Name: Avonlea Elkins
Hometown: Fort Worth, Texas
Current Residential Location: Fort Worth, Texas
Graduation Year: 2014
Degree: Ranch management with minors in communications studies, general business, energy technology & management
Current Occupations: program manager at DBE Cattle Company, general manager at Elkins Hardware, program manager at DBE Realty, program manager at Elkins Tri-Steel, and print and runway model at Campbell Agency

Avonlea Elkins describes her time at Texas Christian University as two separate experiences. She majored in ranch management and minored in communication studies, general business, and energy technology & management. However, her senior year consisted of exclusively ranch management classes, which she hadn’t taken up until that point. She went from a “normal” TCU student, creating her own class schedule, attending football games and Pi Phi events, and going out on the weekends, to one of 26 students in an almost military-like program. She went to sleep at 9 p.m. on her 21st birthday because she had a corral plan due the next week, and desired sleep more than a birthday party. Shortly after graduation, she made the decision to forgo her modeling career to focus on ranch management.

Elkins joined the workforce exactly one week after graduation. She began as a scholar for a nonprofit agricultural foundation in Oklahoma, researching innovative ways to improve the industry and consulting local farmers to share ideas about maintaining profitability while preserving natural resources.

Today, Elkins has several careers. She is a program manager at three companies: DBE Cattle Company, DBE Realty and Elkins Tri-Steel. These jobs allow her to use her degree and college textbook information daily. She is also the general manager at Elkins Hardware, and a print and runway model at the Campbell Agency. She spends the majority of her time at Elkins Hardware where she is responsible for the entire business: the employees, the inventory, the dollars in and out, and both long and short-term decisions. Elkins’ grandfather founded the hardware store in 1966, and her father took over in the early 90s and was able to integrate computers and technology into the business. She is the third generation in her family to run the hardware store and has worked tirelessly to push the business forward by integrating app-based software, social media marketing, and an e-commerce website.

Elkins re-entered the modeling business in 2017. She works as a model on the Women Mainboard at Campbell Agency, where she has collaborated with numerous brands including PepsiCo, Frito Lay, NFL, JCPenney, D Magazine, and MAC Cosmetics to name a few. The modeling industry made a major pivot after COVID-19 struck, by bringing models in as influencers with bigger brands. Around this time, she signed with J1S through The Campbell Agency and started working on larger influencer projects.

“Every day is different, and I am challenged with something I haven’t experienced before. One morning I might be gathering cattle or baling hay, and that same night I am walking in a runway show,” Elkins said. “Although there is a lot of pressure and responsibility to take on a family business, I feel honored that my dad just handed over the keys and said ‘go.’ Being the decision maker allows me to be creative with every aspect of the business.

“Being a feminine millennial gives me an advantage in industries I normally wouldn’t fit into. I have the ability to see everything from an alternate, fresh perspective, and question why things are done a certain way to see if there is a more effective or efficient method,” Elkins said. “For example, when they used to tag cattle at DBE, the workers had always tagged the females in the right ear and the males in the left, so from a distance you could tell a heifer from a steer. One day I asked my dad why we didn’t just tag them all in the left ear, but tag males with blue tags and females with pink. It was so silly and simple but impacted the prosperity of the company and saved us so much time since we started using colored tags! My dad loves to tell that story.”

Elkins’ main goal is to create a company culture centered around the happiness of the employees. “Most people spend their entire lives working, not at home or with friends or family,” she said. “Work is a more pleasant place for me to be if my employees are happy and collaborative, and customer interactions are more positive as a result.”