More than 300 attendees laughed, cried and celebrated International Women’s Day during the Odessa Chamber of Commerce first in-person women’s workshop Tuesday at the Odessa Marriott.
The event, which was called “She Can”, featured speakers as well as networking breaks with pop-up shopping with local vendors and a roundtable discussion.
Last year, the Odessa Chamber of Commerce put on a similar event that was only held virtually due to the pandemic and featured a panel discussion with local women. That event was successful enough to be brought back to a larger setting this year.
Odessa Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Renee Earls said at the time that the thought was “if COVID goes away, we’d want to expand on this event and here we are, a year later, expanding this event and also instead of an hour long, it’s now five hours long.”
The often emotional day featured speakers both local and national with topics as diverse as human trafficking and self-reflection.
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center President Dr. Lori Rice-Spearman along with local community leader and former city council member Peggy Dean kicked off the morning session.
Rice-Spearman told the crowd of mostly women that she woke up “today in my childhood bedroom” and how Odessa shaped her life. She is the first female president of the Texas Tech Health Science system.
She is a product of Permian High School, Odessa College and Texas Tech. She praised the many positive influences she had growing up and those who encouraged her to follow her passion for science.
She encouraged the crowd to take notes and take action to conquer their dreams.
Likewise, NFL sports agent, author and attorney Kelli Masters also spoke about tackling life goals while also looking both inward and to God. She said she spent too many years trying to be perfect and to project that she had it all together.
“I looked around and realized I had done all of this achieving..racked up goals and felt like a failure..what if I don’t accomplish anything again or let my parents down…what if I had let God down?”
She said she came to the realization that despite her successes she felt empty and she needed to acknowledge that fear was causing an empty feeling in her life. She said “thank goodness for praying grandmas and those who prayed over me…I surrendered and said I am just going to give everything to God and for the first time in my life I’m not going to care what anyone else thinks…I just want to be who God made me to be.”
Masters was the keynote speaker. In addition to being a sports agent and an attorney, Masters, who comes from Oklahoma, is also the founder and president of KMM Sports, which is a full-service sports management company with offices in New York, Los Angeles and her hometown of Oklahoma City.
She has served as an agent and contract advisor to players in every NFL Draft since 2006 as well as numerous athletes in the MLB Draft and the Olympics. Growing up a sports fan, Masters said she had no idea that she would one day be a sports agent.
“That was not on my radar,” Masters said. “I remember seeing the movie Jerry Maguire and I was in law school, saying, ‘that’s not me. I would never do that’. But at the same time, I had an opportunity, after practicing law for about four or five years, to work with my first professional athlete. I was helping them and their family with helping give back and that opened up a new world for me. I realized that if I worked with athletes, I could not only be around sports which I love, but I could also help young athletes not just make the most of their professional careers but also how to leave a legacy and give back, using the platforms that their talents afforded them. It’s been truly a dream come true. It’s been tough. I’ve been fighting my way to the top for a long time but I love advocating for my athletes.”
Masters speaks on topics of sports and nonprofit as well as leadership, diversity and discovering purpose in life of which she wrote about in her book called “High Impact Life”.
“I was contacted a number of years ago by a publisher that had worked with other sports figures who were also people of faith like (former Indianapolis Colts head coach) Tony Dungy and asked if I was willing to write a book. I said yes, because I didn’t want to wait until the end of my life to write a book. I’d like to do something now. So I wrote a book called High Impact Life and it really takes the reader through the journey that I take my athletes that I work with through. It helps them with life lessons and with seeing the bigger picture and how their lives can have a big impact. It’s not just about performance or perfection. It’s about discovering what’s the purpose that they serve and how do they serve the people around them.”
Tuesday was Masters’ first time coming to Odessa to speak.
“I’m excited because some of the things that I talk about are themes of (Tuesday),” Masters said. “As women, the things we face, the perfectionism and wanting to have it all together, I’m here to talk about living that way and living with that fear of failure mentality and how do we get rid of that. How do we overcome fear when we’re pursuing purpose with taking action and stepping out in faith to fulfill that purpose and I’m here to talk about David and Goliath. Sometimes we all feel like David vs. Goliath but David wins.”
During Dean’s speech, she talked about her four G’s. The first G stood for God. “It’s the most important,” Dean said. “You must have God at the forefront of your life. I’ve always loved church. … Sometimes, I admit, more times than others, I believe that any success that I’ve enjoyed, gifts that I have and blessings that I’ve received are from God.”
Her second G stood for guts. “I believe that the quality of your life depends on the guts you have to live it,” Masters said. “Using, your God-given talents to identify your goals, understanding your weaknesses and working to overcome them and plowing forward with tenacity takes guts.”
The third G stood for Gratitude.
“Gratitude is essential to success,” Dean said. “There’s no such thing in my mind as a self-made person. All of us are products of past influences of either other people or other actions. Our success has come at someone else’s cost, whether it’d be time or money.”
The fourth G is generosity. “There’s no greater joy than generosity,” Dean said. “If you’re down, depressed, I offer up the perfect remedy, a random act of kindness. Random acts of kindness produce untold amounts of joy for you and the recipient.”
Dean has been a shareholder in a regional accounting firm from 1986-2015 with emphasis on income taxation, estate and financial planning, consulting and mergers and acquisitions. She was an at large city council member from 2018 through 2020 and has served on many boards.
Rice-Spearman is the ninth president of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and the first female president in the Texas Tech University System. She joined TTUHSC in 1987 and has held multiple leadership oppositions during her tenure with the university and is from Odessa.
During her speech she took the time to recognize Adela Vasquez who was a longtime Ector County ISD Counselor, assistant principal and spokeswoman.
Tuesday’s event was held in memory of Vasquez who died recently.
“I tell folks all the time that who I am today is what I was exposed to here in West Texas,” Rice-Spearman said. “Growing up in the family business, my dad’s name was on the side of the building…. First of all, I want to say how honored I am to be a part of this event that honors Adela. Adela was a warrior in this community and was committed to the education of students so I’m honored to be a part of this celebration of her life and her legacy in Odessa.”
Lisa Bownds, CEO and founder of Reflections Ministries, along with Karin Carlson, the education director at Reflections, held a panel discussion on human trafficking moderated by Earls.
Bownds was open about her own experiences as a victim of trafficking and spoke about how Reflections is working to help others who have been victimized. She said the Permian Basin is No. 5 on the list of most trafficked sex victims.
Both Carlson and Bownds detailed how important it is to be get involved and to help others in whatever capacity available whether that is volunteering to teach a life skill class or writing a check.
