Board of Directors
& Program Advisors
Our Board of Directors and Program Advisory Board is made up of dedicated and passionate elders, teachers, mentors, youth, and community leaders from around the nation. Each volunteers their time as necessary.
We wish to thank Theresa Two Bulls for all of her work over the years in helping to develop and shape these programs. We will carry your work forward. Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ.
Dr. Yvette Running Horse Collin
Board of Directors
Executive Director
In January 2023, Dr. Yvette Running Horse Collin completed her post-doctoral work in ancient horse genomics as a Marie Skłodoska Curie Fellow at the the Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse in Toulouse, France. In May 2017, she received her doctorate in Indigenous Studies from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she graduated with Honors (Phi Kappa Phi and Golden Key). Her research in Alaska focused on the historical, cultural and spiritual relationship between the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and the horse. Dr. Running Horse Collin considers her almost two decades of work with traditional knowledge keepers to be among her most precious educational and life-changing opportunities. Dr. Running Horse Collin is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST).
Dr. Running Horse Collin is an award-winning journalist, and has held various executive positions at non-profit institutions around the United States. She has advised state, federal and Fortune 100 organizations on Native American policy. She lectures extensively throughout the United States and internationally on her people’s traditions and history surrounding the horse at academic and Native leadership conferences such as the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education (WIPCE), the Canadian Indigenous/Native Studies Association (CINSA), the Alaska Native Studies Conference, and Standing Rock Sioux Nation’s Prophecy of the Grandfather’s Conference. Dr. Running Horse Collin received her B.A. from The Johns Hopkins University (Writing Seminars), and a Joint M.A. from New York University (Journalism and Latin American Caribbean Studies.) She practices the traditional ways of her Ancestors and is a wife, mother, and grandmother.
Sean Collin
Board of Directors
Secretary
Sean Collin has spent 32 years in the field of global law and management. He is admitted to practice law in three countries, and he has lectured at universities, institutes, and/or professional seminars in more than 20 countries. He has worked on matters in over 70 countries. Sean holds an economics and law degree (with honors) from Otago University in New Zealand, and an LLM (with distinction) from Georgetown University.
Sean is Vice President of Product & IP for Elastic NV, a publicly traded software company headquartered in Silicon Valley. He is the recipient of multiple awards and recognitions for his work in the field and is a frequent speaker at international professional conferences. Sean has served on the board of and aided numerous non-profit organizations, both within the United States and internationally, for decades. He has been an accredited United Nations NGO Representative in Geneva and New York. He descends from Native American Indian ancestors both paternally and maternally, from 11 different Tribes in what is now known as the United States and Canada, and practices the traditional ways of his ancestors.
Tom Cook
Board of Directors
Board Member
Tom Kanatakeniate Cook was born on the Akwesasne Mohawk reservation in Upstate New York and graduated from the City University with a BA in Anthropology and Sociology. He then became a news reporter and traveled to Pine Ridge during the 1973 Wounded Knee Occupation. At that time he met his wife Loretta Afraid of Bear. Tom is fluent in Lakota, and together with his wife they have lived with and served the Lakota people for more than 30 years.
Tom is a tireless social activist who involves himself in multiple projects and organizations. He is a Field Coordinator for Running Strong for American Indian Youth, an organization started by Oglala Lakota Olympian Billy Mills. Tom oversees the Slim Butte Land Use Association where he has worked to develop sustainable housing projects that involve the community using local, sustainable resources. He also directs a successful agricultural development project overseeing hundreds of community-based gardens on the reservation, which promote nutritional education and self-reliance to the youth of Pine Ridge. Tom is a ceremonial leader who travels the world sharing spiritual and traditional ecological knowledge.
We are honored to have Tom Cook as a Board Member.
Jim Stephens
Board of Directors
Board Member
Jim Stephens is of European and Choctaw descent. He has a strong background in economic development, and a broad range of experience in commercial real estate marketing and management. His career and experience in these fields span more than four decades. He has a degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of Texas at Arlington, and a degree in Business Administration from Texas Christian University. Jim serves on a number of boards and councils, including the Oklahoma Heritage Horse Sanctuary and the Southwest Spanish Mustang Association. He is also the owner and founder of Chahta Isuba Ranch and the Hungry Horse Café, both of which were founded to help to ensure the long term survival of the horses of Pushmataha County, Oklahoma, and to educate the public as to their historical and cultural significance.
We are honored to have Jim Stephens as a Board Member.
Program Advisors
Loretta Afraid of
Bear - Cook
Spiritual & Cultural
Advisor
Loretta Afraid-of-Bear is the faith-keeper and holder of the Afraid of Bear/ American Horse Sundance Pipe. Fluent in Lakota, she serves as a Cultural Specialist for her people. She is a dedicated wife, mother, and grandmother. Loretta carries an enormous mission with respect to the Black Hills: returning its management to the Oceti Sakowin (the Seven Council Fires), also known as the Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota Peoples.
Loretta has the following consensus from her Peoples: "The Black Hills are not for sale. We want all the unseated lands in the Black Hills back, returned to the 9 tribes."
As Loretta states, "Native peoples, First Nations Peoples, are calling for access to their sacred sites. That is what this whole process became for me, was to access sacred sites and to get them back into our hands so that we can share with the world the way that we provide stewardship and guardianship."
Loretta Afraid-of-Bear and her husband, Tom Cook, together with their people, are sponsors of a Sundance ceremony, which takes place at the Wild Horse Sanctuary grounds in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Loretta is a Board Member for Running Strong for American Indian Youth, and the Center for Sacred Studies. She and her husband Tom also enable food security and help to put in hundreds of gardens across Pine Ridge Reservation, alone, each year. Loretta's late mother, Beatrice Long Visitor, held a seat on the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. Serving as her translator and helper, Loretta accompanied her mother around the world for many years to share her People's traditions, and she continues to teach and share her culture with people around the globe.
We are honored to have Loretta as our Spiritual and Cultural Advisor.
Jackie Córdova
Youth Program Coordinator & Media Specialist
We are proud to have Jackie Córdova as our Youth Program Coordinator and Media Specialist. Jackie is of Pueblo, Ute, Guatemalan and Swedish decent. She is an exceptional leader who is passionate about multi-cultural community building, youth empowerment, and Indigenous sovereignty. Her photography, graphic design, social media, and film making skills help bring our programs to life for those interested in following our work.
Jackie currently runs her own business, Northern Vision Productions, which is a full-service Media & Marketing company that focuses on uplifting Indigenous narratives and curating meaningful content for individuals, communities, and companies. She serves as the Community and Partnership Program Director for Sacred Way Sanctuary in Florence, Alabama, and is a Founding Member/ Mentor of the International Indigenous Youth Council (IIYC), founded during the NoDAPL movement to protect the water of the Missouri River in 2016.
Jackie utilized her Media, Communications and Youth Leadership skills during her time with Metta Theatre where she helped establish an in-treatment program for multi-cultural youth that brought arts into Juvenile Detention centers throughout Taos and Albuquerque, New Mexico. She also worked to helped run a substance abuse prevention program called Taos Alive, that focused on providing resources and creating safe atmospheres for youth to delve into the root of substance use in a secure and supportive way. She has a degree in Marketing and Communications from Columbia College Chicago, where she was a recipient of the Daniels Fund Scholarship, is currently pursuing her MA in Indigenous Studies from the University of Fairbanks Alaska, and lives with her Horse Nation family and traditional Diné "Churro" sheep in Tennessee.
© 2023 Sacred Healing Circle