EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP

Gillie K. Bear Heart founded Apache Bronco around a fundamental belief:

People deserve to know where they come from.

Bear Heart traces his paternal ancestry to Yavapai-Apache and Fort Mojave people. Through his maternal line, he is of Mimbreño (Chihénde) Chiricahua Apache descent. The Chihénde — meaning “Red Paint People” — are historically associated with the Mimbreño and Warm Springs Apache.

His work centers on preserving family histories, protecting cultural memory, documenting historical material, listening carefully to oral testimony, and helping create a record strong enough to survive beyond the present generation.

For Bear Heart, preservation is not about manufacturing a story or forcing evidence to say more than it can establish. It is about doing the harder work: finding what remains, protecting what families choose to preserve, distinguishing memory from documented fact, leaving unanswered questions visible when evidence is incomplete, and building something future generations can continue to examine, strengthen, and carry forward.

Apache Bronco represents that responsibility in action. Bear Heart's vision extends beyond any single website, documentary, archive, event, or research project. The larger objective is to create a durable body of knowledge connecting family memory, historical documentation, oral history, photographs, research, education, and community.

Thana Redhawk brings ancestral responsibility, cultural stewardship, creative leadership, and years of artistic and media experience to Apache Bronco.

Her work spans spoken word, poetry, recorded music, production, media, cultural advocacy, and Indigenous storytelling.

Her recorded body of work includes Medicine Frequencies and Fires of Thunder. Fires of Thunder received the Native American Music Award for Spoken Word Recording, and her creative history includes collaborations with the late poet, musician, actor, and activist John Trudell.

Within Apache Bronco, Redhawk serves as Head Woman, Seer, and Director. Her responsibilities bring together women's leadership, cultural perspective, spiritual reflection, preservation, documentation, storytelling, and representation.

Her approach reflects one of Apache Bronco's central principles: memory matters. Evidence matters. Neither should be mistaken for the other.

Her work helps ensure that family histories, cultural knowledge, creative expression, spiritual understanding, and voices carried between generations are treated with dignity and preserved with responsibility.