Awards sponsored by the Southern Nevada chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners and was honored as one of the “25 Notable Women of Southern Nevada” by Distinguished Publishing.  As part of the 2005 Las Vegas Centennial Celebration, she was named one of the “200 Women Who Helped to Shape Las Vegas”. She was the 2005 recipient of the James Cashman III “Community Leader” award and in 2007 received a distinguished service award from the Clark County School Board of Trustees and the Sun Camp Fund. 

Jenny DesVaux Oakes was born in Columbia, S.C., and received her education in Nashville, Tennessee. A Southern Nevadan since 1961, she is the mother/stepmother of five grown children.