Building A Better Wyoming: Ray Fleming Dinneen

Looking at her life and accomplishments, it’s easy to see how Ray Fleming Dinneen earned the 2025 UWAA Building a Better Wyoming award. Among other things, Dinneen is the founder of Climb Wyoming, a statewide nonprofit that serves low-income single mothers with the goal of discovering self-sufficiency through career training and placement. In the last 35 years, Dinneen and her team saved the state of Wyoming millions of dollars from decreased dependence on public assistance programs among graduates. In 2020, Climb was recognized nationally as one of the top 10 best programs for helping women and families escape poverty.

“My business management degree (1978) from UW was important for me because it provided a good foundation for running a statewide nonprofit,” Dinneen says. At UW, she also gained leadership experience as president of her sorority, serving on the Panhellenic Council and interning for a U.S. senator. But it was her psychologist mother Pat Fleming, also a UW graduate, who inspired Dinneen to become a psychologist and focus on the potential of those who struggle the most. 

“My mom helped conduct death-row evaluations and worked with the inmates in the Wyoming Women’s Center in Lusk,” she says. “I learned what is possible for those who are often dismissed as being invaluable if provided the right opportunity.” 

In 1986, Wyoming’s Department of Employment asked for help to evaluate their programming for those most at risk. Ray and her mother applied for the first grant, which gave birth to Climb and its success and expansion, which Ray orchestrated over the next three decades.  

The Climb model tackles the complex issues of poverty through a therapeutic environment. Participants address what has gotten in their way in the past so that they are set up to succeed in the industry-demand-driven training and employment they receive through Climb.

Rather than touting its impressive numbers or accolades, Dinneen is most proud of constantly growing right alongside the mothers in the program and making sure Climb and its staff are always functioning optimally. After 35 years of leadership and careful succession planning, Dinneen stepped down from her position as executive director in 2021. As a managing partner at Practis LLC, Dinneen currently consults in the human services field, where she continues to improve outcomes in Wyoming and beyond. Ray and her spouse Jim have two children and live in Cheyenne. 

Over the years, Dinneen served on the Economically Needed Diversity Options for Wyoming (ENDOW) executive council, the governor-appointed Wyoming Workforce