Boss Ladies

These Fort Worth business and civic leaders traverse a range of industries from oil and gas to nonprofits, executive search, coaching and biotech.

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Fort Worth women continue to make their mark on the area. Whether in traditional oil and gas and established nonprofits or in cutting-edge manufacturing or workplace and lifestyle culture, these Fort Worth natives, or near-natives, are forging new paths for the city’s future — and their own.

Faith Geiger and MaryAnn Means-Dufrene 

Faith Geiger and MaryAnn Means-Dufrene have lofty goals: to change the workplace as a platform for human potential for a better world. But for now, they are focusing on the new $175 million development at the Stockyards.

Their company, Collective Growth, has been tasked to find the executive team and build a company culture for Majestic Realty and Hickman Companies for Stockyards development. One of their latest finds has been Kristin Assad for the position of vice president and general manager of the new four-star Hotel Drover, slated to open this October in the Stockyards. They were able to steal her away from the trendy Joule Hotel in Dallas. Sensitive to their task, Majestic has focused on hiring Fort Worth companies to rebuild the old horse and mule barns into appropriate retailers (think Stetson and Wrangler), restaurants, and office tenants on Mule Alley — even using all of the old bricks to preserve the rich history, Geiger says. “It’s seamless in walking down Exchange to Mule Alley,” says Means-Dufrene. “There is no abruptness. Everything is in character.” The Stockyards draws more than 3.5 million visitors annually, making it the largest attraction in Fort Worth. The new development is designed to increase attendance by upwards of 1 million people and keep people in the area longer, Geiger says.

Finding the right fit for personnel and creating an environment where employees can thrive is what Geiger and Means-Dufrene, trained in social work and psychology, respectively, are all about. 

Geiger, 36, and Means-Dufrene, 40, came to Fort Worth as teenagers with their families. From there, Geiger attended UTA with a bachelor’s in social work and is now working on her research for a master’s degree in social work and business administration. She has worked for retailers like Neiman Marcus and lululemon, as well as Satori Capital. Means-Dufrene, an Arlington Heights graduate, has degrees in psychology and business from Texas A&M and UTA and has worked as executive director for Susan B. Komen Fort Worth and deputy chief of staff for Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price.

Collective Growth began in 2017 with Geiger. Means-Dufrene joined as a partner in 2018. Their focus: “We’ve seen incredible cultures and thriving people, and we’ve also seen the opposite,” Geiger says. “How do we support the strategic initiatives for the company, support their financial goals and support the well-being, growth and development of the people? We take a therapeutic approach to business.” Means-Dufrene adds: “We partner with the leadership team to create a space for the development and the flourishing that people really desire and that benefits the business.” 

Clients so far include Channel 5/Telemundo, where the team helped turn around the sales department culture as the channels merge and reorganized; and M2G Ventures, a real estate firm, identifying talent for their growth and establish systems of performance and their strategic vision.

Peyton Salavarria 

Most people fall into nonprofit employment from other careers. Peyton Salavarria walked in purposefully.

Salavarria was a business major at the University of Oklahoma searching for a career focus when her father, Jeff, suggested she take a hard look at nonprofits. Jeff Salavarria is a senior vice president of public finance at Frost Bank in charge of account management for local nonprofits. “He said I had the personality and skill set that makes for a good match in the nonprofit world,” she says. After a summer internship at Lena Pope, a Fort Worth institution serving at-risk youth since the 1930s, Salavarria realized her dad was right. “I found that’s where my passion is,” she says.

After adding a unique minor in nonprofit management, Salavarria returned home to Fort Worth and quickly landed a job in events and marketing at Tarrant County’s chapter of Communities in Schools, a national nonprofit that puts social workers in underserved schools to eliminate barriers to graduation. In 2014, at just 24 years old, she took over as executive director of Gill Children’s Services, another Fort Worth institution, started by Martine Ginsburg and Virginia Richards in 1979 as a last resort safety net for children in Tarrant County. The organization began with a $1 million donation from A. Smith Gill, an unassuming geologist in town who bequeathed in his will that his entire estate go to children in need in Tarrant County.

