"I'm not waving the white flag." 🏳️Soaring Bird & the Road to TL&M w/ Karla Bylund

Earlier this year, Soaring Bird Solutions — a name well known across Indian Country for its Tribal-focused HR consulting — joined REDW, uniting founder Karla Bylund with REDW's HR Consulting Practice Leader, Cristin Heyns. In this episode, Wes Benally sits down with Karla to trace that journey: the meaning behind her Potawatomi name, Pneshi Bmashi ("Bird Who Soars"); the gap in HR knowledge across Indian Country that led her to found Soaring Bird Solutions in 2015; and what led her, after a decade serving Tribal governments, casinos, enterprises, and nonprofits, to bring that work into REDW's broader advisory platform.

The conversation turns to what's ahead: REDW's Tribal Leadership & Management (TL&M) Conference in Las Vegas — a gathering Karla co-founded to bring authentic, Tribally grounded training in leadership, governance, HR, and more to Tribal council members, administrators, and executives. 

Curious what expanded Tribal HR support could look like for your organization? Connect with REDW's Tribal HR Consulting team to learn more.

Chapters

• 00:00 – Introduction: Karla Bylund and the Soaring Bird Story
• 01:14 – The Meaning Behind "Bird Who Soars" and Karla's Path into Tribal HR
• 02:23 – Starting Soaring Bird Solutions in 2015 to Close a Gap in Tribal HR
• 04:49 – The Toughest HR Challenges in Indian Country
• 07:31 – Why Karla Joined REDW: Capacity, Continuity, and Shared Values
• 09:12 – Working with an Expanded Consulting Bench
• 13:04 – Introducing the Tribal Leadership & Management (TL&M) Conference
• 16:03 – What Attendees Can Expect from TL&M
• 19:00 – Closing Thoughts and the Exclusive Registration Discount for Listeners

Tribal HR Support, Backed by a Full Advisory Bench 

Whether you've worked with Karla and her team for years or you're just getting to know REDW, Tribal organizations now have access to trusted HR consulting alongside REDW's full suite of services — audit, tax, compensation, cybersecurity, and more. 

Learn more about REDW's Tribal HR Consulting practice, and use code REDWPOD26 to register for this year's TL&M Conference before the extended Early Bird deadline at the end of August. 

The 4th annual Tribal Leadership & Management Conference is October 14 – 15, 2026 | South Point Hotel & Casino | Las Vegas, NV.

REGISTER BY AUG 31! ➡️ https://whova.com/portal/registration/VBG0F3LdQig8nSuY3b78/] 

REDW Advisors and CPAs is proud to bring you the Insight in Indian Country Podcast, covering important advisory, accounting, and finance topics that impact Tribal Nations and business affairs. Thanks for listening!

👉 Visit our website

Transcript

Welcome And Why Carla Joins

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, welcome back to Inside an Indian Country, where we cover advisory, accounting, and finance topics that matter most to travel nations. I'm your host, Wes Spinali, REDW's National Travel Tactier. And today's conversation is a special one. Earlier this year, Soaring Bird Solutions, a name that a lot of you are probably familiar with in Indian Country, joined the RDW family. And I'm joined today by the person behind that name, Carla Bailey.

unknown 0:30

Good morning.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Carla, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Good. How are you today?

SPEAKER_00 0:34

All right, good, good, good. Yeah, so you built Soaring Bird Solutions from the ground up in 2015 to focus entirely on HR and leadership support for tribal organizations. Now you're bringing that work to RDW and leading an event we're excited to talk about, and that's this year's tribal leadership and management conference. So we're going to cover two things today. You know, your Soaring Bird story and what lies ahead with TLN Men. Thanks for coming on, Carla. So definitely want to start off with what and how Soaring Bird Solutions started.

Potawatomi Name And Early Career

SPEAKER_00 1:10

And maybe you want to talk a little bit about your Potawatomi name.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Okay. Well, okay. Well, let's start with uh the Pottawatomi name because I am I'm a member of the Citizen Pottawatomi Nation out of Shawnee, Oklahoma. And my aunt, who's the matriarch of our family, is the one who named me. And she gave me the name Paneshe Bamashi, which means bird who soars. And from that moment on, I knew I had to do things in life. There was an expectation of great things. So tried to live up to that. Um I uh I I started working in Indian country 30 plus years ago and worked primarily for tribal gaming uh as an executive director of HR. And after I and I moved around a little bit, I worked in a few different states for a few different tribes, and one of the things that I consistently saw was there's a gap in HR knowledge in Indian country. Um, and so there came a point where I was being asked, can you do this project? Can you help us with this? Can you come in and help us with this? And I was working full-time. So I decided to take the giant leap of faith and start Soringberg Solutions. Um, started it in 2015. Um it has been, I it was, it was just a really fun, it was a really fun ride. You know, I got to meet a lot of people, a lot of a lot of tribes, got it, got to learn about a lot of different cultures, build a lot of relationships in Indian country. And, you know, one of the things that motivates me in life is making a difference. And I I really felt like I was making a difference. So um, so yeah, Soaring Bird Solutions provided um, you know, HR compensation, training, leadership development for for 10 years.

