Rio Rancho women leaders share lessons at Rust Medical Center roundtable
Three Rio Rancho women who shape city hall, development and health care traded leadership lessons at Rust Medical Center, showing how influence moves through business and public service.
Three women who help steer Rio Rancho government, development and health care took the same stage at Presbyterian Rust Medical Center to talk about how leadership gets built in Sandoval County. The June 4 roundtable, hosted by NAIOP, brought together Rio Rancho Governing Body member Deborah Dapson, city development services director Amy Rincon and pharmacist-business owner Dr. Ndidiamaka Okpareke for a morning discussion that mixed practical advice with personal reflection.
The setting mattered. Rather than a council chamber or a policy hearing, the conversation unfolded inside the hospital complex, where business networking and civic influence often overlap in Rio Rancho. Michelle Franks, chief financial officer of Albuquerque-based Studio Southwest Architects, moderated the event and steered questions toward the paths that carried each woman into a visible role. Franks said she wanted women not to hold themselves back and wanted young women to see leadership as achievable and men to see how they can help.
Dapson, elected to the District 1 seat in a runoff election in April 2024, said there was no single moment that pushed her into public leadership. She said starting her own business, Copper Moon Media, helped her realize she had something to give. Her role gives her a direct hand in the decisions that shape Rio Rancho, while her business ties keep her rooted in the local economy.
Rincon, the director of development services for the City of Rio Rancho, described a different route. She said she moved into leadership as openings appeared in the city’s planning and development roles, showing how internal municipal careers can become a pipeline to greater responsibility. In a growing city, those positions carry influence over how projects move, how departments operate and who gets a seat in future decisions.
Okpareke, who opened Olive Tree Compounding Pharmacy in Rio Rancho in 2017, brought the private-sector view. She said her Nigerian parents shaped her belief that communities need leaders to progress, a lesson that echoed through the panel’s broader theme: leadership in Rio Rancho is not limited to elected office. It also lives in the owners, managers and professionals who keep the city’s daily systems moving.
The roundtable offered a clear cross-section of women in Sandoval County leadership. Dapson, Rincon and Okpareke each occupied a different corner of local power, and together they showed how city government, business ownership and health care leadership intersect in the same community conversation.
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