Now at 30, Salavarria is steering her 41-year-old organization through different water. Over the past two years, Gill has seen a substantial increase in need among Tarrant County children. “We need to raise more funds to be able to say yes to every child coming in,” Salavarria says. “It’s the first time to my knowledge that such an increase is needed.” As much as $300,000 needs to be raised to stay on budget this year, she says. With Salavarria’s input, Gill’s board is now developing a strategic plan to build on its donor base of 300, which includes such established Fort Worth names as Robert Bass, John Kleinheinz; foundations like the Sid Richardson Foundation and Morris Foundation; and community groups like the First Grandmothers’ Club.

Salavarria remains optimistic. “It’s an exciting time at Gill,” she says. “We are serving more children than ever.” Last year, Gill served 1,457 children with everything from shoes to costly dental care. The organization works tightly with local health care providers, able to receive on average a 42 percent discount from dentists, medical doctors and hospitals for their clients. “We saved $1 million in 2019,” Salavarria says. “Every $1 donated had a $2.50 impact. We get good bang for the buck.”

Yolanda Harper 

Yolanda Harper is a one-woman band for empowerment.

The 50-year-old Fort Worth native tells companies and government entities how to save money by making healthier employees through the Blue Zone Project. She speaks, writes books and organizes seminars to inspire and motivate around some thoughtful insights she calls Yolanda’s Nuggets. She life coaches and leads a weekly outdoor boot camp workout for women. Her goals are strung up in big letters on a space in her office she calls her “vision wall.” What does she want for 2020? “To make six figures,” she says.

It all started with a track career at O.D Wyatt High School, she says. Third in state in the 100-meter hurdle gave Harper a full athletic scholarship to the University of Houston, where she was named team captain and the most valuable female athlete.

But Harper’s life had its ups and downs. A verbally abusive marriage ended up with her back in Fort Worth 15 years later as a single mom and pretty broke. A woman at her church, Ambassadors of Christ Christian Center in Fort Worth, asked her to help her lose weight by leading her in exercise weekly at a nearby park. The no-cost boot camp grew organically in 2009 until Harper took a chance one day and asked for tips after her session. “People went back to their cars to get money, and I started stuffing it anywhere I could. I came back and threw it all on my bed. It came to $250. I cried. I just couldn’t believe it was from having fun and bringing people together.” The Fit&40 Crew still meets at 7 a.m. every Saturday in warmer months in downtown Fort Worth, she says. 

Harper expanded her program to include training athletes and others while finishing a degree in communications from Dallas Baptist University. In 2014, she linked up with the Blue Zones Project Fort Worth, an international well-being initiative based on lessons learned from communities where people live the longest.

As a relationship consultant for work sites, Harper reviews health care plans and workplaces of companies, schools, hospitals and government offices, making suggestions on everything from adding smoking cessation programs and relaxation spaces to making sure healthy snacks are in the vending machines. Fort Worth now is the largest certified Blue Zones community in the nation and is sponsored by Texas Health Resources, which employs Harper as part of the Blue Zones team. Nearly 350 organizations, including 142 worksites,  have committed to the Blue Zones Project, including Lockheed Martin, Bell Helicopter, Pier 1 Imports, DFW Airport, City of Fort Worth and Fort Worth ISD. With help from the Blue Zones Project, the city went from 185th out of 190 metro areas on the Gallup Well-Being Index to 31st, with smoking down and exercise increasing.

But that wasn’t enough for Harper, a serial entrepreneur. So, in 2017, she formed the Alpha Discovery Group, a platform for her speaking engagements, writing, seminars and motivational coaching. “Through Alpha Discovery, I develop people, and I do it in three ways: physically through Fit&40 Crew, personally through my workshops and conferences, and professionally through customized employee programs,” Harper says.

Tracie Palmer 

In December, Tracie Palmer got an unusual gift for her 34th birthday: the president’s job at her company, Bounty Minerals. “It’s probably one of the best birthday gifts I’ve ever gotten,” she says with a laugh. The Fort Worth native and UTA business graduate started her oil and gas career in the file room of Encore Acquisitions as an intern — a job she got through her mother, Katherine McClurkan, who worked with long-time Fort Worth oil and gas man, Jon Brumley. 

