Back in 1980, Rebecca was working as a registered nurse in Missoula, Montana. Eventually she grew tired of the hectic pace and high stress of her nursing career. Obsessed with the thought of being a "stay at home mom" provided the incentive for her next line of work...

Rebecca's love for horses was instilled as a child, while being raised on her parents' pony farm in Middletown, Ohio. After graduating from nurse's training in Cincinnati, she moved to San Francisco with her young family. Soon after Cybele was born, they moved to the northern California countryside where she purchased her first Anglo-Arab mare.

Cybele's horse craze began at infancy, but took full affect when she was three. Having suffered a mild concussion (from an attempt to ride the family Sheepdog), her parents decided to purchase a Welsh pony. Tumbler became her constant companion, up until their heartbreaking separation in 1976, when a move to western Montana forced the family to sell him.

Living in Montana allowed Rebecca ample room to raise her three children and growing herd of horses. However, with the acquisition of more horses came the need for more tack.

Being forgetful, as children often are, left Rebecca one day searching high and low for her favorite headstall and reins. It wasn't until spring thaw that she found it in the manure pile. It soon became her objective to make her own tack, and teach her children along the way — hoping they'd learn a valuable lesson regarding the importance of caring for their tack.

She obtained her first parachute cord from the nearby U.S Forest Service Smoke Jumper's School, and a copy of Bruce Grant's Encyclopedia of Rawhide and Leather Braiding. Adapting leather braiding techniques to parachute cord, proved to be the answer to her needs. The tack was not only economical to make, but was strong and practically carefree.

She soon began making many tack items, and people who saw her work encouraged her to write a "how-to" book. In 1982, she published The Complete Book of Macra-Tack. Sales continued through six editions, up to the time that it was out of print.

Although Rebecca's two older children did not take to braiding, Cybele showed an interest at an early age and soon began designing her own tack. Orders and requests continued to come from old ads in Western Horseman magazine for the out of print book.

Thus it was, in 1996 that the two decided to publish an entirely new book, How To Braid Quality Custom Tack. At the urging of their editor, John Oliver Jones, they became a complete source for braiders.

Rebecca and Cybele manage u-braid-it in Santa Fe, New Mexico where they reside with their small family of Arabian horses and Jack Russell Terriers.