Building Soaring Bird Solutions

SPEAKER_01 2:58

And it got to a point where I was growing faster than my capacity could handle. And so REDW, I was actually approached by a few different firms for acquisition, but REDW had a shared value. You know, they have deep, um, deep experience working with tribes for over 40 years. They they're looking to enhance the capability in the Indian country. Um, I didn't see that there was any, you know, wanting to take advantage of tribes because, you know, we see these pop-up companies all the time that they're just in there to try to get some of that money. But there's a shared value of caring about and wanting to really set tribes up for success. So that shared value, as well as like the um the all the service lines that REDW provides was able to, you know, gave me an opportunity to offer my clients a lot more financial literacy, wealth, cybersecurity. There's just so much more that now instead of me saying, hey, let me find somebody for you, we have them in-house. And so I just felt like we were a good partnership.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Yeah, yeah, no, that's a good point. Really. And I think that um, you know, as we talked offline and whatnot, I think that's that's definitely something that, you know, isn't commonplace and really just trying to be a well-rounded solution for a lot of our clients, you know, at the end of the day. And yeah, and so like what kind of organizations does Sorenberg typically work with? And were they recruiting HR and leadership? What what kind of challenges did you see with that as well?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Um, so we worked with cash, we worked with tribal governments, tribal casinos, tribal enterprises, started to to bring in last few years a lot of work with tribal nonprofits. And, you know, what what I see, one of the biggest challenges in HR in Indian country is some of the tribes are really remote. And it's really hard for them to have that talent within their community to have a good, strong HR team. And so they tend to um promote from within and bring people up who've got potential for HR. And a lot of times I would come in and I would mentor that person into an HR director. And that's where that's that's where that's what I love to do. I love to bring them to a point where they're they're self-sustaining, that they don't need me anymore. And I know that sounds like a really bad business model, you know, work myself out of a job, but but for me, that's that's the the most satisfaction I can get is when they say, hey, you've given us all the tools we need. We don't need you anymore. And so that's that's really very satisfying to me. And so that's, I mean, I think that the depth of knowledge and experience in HR is probably the biggest challenge for a lot of tribes because they are so small and remote. And it really is hard to get somebody from the outside. The other thing is I can provide um services for less money than it would cost them to hire somebody full-time, move them, relocate them, pay them an HR director salary. I can fill that gap for the smaller tribes and tribal nonprofits because they don't need a full-time HR, but they need that HR expertise. So that's that's where I saw a real need and it and it really flowed. And you know, you know, I don't know if you're gonna ask me this question, but it's something that's on my mind. And for me, it's about building relationships. You know, I have relationships and it's really important to me that we have a relationship and that I don't ever leave somebody feeling like they didn't they didn't get what they expected. You know, I want them to be is satisfied with the the work that I provide them, with the tools that I provide them. And many of the people that I've worked with over the years, they're they're now friends. They're my friends and colleagues and people that I get really excited about because I get to see them at the annual conferences.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

So relationships. Oh yes, yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, relationships are important, you know, especially building that trust, making sure that hey, you know, we can turn to Carla for any issue, and she's gonna kind of figure it out out for us. You know, I mean, at the end of the day, that's that's key. That's key to a lot of what we do. And um, I think it's very important. It's very important.

Remote Tribe HR Gaps And Mentoring

SPEAKER_00 7:24

So um, you know, this year, you know, uh you when you join REW, uh why why now? You know, I know you mentioned a little bit about capacity and and whatnot, and you know, what what what kind of felt right about you know this point in time for you?

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Um well, I don't know, maybe they wore me down. You know, for two years, uh Kristen, the the leader of the HR consulting, has she she and I joke because she's been wooing me. And, you know, at first I said, oh, no way, I love what I'm doing. But there came a point in time when I thought, you know what? I'm the only one. Like I in my company, I have great employees, but I'm the only one who's doing exactly what I'm doing. And if something were to happen to me, then that's gonna impact my clients because I'm not there. Uh and so I needed to have a little bit more depth behind me to make sure that I've got continuity and I can continue to provide the level of service that I'm providing if I get sick or gosh, if I even want to take a vacation, because in 10 years I pretty much was working seven days a week. And so I think it just got to a point where it just made sense to go ahead and and partner with REDW. And, you know, it took a lot because I'm really proud of the name, Soaring Bird Solutions. I'm really proud of what I built. And I don't feel like I gave that away to join REDW. I felt like I'm basically just enhancing what I already built. So it's not, it's not um, it's not like laying down and defeat. I am, you know, not waving the white flag. I'm basically empowering my team and you know myself to be able to be more productive and more effective in any of the country.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah, no, that's a good point. And you know, you working alongside Kristen and the broader HR consulting team. You know, I'm glad you brought that up. It just really, you know, like you said, enhances your combined bench for you know support. Um and RDW's background, working in Indian country, I mean, and and and having the same value system, I think that's gonna be very powerful for you. And so um in your in your mind, you know, that type of capacity bench and you know, um, I guess he could say brand name, but what do you what do you feel is on the horizon for uh future uh what type of work do you think is is is is open to you know your your lying? And what can you know listeners maybe consider moving forward?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

