Theme: Wild Ideas in the Wild West

We believe passionately in the power of ideas that change attitudes, lives, and ultimately the world.
In this spirit, TEDxCheyenne strives to bring together some of west’s most inspired thinkers and a community of curious souls.

TEDxCheyenne is an expression of the diverse and multifaceted being that is TED. We are excited to showcase Wyoming’s capitol city and offer “ideas worth spreading” right here in our own backyard.

Atlas Theater
211 W Lincolnway
Cheyenne, Wyoming, 82001
United States

Billie Jo Waara

CMO Taco John's, storyteller, brand ambassador.

Billie Jo is Chief Marketing Officer for Taco John’s International. Her focus is marketing strategy, innovation and menu development for the chain’s 400 restaurants. In her TEDxCheyenne talk she describes how one small idea, that came from an unlikely place, changed pop-culture forever.

Britney Wallesch

Animal welfare advocate, bridge builder, creator, and founder.

Britney Wallesch is the Founder and Executive Director of Black Dog Animal Rescue, Wyoming’s largest nonprofit companion animal rescue and advocacy organization. Britney is an Executive member of the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators and has been published in the Humane Society of the United States’ Animal Sheltering Magazine. She is a contributor to HSUS’s Best Practices for Rescue Groups Guide and is an active contributor to the work of the Wyoming Nonprofit Network. Britney is passionate about pets, nonprofit business, and leadership.

Haylee Reay

Domestic violence awareness advocate, and incredibly resilient human being.

Haylee Reay is an advocate for domestic violence awareness. She was born to two parents – one loving and one abusive. As a result, she was a victim of domestic violence at a young age. Since 2008 she has taken every opportunity to speak out to and on behalf of domestic violence victims.

Jason Shogren

Nobel Peace Prize winner, thinker, doer, blue grass musician.

Jason Shogren lives in Centennial, Wyoming. His day job is in the Department of Economics and Finance at the University of Wyoming, his alma mater. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, has served as professor to King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, and was in the Council of Economic Advisers in the White House. He served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. In his night job, he leads J Shogren Shanghai’d, who play a catawampus style of American music—new sounds played through an old radio.

Jeffrey A. Lockwood

Scientist, writer, explorer, philosopher.

Jeffrey Lockwood earned a Ph.D. in entomology from Louisiana State University. He worked for 15 years as an insect ecologist at the University of Wyoming, publishing more than 100 scientific papers and pioneering a method of IPM for rangeland grasshoppers. In 2003, he metamorphosed into a Professor of Natural Sciences & Humanities in the department of philosophy where he teaches environmental ethics and philosophy of ecology, and in the program in creative writing where he is the director and teaches workshops in non-fiction. He has published three collections of environmental/spiritual essays through Skinner House. His other books include: Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier (Basic, 2004), Six-Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War (Oxford, 2008), Philosophical Foundations for the Practices of Ecology (Cambridge, 2010), and The Infested Mind: Why Humans Fear, Loathe and Love Insects (Oxford, 2013). H

Stacey Menzel Baker

Research scientist, professor, leader, innovator.

Stacey Menzel Baker is Professor of Marketing in the Heider College of Business at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. She studies consumer attachment, vulnerability, and resilience in contexts such as disaster recovery, disability, and social services. Her research has been published by elite journals in her field and has been used by business to promote products and to design accessible servicescapes, by U.S. and Canadian governments to help shape civil rights policies, by policy makers in the UK addressing consumer vulnerability, and by scholars inside and outside her discipline, including those investigating the management of disasters and global environmental change.