Celebrating 20 Years In Indian Country
TOMHAVE GROUP
Native-Owned Tribal Advocacy
WHO
Brandy Tomhave
An enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation, Brandy has dedicated her legal career to fighting the structural racism within the federal government that denies American Indians the same access to healthcare, education, infrastructure, and justice as other Americans.
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Jeff Tomhave
An enrolled (Hidatsa) member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold, and a descendent of the Ho-Chunk and Prairie Band Potawatomi, Jeff grew up learning about tribal politics at the kitchen table before becoming a lawyer and scholar of federal/Indian relations.
Benairen Tomhave
An enrolled (Hidatsa) member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold, and a descendent of the Ho-Chunk and Prairie Band Potawatomi, Benairen grew up like his father learning about tribal politics at the kitchen table but deferred joining the family business until first pursuing an acting career, through which he gained unique expertise in scenario based training of federal law enforcement officers and other professionals who work in hostile environments.
Anthony Pernasilice
A combat veteran who served in the U.S. Army and a cyber security expert who has protected the data of the U.S. Department of Defense and Fortune 500 companies, Tony is now sharing his front line experience with tribal governments who are ready to develop their own information security programs in order to battle cyber attacks.
WHO
Brandy Tomhave
An enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation, Brandy has dedicated her legal career to fighting the structural racism within the federal government that denies American Indians the same access to healthcare, education, infrastructure, and justice as other Americans.
Jeff Tomhave
An enrolled (Hidatsa) member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold, and a descendent of the Ho-Chunk and Prairie Band Potawatomi, Jeff grew up learning about tribal politics at the kitchen table before becoming a lawyer and scholar of federal/Indian relations.
Benairen Tomhave
An enrolled (Hidatsa) member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold, and a descendent of the Ho-Chunk and Prairie Band Potawatomi, Benairen grew up like his father learning about tribal politics at the kitchen table but deferred joining the family business until first pursuing an acting career, through which he gained unique expertise in scenario based training of federal law enforcement officers and other professionals who work in hostile environments.
Anthony Pernasilice
A combat veteran who served in the U.S. Army and a cyber security expert who has protected the data of the U.S. Department of Defense and Fortune 500 companies, Tony is now sharing his front line experience with tribal governments who are ready to develop their own information security programs in order to battle cyber attacks.
WHAT
some of
OUR
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Amended Ryan White Care Act to provide HIV/AIDS treatment to American Indians.
- Helped bring the first cancer treatment center on any Indian reservation in the United States to the Navajo Nation.
- Created model used to expand Medicaid coverage for American Indians to improve access to care.
- Obtained federal funds needed to construct two new domestic violence shelters on the Navajo Nation.
- Delivered hundreds of millions of dollars for Indian school bus routes, bridges, side walks and street lighting so Navajo kids can safely get to school.
- Got Government Accountability Office to conduct first ever study on how federal neglect of tribal roads denies Native students access to education.
- Got $68 million for a levee to protect Navajos whom the federal government forcibly relocated into a 100 year flood zone.
- Wrote “Locked Up & Forgotten: The Federal Government’s Failure to Fund Tribal Correctional Health Care,” to fight for medical care inside tribal jails.
- Helped U.S. Department of Justice export programs to Indian Country to reduce domestic violence, improve victims services and find missing persons.
Wrote and lobbied for legislative language that now authorizes the tribal bridge and transit programs within the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Developed plan to cut some of the white tape that prohibits tribes by transferring limited authority for ROW of tribal roads from BIA to USDOT where such roads are administered by a tribe under a contract with your Tribal Transportation Program.
Wrote the 2021 Navajo Nation Transportation White Paper that details the success, challenges and recommendations of the largest tribe in the United states to improve tribal roads programs.
- Led a historic effort to make the systemic changes necessary to solve and prosecute Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons cases on the Navajo Nation. Facilitated a multi-jurisdictional collaboration that developed policies, procedures and guidelines to improve police investigations, victim services and case prosecutions. Wrote the tribal response plan the U.S. Attorney’s Office is using as a model for Indian Country.
- Drafted preliminary USDOJ Guidelines for Sex Offender Registry Notification Act implementation in Indian Country.
- Facilitated national conference work sessions and work products to enable the U.S. Department of Justice to implement its Weed and Seed Program in Indian Country.
Facilitated an innovative collaboration between a national animal rescue organization and tribal nations to reduce the incidence of dog bites and overpopulation on Indian reservations.
WHAT
some of
OUR
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Amended Ryan White Care Act to provide HIV/AIDS treatment to American Indians.
- Helped bring the first cancer treatment center on any Indian reservation in the United States to the Navajo Nation.
- Created model used to expand Medicaid coverage for American Indians to improve access to care.
- Obtained federal funds needed to construct two new domestic violence shelters on the Navajo Nation.
- Delivered hundreds of millions of dollars for Indian school bus routes, bridges, side walks and street lighting so Navajo kids can safely get to school.
- Got Government Accountability Office to conduct first ever study on how federal neglect of tribal roads denies Native students access to education.
- Got $68 million for a levee to protect Navajos whom the federal government forcibly relocated into a 100 year flood zone.