So,

Why Partner With REDW Now

SPEAKER_01 10:09

you know, it's a funny story with Kristen because when she first approached me, I laughed because I said, you know what, REDW is in my SWOT analysis. They are my threat. And so there's a lot of times we were going for the same project. Sometimes REDW would win, sometimes I would win. Um, but I, you know, the the larger projects, the, you know, that required more uh people to work on it, those were the ones that I I actually turned over to REDW because it's like I can't do this, but I want them to get the best. So I did have that, you know, respect for REDW and the quality of work that they put out. I think that there's there's no limit to what we can do. You know, Kristen is a tremendous leader and the HRC team is uh HR consulting, sorry, acronyms are really you know popular in our line of work, but the HR consulting team is really strong. They have a really strong compensation team, which is compensation was kind of like my bread and butter. That's that's what I started doing. Um but the compensation team is doing such a phenomenal job. They've they've got you know great tools. I think they are, I think, I think REDW should be the only one anybody ever looks at for doing compensation, for doing HR support. Um, we provide HR services. Sometimes you know, we supplement an HR department, sometimes we serve as the HR department. Sometimes we do special projects, like um we do handbooks or we do audits or assessments. Strategic planning is something that we're doing a lot of. And this year we're seeing a real push towards doing strategic planning. A lot of tribes are stepping back and saying, okay, what do we need to look at for the future? How are we going to set ourselves up for success? And so we're coming in facilitating those strategic planning and helping themselves set their goals and objectives. And um, and then, you know, my my what the what I really love to do is I love to train. And I love, you know, I love to have it, but unfortunately, I don't get to as much anymore because it's very time consuming and I'm trying to lead a whole team developing the new leaders of tomorrow. That's something that's I'm really passionate about. Because I would like to see Indian country continue to strengthen its capacity, continue to be a power player in the United States.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

No, I think we have a shared passion for that, you know, especially, you know, trading development. And that's um something that I think we can definitely bring to the table for a lot of our you know listeners and clients out there, you know, especially, like you said, I think, you know, always having the opportunity to work yourself out of a job. But you know, at the end of the day, leaving knowing that you know you left that place in better hands than it was before. And, you know, through training and development, that's always you know something that's uh top of mind. And that's that's pretty cool. That's really cool. I really like that.

Expanded Services And Strategic Planning

SPEAKER_00 13:01

And uh, you know, kind of speaking of training development, if you will, you know, you have the tribal leadership and management conference coming up. And so let's chat a little bit about that. So that's gonna be in October, right, in Las Vegas. Yeah. And, you know, we're talking a little bit about some of the challenges that are out there in any country and, you know, training and development. So when what could somebody, you know, think about when they're thinking about this uh tribal leadership and management conference?

SPEAKER_01 13:32

So um, if you don't mind, I'd kind of like to tell the origin story of the conference because it's it's it's really important. So four years ago, a colleague of mine, um, Costin LaForest, who's a tribal attorney, he and I had a chat. And what we were seeing at the time was there, there was a, and I'm not gonna name names, but there's a couple of groups out there that are doing training in Indian country. The curriculum isn't being developed by anybody who has any understanding of, you know, tribal culture or even like tribal employment law. And then and it's being trained by people who don't have any but any any idea. And we wanted to authenticate the training. And so we started this conference to bring something that's real to um to leaders in Indian country and and the and and to develop a conference that was more relationship-based. You know, there's more an opportunity for gathering and speaking with each other and learning from each other. And so we started it um and our first annual conference, we had like 50, and it was a fantastic conference. Like everybody was talking to each other, and and it just, you know, it just kind of snowballed and it's grown every year. And so I'm I'm really excited this year. We have now Coastan has moved on. He's gotten like very busy in his tribal law practice. So, but our EDW, we have speakers from across all the service lines. So we we are gonna have heavy emphasis on AI and you know what it's looking like and how to use it uh ethically and effectively. We've got emphasis on cybersecurity, um, financial literacy, there's HR topics, there's leadership topics, there's governance topics. And so we have a really, really strong agenda and a lot of really phenomenal speakers across REDW. And we've got some speakers coming in um from outside REDW that are very well known in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Nice, nice. So, you know, as you said, you know, I think your kind of oxygen of spirit, really just wanting to get this going, you know, I think that that's that's definitely cool, and and uh really looking forward to all the opportunities that you know we can continue to share with with a conference like this, and really sharing ideas and ultimately creating solutions for, you know, uh issues that are out there currently. And

Conference Origin And 2025 Agenda

SPEAKER_00 16:04

so for somebody that's never been there before, you know, and that are considering it, what what do you think they should walk away with if they attend, and what would be important and why for their leadership or team?

