Crazy Horse Memorial® - Senior Executive Team

The senior leadership of Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation serve to ensure that the overall operations of the Memorial are conducted in keeping with the direction set by the Board of Directors.

Whitney A. Rencountre II

Chief Executive Officer

Whitney Rencountre II, is Crow Creek Hunkpati Dakota from the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and is the CEO of the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation. Whitney previously served as Associate Director and Instructor at The Indian University of North America®. Whitney was a 2019 Honoree of Western South Dakota Child Protection Council. Whitney was named one of 605 Magazine’s South Dakota Young Leaders of 2017. Whitney served as Chairman of the South Dakota Humanities Council and Chairman of Visit Rapid City. For 11 years, had been Director of the Ateyapi Program, a culturally based mentoring program working with over 1,000 students each year in the Rapid City Area School District. Whitney has a passion to build bridges in the communities he serves.

Joseph A. Konkol

Chief Financial Officer

Joseph A. Konkol is the Chief Financial Officer for the Foundation. Until he stepped into his current role, the he served as the Interim CEO and Vice President of Finance at the Memorial. He has been at Crazy Horse Memorial® for over 25 years with expertise in financing and nonprofit accounting management.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Joe served as the Payroll/Grant Accountant at St. John’s University in Minnesota. Joe earned a bachelor’s degree in Accounting at Southwest State University (now Southwest Minnesota State University) and passed the CPA exam in 1988.

Joe enjoys spending time with his children and grandchildren, working out in the yard, hunting, and sports.

Dr. Caleb Ziolkowski

Chief Mountain Officer

Caleb has several degrees, a result of his love of learning and willingness to endure countless hours researching, writing, and working through problems. His advanced degrees are a Masters of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from Tufts University and two degrees from UCLA—a Master’s of Science in Statistics and a Ph.D. in Political Science.

From 2015 to 2022, Caleb worked on the Mountain Crew while earning his degrees from UCLA—he helped with technical analysis and planning while at school and, in the summers, worked full-time on the Mountain. Caleb was on the path to becoming a professor—finishing a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Princeton and ready to start another at MIT—when the chance to serve as the Director of the Mountain Carving arose.

Faced with the choice to continue his career out east or move back to the Black Hills, he decided to be part of the legacy his grandfather began; he hasn't looked back since.

Mary H. Murtala

Chief Development Officer

Mary is a highly experienced nonprofit executive skilled at leading teams, as she did in her most previous role as Senior Managing Director of Development at National Parks Conservation Association. While there she worked directly with NPCA’s Philanthropy Committee and their various donors, focusing on strategy, analysis, and coordination of the association’s Development function, successfully mentoring a team of thirty professionals.

Murtala’s decades of experience include other organizations such as the SEED Foundation and the University of Maryland, College Park. She has been responsible for comprehensive fundraising campaigns and has served on several Executive Teams during her career.

A collaborative and responsive leader, Murtala is a Tulane University graduate and an alumna of both the New Strategies Program for Nonprofit Executives at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and the Nonprofit Executive Leadership Program at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. She is passionate about issues related to social equality, including access to education and our public lands, and cultural awareness andunderstanding of all people.