Amber (Andrews) Bowen works from home. Her office is in the corner of her basement in a farmhouse west of Britton. Her two computer monitors sit against the cinderblock wall. Occasionally she has to bang on her washing machine if it gets too loud while she’s on a meeting. While this situation might sound typical these days, especially in a post-COVID shutdown world, Bowen works for a company that you might not imagine a small-town South Dakota girl would work for: Ultimate Fighting Championship, better known as UFC.
Bowen’s path to being employed by the multi-billion dollar mixed martial arts company has been an interesting journey. She graduated from Britton-Hecla in 2004. (Her parents are Dave and Brenda Andrews). Bowen headed off to college at SDSU in Brookings where she started in the hospitality management program. After a couple years, she decided she needed a change of scenery.
The change would be a big one when Bowen moved to Las Vegas. Thanks to some connections through a faculty member at SDSU, she met a manager at the famed Venetian Hotel and Casino in Vegas. “We hit it off right away, but since I was still under 21 at the time, there were a limited number of jobs I could do in Vegas,” Bowen explains. Still interested in the hospitality, hotel and event management business, Bowen became a student in that program at the University of Nevada Las Vega and started working at the famous hotel as a lifeguard.
Bowen did well at the Venetian and climbed the ladder quickly. Eventually she was working in supervisor roles. Yet, by 2008, Bowen was ready for another change. She had started considering other jobs when a unique opportunity came up. The Venetian’s parent company was opening a property in Singapore and Bowen took a chance.
By October of 2009, she was in the Asian country with a two year work Visa.At the massive luxury hotel the Marina Bay Sands, Bowen handled events and VIPs. “I worked with groups outside of the casino including pharmaceutical groups and CEO types,” said Bowen. She again excelled at her position and was soon managing huge events at the hotel, including Rolling Stones and Earth, Wind and Fire concerts.
Bowen would eventually renew her work visa and spend another three years in Asia. In 2014, things changed again. “I remember it vividly,” said Bowen. “In March, I was sitting in a room with Mick Jagger before a concert. Meanwhile, I was on the phone with my sister who was living in Aberdeen, asking if I could possibly move into her basement.”
That’s when the UFC opportunity arose. Bowen had worked with the UFC before on events in Singapore and had friends in the organization. One tipped her off that the growing mixed martial arts company was looking for someone to run their operations in Asia office. Bowen got the job, but ended up back in Vegas as she waited for a new work visa. After a few months of limbo, she informed the UFC that she didn’t want to go back to Asia, and they were more than happy to have her do the job from the U.S.
Since mid-2014, Bowen has been an integral part of the UFC’s operations. While you might not see her on a pay-per-view fight, she is often working behind the scenes to make sure things happen. When asked what her responsibilities were, Bowen said a bit of everything, everything from hotel contracts to coordinating VIP guests at the shows and ensuring athletes have what they need to be successful. “My team and I are jacks of all trades, we manage hotel bookings, global logistics, arena requirements, catering and everything in between,” she explained.
In 2017, she also began working directly for the big daddy of the UFC- President Dana White. “He didn’t know my name for a while. Then one time, he called me at midnight from a Super Bowl event and needed something done. I got it done.” That was the beginning of a close relationship between the two where Bowen handled White’s VIP guests.
Bowen went on to be a go-to person in the UFC. In her current position of Vice President of Operations and Event Management, she has worked many of their biggest events. This includes the huge fight between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather, where she was responsible for holding onto several title belts. She has many fun stories to tell, including those about working with Donald Trump’s team, the first sitting president to attend a UFC fight. She also laughs about the time she introduced actor Chris Pratt to Mel Gibson backstage at a fight.
Over the next years, Bowen’s life changed in some big ways. She married her husband Josh and had two kids, Elise and Colton. In the midst of this, COVID happened, and rather than slowing down, she found herself busier than ever as the UFC still orchestrated fights at a private island off the shores of the United Arab Emirates and in their own venue in Las Vegas, the UFC Apex.
“I was actually working more than I ever had, managing protocols and testing plus all the normal logistics,” Bowen says. Most of this was happening from her home with a toddler there as her husband worked around the clock as a Vegas police officer. “I was getting burnt out,” Bowen admits.
She explains that she and Josh were both doing well in their jobs at this time, but they acknowledged that they didn’t want to raise their kids in Las Vegas. Fast forward to 2022 when the family came back to South Dakota for her dad’s birthday. They stayed at her grandparents’ farmhouse next to her parents’ place. “We really enjoyed that,” she said. They began talking earnestly about moving to the Midwest.
They soon listed their Vegas home, which sold quickly. Bowen then had to approach Dana White about her planned move. “I had accepted that I might not be able to keep working for the UFC, but 1 told him I love my job and would like to keep doing it,” she said. White, who Bowen describes as a family man himself, completely understood and gave Bowen his blessing to keep working for the organization, no matter where she moved.
So in October, Bowen and her family packed up and moved across the country. Now, though Bowen finds herself working from a cinderblock basement, she is loving the change. Her kids are enjoying preschool and daycare in Britton while her stepson Brenden who moved with them found a job at Horton.
Bowen said her job is still in many ways the same. She works with a large team to coordinate events and logistics, which she can do from a computer. She still travels to big fights and has been back to Vegas and to New York since she’s moved to South Dakota.
The family is happy they made the move. As she watches her four year old daughter play with kitties at the farm, Bowen is satisfied with their decision. “We have zero regrets,” Bowen confirms. She adds that her husband said his only regret is “that we didn’t do it sooner.”
As the Bowens look forward, they acknowledge that their Britton stop might be brief. Josh is currently training to be a police officer in Des Moines. Bowen says they are eyeing a move to Iowa later this year where they hope to live outside of the city yet still be close to her sister Mandy and family who live in that area.
Wherever she ends up, Bowen says she’s happy to continue her UFC work for the foreseeable future. Even though she might not be sitting cageside, she will be there behind the scenes, even if it’s long-distance.
