The Elephant Parade

Meet our Team

We bring together great talent and decades of experiences in a vast spectrum of arenas.

Chip Howell
(512)566-7421
[email protected]

Chief Strategist

 A native to Bell County, Chip was born and raised in Temple and a Temple High School graduate, now maintains a lovely home in beautiful Morgan's Point Resort, Texas where he and his amazing wife, Cassie Daniel Howell look to use for a retreat from the busyness of the Capitol City.
Chip is vastly experienced in community building. He founded the local Bell County YRs in 2000, which led him to serve as Regional Director for the YRNF (2001) and the TYRF (2008-2009). He also served a term and a half as Finance Chair (2009-2011) for the TYRF contributing some very creative and successful fundraisers. As YRNF Regional Director, he helped to federate the Oklahoma Federation of YRs with the establishment of two clubs in Oklahoma, assisted with the creation of four separate clubs in Kansas and back in Texas was instrumental in the establishment of five local clubs in Bell, Hays, Hidalgo, Victoria and Wilson Counties. Although time and age led to less involvement in the YRS, they still hold a place in his heart and he keeps tabs on many of these clubs today and remains an Associate Member to the Austin, Bell County & Williamson County Young Republican Clubs.
Chip is also an associate member of the Texas Republican County Chairmen's Association, aa Associate Patron to the Texas Federation of Republican Women, a Bluebonnet Circle associate member of the Capitol Republican Women and and associate member of the Bandera County RW, Brown County RW, Burnet County RW, Central Texas RW, Georgetown Area RW,  Highland Lakes RW, Lampasas County RW, Leander Area RW, Limestone County RW, Northwest Austin RW, RW of Kerr County, Robertson County RW, Salado Area RW, Star RW & Texas Strong RW.  
Chip's campaign experience is as vast and wide as Texas itself spanning across more than two decades & seven states. Chip volunteered on more than one hundred campaigns from local city council races to county wide, statewide and US Presidential races before going to work full-time in the industry. Notable campaigns include 2000 Bush/Cheney presidential campaign, 2007 Bobby Jindal, Louisiana gubernatorial campaign, 2008 McCain/Palin presidential campaign (as a McCain Marshall), 2008 Pat Twomey for US Senate-PA, 2014 Greg Abbott Texas gubernatorial campaign, 2014 & 2020 Jeff Rose for Chief Justice for 3rd Court of Appeals, 2020 Gina Parker for Judge Place 3 on Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and 2020 Tony Tinderholt for State Representative, District 96. After a long volunteer relationship with Americans for Prosperity, Chip worked for a year for AFP in 2015 & 2016.
Chip is most proud of the direct impact results of his Get Out the Vote effort for Abbott in 2014 which resulted in an nearly 9% increase in votes for Abbott in Bell County than Governor Perry received in the general election in 2010 in spite of significant voter turnout attrition and the solid win for Tinderholt in a very tough General Election.
In 2019, Chip led his political consulting firm, Elephant in the Room Strategies, L.L.C. to excitedly take over the logistics of the Pints & Politics of Bell County, TX which has now expanded to Bastrop, Brown,  Coryell, Hamilton, Lampasas, Mills, Williamson & Travis Counties and our Smokin' Hot Conservatives in Lockhart & recently soft launched in Austin.. We are excited to soon be rolling out our Voter Education & Engagement Program including our Veteran Voters Engagement Project.
Chip owns and operates Red Fleet Transportation Service, a small transportation and logistics company that provides safe transportation for people and items using tech based platforms such as Uber, UberEats, Lyft, DoorDash, PostMates & Roadie and collects and returned Lime Scooters to the LimeBase to be serviced and charged. Red Fleet also specializes in logistical transportation for Conservative events and PACs.
As a lifelong learner and with an educator’s heart, Chip has taught at Temple College and mentored the Theology Education by Extension program for the Seminary of the University of the South.
Chip also is an independent distributor of Wellness BioScience CBD products through his www.A2iWellness.com website and maintains his retail outlet of Cool Conservative merchandise, The Pachyderm’s Trunk, www.thepachydermstrunk.com.
Chip is a graduate of the University of Central Texas, (now Texas A&M University Central Texas), with a Bachelors of Science in Accounting and a St. Edward's University alum. He also holds a Certificate of Completion for Theology Education by Extension from the Seminary of the University of the South, and completed certification as a Dale Carnegie Instructor.
Chip is an active member of Light of Christ Anglican Church in Georgetown, TX. Chip became an Altrusan in June 2104. He is currently taking a respite from leadership roles in his home club, Altrusa International of The Chisholm Trail and his dual membership club Altrusa International of Central Texas. Outside of his commitments to Altrusa, his favorite volunteer work is wishing soldiers well on their deployments as a USO – Fort Hood volunteer, as the 2010 Volunteer of the Year, and the last civilian they see before leaving U.S. soil, fundraising for the American Cancer Society as a model for the Central Texas Bra Brunch & the Real Men Wear Pink Campaign, a Squire of Hope for St. Baldrick’s Foundation as well as making public appearances in the character of Benjamin Franklin. He enjoys spending as much time as he can with his ten year-old niece and Lady Liberty, his American Blue Heeler Mix rescued in 2016 & her sister Baillee B Marie Daniel Howell who thinks that she is Queen of Everything!