After a stint at two other oil and gas companies, Palmer returned to Brumley — a mentor — shortly after he started Bounty Minerals in 2012. Palmer worked her way up from land manager to vice president of land to vice president of operations and finally to her role as president. “Jon likes to give people opportunities,” she says, of the 80-year-old.

Since the company began, Bounty has acquired and owns mineral rights to 65,000 nonproducing acres in the Appalachia Mountains in the Marcellus Shale play using horizontal drilling. “He got in at the start of the boom,” Palmer says. “In order to buy mineral rights efficiently, you have to get in there early.” The original investment is paying off: Through leasing drilling production on those acres, Bounty saw a 60% revenue increase in 2019 over the year before, she says.

One business practice Bounty offers is cash up front for the mineral rights, different from the norm of most of the industry, which generally may provide a signing bonus, then monthly royalty checks to owners once gas is found, that could go on for 20 or 30 years. “We’re able to do that because we can aggregate enough minerals that, that monthly check is more significant to us,” she says. Brumley raised capital from private investors, mostly local, Palmer says, based on his reputation.

Palmer says Bounty avoids buying mineral rights in populated areas to avoid disputes with neighborhoods and cities. “The development issues in Appalachia are a derivative of the terrain,” she says. “It’s not the population; it’s the mountains.” The well operators are figuring that out, she says, partially by drilling larger pad sites to allow for more wells. Meanwhile, Bounty works to find common ground between landowners, operators and the legislatures for oil and gas development of the basin, which enters into Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. 

Being a woman has not been an issue for Palmer in this traditionally male field, she says. Recently at an oil and gas convention in Houston, she says she was pleased to see a large number of female faces. And more by accident than intention, 11 of the 13 employees at Bounty are female, except for Brumley and another male, she says. Palmer says she plans to continue to grow Bounty and stay in oil and gas. “I loved it, stuck with it and it’s been a good ride,” she says.  

Clearing the Ear

Elyse Dickerson and partner Joe Griffin continue to build on early successes in their Fort Worth biotech startup.

Elyse Dickerson is certainly no stranger to the pages of this magazine. Dickerson, CEO of Eosera, launched the Fort Worth biotech firm in April 2017 with partner and fellow Alcon Labs alumnus Joe Griffin. The firm, whose initial product was the over-the-counter Earwax MD eardrop for compacted wax, continues to post new milestones, doubling sales every year through the company’s first three years, Dickerson says. It’s added new products, signed agreements with two of the largest U.S. drug wholesalers, and rapidly expanded into the CVS and Rite-Aid chains.

Last fall, the company moved out of its small headquarters and manufacturing center on Fort Worth’s West Side into an industrial center in south Fort Worth at Interstates 35W and 20. Eosera leased 12,000 square feet in the 500,000-square-foot building, with plenty of room for its offices, manufacturing and warehouse. Landlord Bruce Conti, a major Fort Worth warehouse owner, has carved out a section of the complex for entrepreneurial companies like Eosera.

Eosera’s products are now in 13,000 drugstores nationally. The firm doesn’t disclose sales but now bills itself as a “multimillion-dollar company.” Production is consistently full time today. “In the past, there were times when we weren’t producing at all,” Dickerson says.

Next up, the company has been talking to Walmart about a deal.

“We should know by the end of April if they are going to take some of our products,” Dickerson says. Asked what impact Walmart would have on the company, Dickerson says, “Walmart will more than double us.”

One retailer Eosera hasn’t been able to crack is Walgreens, known for protracted payment schedules. “We’re essentially financing their business for them” if Eosera put its products in Walgreens stores, Dickerson says. “It’d be great to have 5,000 more stores, but at what cost? We were profitable in 2019, and we want to continue to be profitable. With a partner like that, you can’t be.”

As it’s grown, Eosera learned its customers aren’t who they thought. The initial target customer: 65 and older. But Eosera’s actual customers are younger, in the 25-44 and 45-64 age ranges, Dickerson says. That’s prompted the company to change its marketing strategy.

“We think the younger demographic is more in tune with their ears,” Dickerson says. “The younger demographic is more proactive; the older demographic is reactive.” – Scott Nishimura