Kalle Benallie
ICT
LAS VEGAS — S.R. Tommie is the founder and president of the Redline Media Group, the largest Native American woman-owned advertising agency in the world.
She said when she says it out loud it feels like her mom is hugging her.
“I feel her hugging me so I say it driving down the road by myself just so I can feel her hug because she believed in me like she believed the sun would rise and the moon would come up on us and the stars would sparkle,” the Seminole Tribe of Florida citizen said.
Her mom Minnie Tommie couldn’t read or write until she was in her late 30s when she could write her name. Tommie said she wasn’t business savvy but always told her to appreciate who she was. That’s the advice she gives to other Native entrepreneurs as well as being organized and professional by not relying on other people to deliver what you committed to deliver. To do that is by knowing your product well and assembling a strong, knowledgeable team that can help you achieve that.
This week, like many other Native business leaders, she is in Las Vegas for the annual Reservation Economic Summit, organized by Mesa, Arizona-based National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development.
She was a panelist on the RES Women’s Leadership Panel: Empowering for Generations on Monday.
“I know the things that I do are always going to be reflected back on Indian Country. The responsibility is huge because it’s not just me, it’s not just my tribe, it’s you, it’s your tribe, it’s all of us and I must represent at the highest level. If I don’t do that, I need to get out of the game,” Tommie said.
Tommie saw a need for a Native-owned creative marketing and advertising agency with a focus on developing campaign strategy for brands in 2003. She worked in tribal government for nearly 30 years, working in multiple departments from economic development, social welfare, community development/management, with both the government and business enterprise sectors. She retired as chief of staff to the chairman of the Seminole Tribe of Florida in 2010.
“The brightest shining light for me was working with our elders because I gleaned so much from them. They were so willing and excited to share and I was so willing and excited to learn,” she said.
She said she gained from them the importance of learning, understanding, empathy and helping others. As well as storytelling the story of the Seminole people and how they got to where they are.
“That teaching inspired me to grow and to be as strong as the oak tree, knowing that there’s so many people that rely on me,” she said.
Redline Media Group now has over 50 employees and provides services across the globe, reaching 74 countries. She’s worked with companies such as Warren Henry Auto Group, Hard Rock Cafe and the City of Dania Beach.
Last year at RES 2022, the company won the American Indian Business of the Year Award.
“It was such a magical moment…I got that award and that told me that my people appreciate me, my people are willing to give me an award and to talk about me around my own people. That meant a lot,” she said.
Long before Redline Media Group won the award, one of their first potential partner opportunities was interested in working with them but the owner asked if they were an award-winning company.
“I didn’t think about awards, I didn’t think about acknowledgement, I didn’t think about any of that. I was all about putting in the time and doing the work. What will come will come,” she said.
Though numerous marketing and advertising awards soon followed.
Tommie emphasizes how on all their awards it says Redline Media Group and not a singular name as the recipient because of the collective effort it took to win it.
Their tagline is “all for one and won for all.”
Lessons from her matriarchs
Tommie recalled a story about attending a school where she felt different from her classmates. She said no one shared her culture.
One day she accidentally fell asleep after completing her work and found that someone had cut her braid.
She told her mom to cut all hair off and her mom agreed to shave it all, telling Tommie that she would do it since she was so concerned about what others think of her. Tommie quickly changed her mind.
“It was her way of telling me, accept who you are and be powerful in that. That’s what I would share with any Native sister that I will encounter. To accept who you are, stand in your grace, stand solid because there’s one you in the entire world. There’s not another like you,” she said.
Tommie also appreciates her great-grandmother Polly Parker, who she never met, and grandmother Sallie Chupco. Tommie spent a lot of time with her grandmother and said although she was kind of forced into learning the culture, language and traditions, she’s grateful now.
“The fact that my mother and my grandmother took the time to teach me what they thought I needed to know, I coupled that with what I learned in the world,” she said.
Her mother taught her another lesson on how Tommie would have to balance two worlds. One of the worlds being about culture and tradition meaning everything and the other world that requires the ability to associate, assimilate and understand each other as people.
In Redline Media Group’s building in Dania Beach, Florida, her culture is incorporated everywhere. Meetings are conducted in a circle, there’s artwork in the conference rooms and offices. Symbols of her clan, the bird clan, are throughout the building. All of the east facing walls are painted red.
“It’s a constant reminder that’s the direction where the sun rises and there is a new day. When I see that I’m always reminded and I remember who I am. There are signs, affirmations, they’re everywhere,” she said.
She’s come across people who are interested to work with the company but aren’t sure if they are capable of doing a lot of work and surprised that they are. Then there are people who are excited to see the building and in awe that it’s Native-owned.
Tommie thinks there must be an active effort to change those ideas and there needs to be an intention to work together in order to empower generations.
“The more we can work towards excellence, we’re making it better for each other. That’s the goal. That’s when that change is but not just because we hope and wish that it changes,” she said.
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