- Wrote “Locked Up & Forgotten: The Federal Government’s Failure to Fund Tribal Correctional Health Care,” to fight for medical care inside tribal jails.
- Helped U.S. Department of Justice export programs to Indian Country to reduce domestic violence, improve victims services and find missing persons.
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WHO
Please add …
Benairen Tomhave: An enrolled (Hidatsa) member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold, and a descendent of the Ho-Chunk and Prairie Band Potawatomi, Benairen grew up like his father learning about tribal politics at the kitchen table but deferred joining the family business until first pursuing an acting career, through which he gained unique expertise in scenario based training of federal law enforcement officers and other professionals who work in hostile environments.
Insert our pictures in each of our bios where the tribal seals are now. We will send the pictures as separate emails.
Please add … A Note From Us: Maybe this can come out as a slider from the WHO block?
Jeff and Benairen are enrolled members of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold which is comprise of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikira— tribes that banned together for economic, political, and social survival after the devastation of the small pox epidemics of 1792, 1836, and 1837.
Jeff and Benairen are descendants of Hidatsa, a tribe best known in the history books for sheltering Lewis and Clark during the winter of 1804-1805. It was in their ancestors’ village that Lewis and Clark met Sacagawea, the 13 year old bride of a Quebecois trapper.
In the Spring, Sacagawea and her “husband” left with Lewis and Clark. Sacagawea is credited with enabling Lewis and Clark to complete their Corps of Discovery, leading them through mountain passes across the plains to what is now the Oregon coast of the Pacific Ocean. And she did it with her baby on her back!
The image of Sacagawea with which we are all familiar today is actually Jeff’s great-grandmother, Mink Woman (Hannah Levings), who was the model for the Sacagawea statue in front of the North Dakota state Capitol. A replica of the same statue is in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.
The U.S. Mint used pictures of Hannah Levings with her child as the basis for the Sacagawea golden dollar coin. If you have ever had one then you have held Benairen’s great-great-grandmother in your hand!
Brandy’s Native family history is less known and likely less exciting.
She is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, a tribe that was originally the largest farming tribe in the Southeast, residing in what is now Mississippi, Kentucky and Louisiana. President Andrew Jackson forced the Choctaw from their homelands in three forced death marches from their Southeast homeland to Oklahoma beginning in 1831. The Choctaw called this the Trail of Tears and Death but newspaper accounts at the time shortened that description to the Trail of Tears.
Generations later Brandy was born and raised thousands of miles away from Oklahoma.
Brandy presents as White and is typical of what the end of the Trail of Tears looks like for many Choctaw families who survived the Trail of Tears by marrying outside of their tribe and their race and doing whatever they could to survive. Brandy’s own Choctaw great grandmother, Nancy Velma Nichols, was raised in Southeastern Oklahoma with her pet bear but ultimately raised her own children as the wife of the Treasurer of Fresno, California.
Brandy is just one example of what resiliency of the Choctaw people looks like.
Benairen is a graduate of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, a Certified Actor Combatant from the Society of American Fight Directors, and completed the United Stuntmen’s Association’s Stunt Performer Course.
Don’t Let It In, a supernatural thriller set on the Seminole reservation (still in post production), is his first indie feature. When he’s not acting he works in his local community garden using Hidatsa farming techniques.
WHAT
Please add … to some of our accomplishments Tribal Transportation and Tribal Justice
This is the drop down text for each of the new accomplishments
Tribal Transportation:
Wrote and lobbied for legislative language that now authorizes the tribal bridge and transit programs within the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Developed plan to cut some of the white tape that prohibits tribes by transferring limited authority for ROW of tribal roads from BIA to USDOT where such roads are administered by a tribe under a contract with your Tribal Transportation Program.
Wrote the 2021 Navajo Nation Transportation White Paper that details the success, challenges and recommendations of the largest tribe in the United states to improve tribal roads programs.
- Led a historic effort to make the systemic changes necessary to solve and prosecute Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons cases on the Navajo Nation. Facilitated a multi-jurisdictional collaboration that developed policies, procedures and guidelines to improve police investigations, victim services and case prosecutions. Wrote the tribal response plan the U.S. Attorney’s Office is using as a model for Indian Country.
- Drafted preliminary USDOJ Guidelines for Sex Offender Registry Notification Act implementation in Indian Country.
- Facilitated national conference work sessions and work products to enable the U.S. Department of Justice to implement its Weed and Seed Program in Indian Country.
Facilitated an innovative collaboration between a national animal rescue organization and tribal nations to reduce the incidence of dog bites and overpopulation on Indian reservations.
HOW
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Tribal community members are experts about what federal neglect does and how to survive it. We are experts in identifying why that neglect is happening and where to go to fix it. When we tell stories about universal needs, civil rights and common sense solutions— stories that enable non-Natives to see the world through Native eyes — that is when transformational change happens.
HOW
Tribal community members are experts about what federal neglect does and how to survive it. We are experts in identifying why that neglect is happening and where to go to fix it. When we tell stories about universal needs, civil rights and common sense solutions— stories that enable non-Natives to see the world through Native eyes — that is when transformational change happens.
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