Cassie Daniel Howell
[email protected]

Chief Development Officer
Queen of Calendars & Entertrainment

Cassie is currently serving her fifth term as President of Capitol RW which she helped create while serving as District Director with the Texas Federation of Republican Women (TFRW). Previously, Cassie served as President of two other TFRW Clubs. She has served on TFRW’s Board of Directors for eight years in various positions. Currently, Cassie is Chair of Leadership Development, on the Training Committee, and the Social Media/IT Committee. A long time party activist, Cassie has served as Randall County Party Secretary, and as a Precinct Chair in Randall and Williamson counties. Cassie has been a delegate at seven TFRW conventions, including serving a member of three convention planning committees, nine RPT conventions and appointed as SD 5 Organization Committee (2020) and SD 24 Caucus Chair (2022), and Alternate-At-Large to the 2012 RNC National Convention. Cassie loves to bring joy and laughter as she speaks and trains around the nation. She has done countless trainings, served as Master of Ceremonies of several occasions and has performed several standup comedy routines. Her political journey began at West Texas A&M where she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Speech Communication. After joining the Young Conservatives of Texas, which she later become Chapter Chair and served on the state board. Cassie was named as a National Ronald Reagan Future Leaders Scholar, was appointed by Governor Rick Perry to serve as Student Regent for the Texas A&M System Board of Regents, and was honored as a Yellow Rose of Texas by Governor Greg Abbott. Cassie is a Gold Star Girl Scout and a former member of the Junior League of Austin. When not doing political activities Cassie enjoys ballroom dancing, karaoke, and traveling with her family. She married her husband Chip Howell in 2020 and they have two loving fur babies, Bailee B Marie and Lady Liberty.


William Armbruster
[email protected]

Elephant Event Manager: Bell County, Gatesville & Hamilton

Elephantastic Bio in progress!


Jimmy Brymer
[email protected]

Elephant Event Manager: Hutto

After graduating Southwestern University in 2017 Jimmy went to law school at St. Mary’s law school, he graduated in 2020. He has been very involved in politics since 2013 though the College Republican until he graduated law school. Jimmy served as the treasurer of the College Republicans state board. Since passing the Bar in 2021 Jimmy works as an attorney. He lives in Hutto and is an active member of the community he is serves as Vice President of the Williamson County Young Republicans. Jimmy Is married to his college sweetheart Daphni who he met though College Republicans.  Jimmy and Daphni are the proud parents of two sons, Solomon & Silas.


Nicole Tarpley
(512)671-7775
nicole@elephantintheroomstrategies.com

Elephant Event Manager
Special Projects Coordinator

Nicole was born in Houston, spent her childhood in Ft. Worth, and moved up and down I-45 throughout her teen years. She resided in the Houston area for 20 years and moved to East Texas in 2017 where she has found her home. She graduated third in her class from Eagle Charter School in Tyler in 2000. Nicole married her husband in 2006 and had four beautiful children. After 16 years of marriage,, Nicole was recently widowed. She leans on her faith, education, strength and fortitude and always moves foward. Nicole began college immediately out of high school with an aspiration to become a nurse and continue her education to become a Master’s Certified Midwife. However, that was not God’s plan! She spent years pursuing her nursing degree while working as a Certified Nurse Aid in Intermediate Care Unit, Postpartum, Labor and Delivery and nursing homes. She had come to find out, that was not the calling that God had placed upon her. Life kept pushing her in a different direction until she finally realized where she was supposed to be. In 2018, Nicole was thrusted into politics and she never looked back! Nicole changed her college degree plan to Political Science and obtained an Associate of Science degree from Panola College in 2019.. After that she graduated from Liberty University with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Law and Policy with a pre-law concentration in 2020.. Nicole is a proud member of the Tau Sigma Honors Society graduating from Panola College Magna Cum Laude and Liberty University with Cum Laude. Nicole has faithfully executed volunteer positions as a GOP County Chair, TFRW President, Communications Task Force for the RPT, Data Director for Vice Chair Cat Parks Campaign, Texans for Gregg Abbott, Americans for Prosperity, and Panola County Chamber of Commerce Ambassador. Her professional experience in politics includes: Executive Scheduler for the RPT executive officers, Volunteer Director for the Texas Republican Voter Engagement PAC, and recently joined Elephant in the Room Strategies as Design Coordinator. Nicole bleeds red and passionately pursues legislation that limit’s government influence, upholds Freedom and Liberty, and fortifies the United States Constitution. Nicole and her children are active members of First Methodist Church of Carthage where she and her children participate in the youth group. Nicole serves as a camp counselor at Lakeview Methodist Conference Center every Summer. She grew up at this church camp and believes that the experience is vital to her children’s spiritual upbringing. Nicole’s ultimate goal in politics is to preserve God given rights that are protected by the Government through strictly adhering to the Constitution. She believes that working in the background of politics is the best way to achieve this goal. Continually striving to learn and challenging herself with new skills is exciting to her and she constantly pushes herself to become whom God calls her to be.


Achievements