About Us
Our Story
The Rivara Group was formed to help organizations solve complex challenges with clarity, discipline, and integrity. Our team brings senior-level experience across healthcare, government, and Tribal relations—fields that shape the systems communities rely on every day.
We founded Rivara Group to close the gap between strategy and execution. Too often, organizations receive recommendations that are difficult to implement or disconnected from real-world constraints. Our approach is practical, collaborative, and grounded in data, realistic outcomes, and good relationships.
As enrolled tribal members and public-sector professionals, we understand the importance of trust, sovereignty, and long-term impact. We work alongside leadership teams to deliver solutions that are actionable, accountable, and built to last.
The Team Behind Our Success
Dash Thunder, MHA, CMPE, CHFP, CPHQ
Dash is a healthcare operations and performance improvement leader with over ten years of experience supporting hospitals, clinics, and drug and alcohol addiction treatment centers. He specializes in quality improvement, financial analysis and stability, utilization management, length-of-stay optimization, and data-driven operational strategy, working closely with executive leadership and boards to align performance, compliance, and financial sustainability.
As an enrolled tribal member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin, Dash brings both professional expertise and cultural understanding to organizations serving rural and tribal communities. His approach emphasizes practical solutions, clear accountability, and measurable results that support long-term organizational strength.
Erica Thunder, JD
Erica Thunder is a formerly practicing attorney, a former dual Cabinet-level executive, and an enrolled Tribal citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation who has spent 15+ years building what did not exist and transforming what no longer worked. She wrote the law — authoring Congressional testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that resulted in the passage of federal legislation. She built the program — creating the Ho-Chunk Nation’s first-ever wraparound children and youth care program, North Dakota’s first-ever reentry and criminal justice initiative, and has been invited by world-renowned educational systems to teach on creating law and policy. She served as the Commissioner for North Dakota Department of Labor and Human Rights, Executive Director for North Dakota Indian Affairs Commissioner, where she still serves as an at-large appointed Commissioner. She is known in North Dakota history and across Indian Country as the first Indigenous person to hold two simultaneous Cabinet-level positions for the State of North Dakota, Her work also resulting in recovering over $100 million in various legal cases and she achieved a 100% legislative advocacy success rate.
She has been recognized as USA Today’s 2022 Woman of the Year for North Dakota, the University of North Dakota’s 2024 Young Alumni Achievement Award recipient, and the 2025 Distinguished Indian Law Speaker at UND School of Law. She has dedicated her career to Tribal relations, child welfare, health equity, legislative advocacy, and rural community development — serving Indigenous communities, underserved populations, and the systems responsible for their well-being with the conviction that every person deserves dignity, every community deserves investment, and every system can be made better by the people willing to do the work.
Her spiritual name, Te Hinuk, is reflected in Rivara, as it means “Lady of the Lake”. A name gifted to her because of her Arikara and Hidatsa bloodline connection to Elbowoods, ND, and Lake Metigoshe, ND/CA, where she grew up.
Erica enjoys staying physically active, as a former State Champion in various sports, including basketball, of which she still enjoys watching. Ms. Thunder loves to read, spend time with family, including her husband and partner, Dash, along with their French bulldog, Peachy, and rescue cat, Luigi.
