About the Sitting Bull Monument Foundation
The Sitting Bull Monument Foundation is a federally recognized 501c3 non-profit foundation that has been established to protect and preserve the Sitting Bull gravesite and the sculpture-bust of Sitting Bull at the grave, and also to formulate plans and oversee construction of an educational cultural center and museum to be built near the grave that will describe Sitting Bull and the Sioux culture.
These objectives will be pursued and accomplished in a respectful, positive manner while maintaining the natural beauty and serenity of the site location.
Through these projects we will pay tribute to a great leader and a great man. We will properly recognize his life struggles, his life accomplishments and his impact on humanity.
The gravesite must be a place of honor and respect. This site and its proper development have nationwide, even worldwide significance, and therefore should be handled in a sensitive and dignified manner.
We view Sitting Bull as one of the greatest leaders of any people or nation. We want to properly recognize his life struggles, his life accomplishments and his impact on humanity.
Foundation Founders and Organizers
Bryan Defender was born and raised on the Standing Rock Reservation, is a Standing Rock Sioux Tribal member and a descendant of Sitting Bull's Hunlepapa Band. He has an Associate's Degrees in Business Administration and Small Business Management from Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North Dakota. As the president and owner of Standing Rock Sanitation Service, Inc., which provides waste management services throughout the Standing Rock Reservation in both North and South Dakota, Mr. Defender has ten years of multi-faceted waste system development and operations experience. He and his wife have two daughters and two sons. They are actively involved in their church and in children's ministries in McLaughlin, South Dakota.
Rhett Albers is a native of the Spearfish, South Dakota area, and his father and his father's side of the family are from the Cheyenne River Reservation. Rhett and his wife, Suzanne, have lived in Mobridge, South Dakota for almost twelve years. Suzanne teaches at Wakpala High School on the Standing Rock Reservation. They have one daughter and two sons. Mr. Albers has a Bachelor of Science/Engineering degree from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota. Mr. Albers has approximately twenty years of experience as a project engineer, project manager, and environmental engineer on various solid waste, environmental, construction management, and mining-related developments and projects. He has worked as a consultant for numerous tribal, city, county, state and federal entities in the areas of solid waste management, environmental, and construction related projects. Mr. Albers has written and secured numerous grants and other funding and managed numerous projects for several North and South Dakota tribes.
The founders have worked together in the Standing Rock Reservation area for the past ten years. Mr. Defender and Mr. Albers have also worked with many tribal, federal, state and local agencies and entities in this geographic area, and they feel that they can coordinate and provide the necessary technical and organizational expertise to properly develop the Sitting Bull Monument and cultural center project.