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Sure. Um, you know, and we have uh the attendees are you know, tribal council members, um, tribal administrators, executives within tribal businesses. So they're all gonna walk away with something a little bit different. And we have something for everybody. Um, tribal council members, we have we have topics on you know governance and best practices, you know, how to, you know, how to lead a tribal council effectively and and how to you know, financial literacy for tribal councils. For some of the others, we've, you know, we're I'm hoping that they're gonna walk away with some ideas on how to improve their processes, some ideas on how to be better leaders, um, ideas on you know economic development for their tribes. Um, we just have so much. Um, there's just so much. And it's it is um it's jam-packed full of really great topics. Um, we've got some really good vendors. We'll have a little expo. We've got some artisans coming in. So, you know, hopefully everybody walks away with a nice piece of jewelry as well as a little, you know, leadership tend that they're gonna use to enhance their operations.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Well, that's cool. Yeah, no, I mean I I always when I think about you know leadership conferences, or when I always remember this conversation I had with um, it was a it was a young and upcoming, you know, uh tribal, you know, council member, and we're just chatting, you know, and had an opportunity to talk, and he, you know, he had mentioned to me, well, you know what, uh, when you get elected to a leadership uh uh position, you know, the expectation from the public is that you kind of know everything, you know, but at the end of the day you don't. And you know, you're expected to know the financial stuff, you're expected to know the grant stuff, you're expected to know the non-grant stuff, and so you know, and and and having an opportunity like this to at least get an understanding of the basics so that you feel comfortable in the decisions you make as a travel leader, you know. I think it'd be great to attend this this conference and get a lot out of it, especially knowing that it's gonna be well rounded with all the different, you know, uh professional services that RDW provides and that, you know, hopefully, you know, we share in the same value that just you know consistently sharing information and putting that out there is is for the betterment of the enhancement of any country as a whole as a whole, you know. That's I think that's great.

What Attendees Should Walk Away With

SPEAKER_00 18:57

So any final thoughts for our listeners, you know, um regarding, you know, the Sorenburg journey or you know, what to expect at, you know, the the conference here?

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Um, you know, I yeah, I think I think uh I I would just love to see, I would just love to see everybody at the conference. I I what you said just now resonates with me because that's one of the things that one of the gaps that that I've seen over the years is tribal council members are they're just they're elected into a position that nobody prepared them for, and then nobody trains them. And there's no I'm not gonna say no because some are really good at it, but you know, an orientation package for for the the tribal council, what to expect, you know, some some training on leadership, financial literacy, you know, grants, all of that. They're flying blind, and you're right, there's a huge expectation that they're expected to already know it. And so, you know, we're hoping that you know we can provide some of that um skill level for them. Um we're excited because this year we're we're actually hosting it during the Indian National Finals rodeo. So you kind of get a two for one bang for your buck. You can come out and and get some leadership and you know watch the rodeo.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Nice, nice. Yeah. So those of you uh listen out there, get your uh your buckle nice and shranked out and get out there and come watch the rodeo and and check out the conference, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

And so we'll even accept you in cowboy boots. There you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yep. Well, Carla, thank you for sharing the uh Soaring Bird story and for bringing, you know, the same mission to REW and really looking forward to this next chapter and all that we can bring to Indian country. And to everyone listening, you know, um if you worked with Carla and her team before, you know, this partnership means the same trusted support. It's now just backed by RDW as a with a full advisory bench. And, you know, if you haven't yet had time to say hello,

Rodeo Tie In And Discount Code

SPEAKER_00 20:58

definitely reach out and say hello. And then just one quick note for the listeners. So if you're still on the fence about, you know, reaching out and um registering for the conference, you can use REDWPOD26 at checkout and you can get a discount on your registration. I think the early bird registration ends at the end of August, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:24

The the regular early bird registration already ended, but we've extended it for our for our tribal uh for our national tribal practice. Anybody listening to this podcast or anybody that you're in contact with, Wes. So using that yeah, using that discount.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Yep. Use that discount once again, R E D W P O D 26 at checkout. And you could get a discount on that. So jump on it and let's get registered. So well, you know, thank you, Carla, for all of that. And we definitely looking forward to all that you do and all that you can bring. So thank you, Wes. All right.