Tribal Administrator Lisa Dawsey Takes Office

Comanche Nation welcomed newly elected Tribal Administrator (TA) Lisa Dawsey on June 21 in the Code Talker Room at Comanche Nation Complex.

She has a bachelor’s in business administration with a concentration in management from Cameron University and recently left her position as a workforce administrator for City of Lawton.

Dawsey worked for the Gaming Commission for 15 years and was the Executive Director for three of those years.

She said this position is most comparable to becoming TA.

“I was really busy working there,” Dawsey said. “…I had to pick up where someone left off, and so it's kind of the same thing. It's kind of chaotic at first because you're trying to figure out where they were, how things were left off, what do I need to pick up on, what do I need to do.”

She has recently visited programs and hopes to improve the infrastructure of the buildings around the tribal complex, especially for the generator and power outages.

“I think that's something that we need to fix where it's like there's a propane line or a gas line going to it, and you don't run it, you won't have to feed it fuel or anything,” Dawsey said. “The gas line's there, it's connected, you have the power for that server area.”

Dawsey said she wants to utilize community outreaches in multiple locations and explore expanding west.

“Programs wise, like I'm already working with the outreach in Dallas, didn't have a building no more,” she said. “So, I'm already have someone out there looking for a building to put us back in, to get established. I would love to use these community outreaches. I see the comments on social media, like ‘The fans, the fans were here, why didn't we get some to the areas where people couldn't travel to the Comanche Nation to pick those up?’ There's got to be a better way for us to reach our people instead of saying, ‘Hey, you have to come to this location.’”

Dawsey said helping elders is important to her.

“That's the culture way I'm used to,” she said. “Respect your elders, help them. They do everything, feed them, serve them, that's important to me. So, I think that we need to find better ways to handle that.”

Dawsey said another issue she would like to tackle would be tribal vehicles for programs.

She said she wants to work towards going paperless.

This also includes being able to make comments on the website and reestablishing the 8 to 5 work day.

“Some programs, I get it, that they have to work during the night or, you know, they're with prevention and recovery might be one, they have to go out in the field, you've got different emergency management, you've got your police officer, you've got your fire, that's a little different,” Dawsey said.

However, she also wants to see people succeed.

Dawsey also said there needs to be growth.

“I just want the employees to know that I'm here for them; I'm here for everybody. I just want to see our programs grow and us stop being stagnant,” she said. “We've been stagnant for too long, and we need to grow as a tribe, we need to have more economic development, we need to be out there. There’s other tribes out there in the eastern areas that are growing phenomenal, and we have not done that. And that is something that I tell the chairman, I say we're here, I want to see improvements, I want to see growth within the three years that we're here, I don't want to be remembered as not being doing anything and that's something that's on my top, you know, I'm a doer, you tell me something's wrong, I'll fix it, I'll correct it, I'll make sure things are there in place, that is what I am.”