thea & her things
Thea has spent her career at the intersection of executive-level business strategy and the deeply rooted culture of the American West. The result is both a perspective and a body of work that's genuinely rare and effective.
Her professional foundation was built in rooms where critical decisions get made. As Director of Sponsorship and Promotions for EXPO New Mexico and the New Mexico State Fair, she managed $2M+ in annual sponsorship revenue and led all partnership and promotional production for a premier, eight perf, PRCA rodeo - learning early that the western industry's greatest asset wasn't its budget, it was its community. As General Manager of the Greeley Stampede, a $5M+ event drawing 250,000+ attendees each year, she ran large-scale operations, revenue strategy, and sponsorship programming for a top performing PRCA rodeo. As CEO of United Way of Southwest New Mexico, she led organizational strategy, donor development, and community leadership under board governance, bringing the full weight of strategic experience to a mission-driven organization with high stakes and real accountability.
In 2015, Thea married into a ranching family and moved to the Nebraska Sandhills, where she started a family and a business, and she put her executive acumen to work on her own terms. She founded Cowgirls Over Coffee, a community-based brand serving ranch, rural, and western women, building it from a simple Instagram feed to a multi-platform entity reaching 80,000+ women with a monetized membership and newsletter open rates above 45%. Cowgirls Over Coffee was more than a side hustle, it became the proof of concept for everything she believed about community, identity, and that when people do the work to cultivate integrated infrastructure through a strategic practice of doing, life becomes truly sustainable.
What sets Thea apart is the rare combination of professional and lived experience. She holds dual degrees in Business and Journalism from the University of Idaho and thinks in both stories and spreadsheets. She’s sat in boardrooms and navigated enterprise sponsorship programming. She’s built communities from scratch and watched them become something their members couldn't imagine living without. And she’s done all of it while deeply embedded in the western, ranch and rural culture of the community she serves.
Thea founded and hosted Cowgirls Over Coffee from 2020 to 2026, building the frameworks and conversations that help women navigate competing demands without burning out. In November of 2026 she sold Cowgirls Over Coffee to create more space to focus on her unique application of an executive approach to the daily objectives of motherhood, home and ranch management. To that end, Thea’s work continues through her podcast, planning tools, and the conversations she has with people across the western industry bringing the deliberate craft of an executive to women running the business side of the family ranch.
Thea lives on a working cattle ranch in the Nebraska Sandhills, where she and her husband are in the active, unglamorous, deeply satisfying work of building their cow-calf and performance horse operation, while she runs her own business, and remains unapologetically committed to the work of motherhood and homemaking. She considers homemaking a craft to be practiced with the same strategy, intention, and deliberate consideration she prioritizes in her professional work. The perspective she brings to every project isn't borrowed from research or informed by observation. It comes from a life genuinely and completely immersed in this world.
Interested in working with me? I offer keynotes, workshops and bespoke advisory sessions. Check out the Work With Me page.