Spokane Tribe of Indians

Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board

Year

Serving tribes in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB) was created in 1972 to increase tribes’ ability to exercise control over the design and development of tribal health care delivery systems. Governed by tribal government delegates, NPAIHB facilitates intertribal coordination and promotes intergovernmental consultation. A leader in data collection and advocacy, NPAIHB also administers the first and largest tribal epidemiology center.

Resource Type
Citation

"Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board". Honoring Nations: 2003 Honoree. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2004. Report.

Permissions

This Honoring Nations report is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

The Healing Lodge of the Seven Nations

Year

Owned by a consortium of seven tribes, the Healing Lodge is a treatment center that helps Native American youth and their families heal from the trauma of alcohol and drug abuse. With a focus on blending culture and spirituality with mental health/chemical dependency treatment, services include in-patient chemical dependency programs, mental health counseling, family counseling, a juvenile justice improvement project, recreation, education, and cultural activities. Since its creation in 1989, the Healing Lodge has served over 1,500 youth from more than 150 tribes, giving them fresh opportunities to better themselves and their communities.

Resource Type
Citation

"The Healing Lodge of the Seven Nations." Honoring Nations: 2002 Honoree. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2003. Report. 

Permissions

This Honoring Nations report is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.  

Honoring Nations: Jennifer Harris and Julia Davis-Wheeler: The Healing Lodge of the Seven Nations

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Representatives Jennifer Harris and Julia Davis-Wheeler of the Healing Lodge of the Seven Nations youth treatment center discuss the Lodge's genesis and how it works to strengthen the families of the seven Native nations it serves.

Resource Type
Citation

Harris, Jennifer and Julia Davis-Wheeler. "The Healing Lodge of the Seven Nations." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 11, 2004. Presentation.

Amy Besaw Medford:

"Next up we have Jennifer Harris, who helped participate during the Family Strengthening Symposium. She's from the Healing Lodge of the Seven Nations and is a registered nurse.

Jennifer Harris:

"I'm so short. Good morning. As that wonderful introduction that Amy gave me, my name is Jennifer Harris. I'm a registered nurse at the Healing Lodge, which is located in Spokane, Washington. We are seven consortium tribes. We are not located on a reservation; we are located in the city limits of Spokane, but on federal property. I kind of broke my talk into two sections because I wanted to touch a little bit and explain about the Healing Lodge, but I also wanted to talk about the Strengthening American Indian Families [symposium] that some of us were here for a few years ago. So I'll start with the Healing Lodge, which is a 26-bed inpatient chemical dependency treatment facility. And I'm fortunate to have one of our past board presidents -- I don't want to pick on her -- Julia Davis, here in the audience. And the presentation before was so excellent. Julia was one of the founding members of the Healing Lodge. So maybe when I'm done, she might want to come up and say a few words about how many, many years ago these tribal leaders came together with this idea and have actually seen it through to a beautiful, working program. So maybe she would be gracious enough to do that for us later. At the Healing Lodge, we have our own school, which does have a Native American Studies program. We have cultural resource people who are there available to the children. I guess I should have said that it's inpatient treatment for 13 to 17 year olds. We will take a 12 year [old] or an 18 year old; 12 if it's a dire situation and 18 if they're still enrolled in school. Their days are planned from the moment they wake up [until] the time they go to bed with education and process groups and a medical staff. They have mental health counselors, recreation specialists, the medical department. We're just one small part of this wonderful program that tries to help these youth recover from substance abuse and give them skills to go back into their communities. And when I was here -- to kind of switch gears -- when I was here for the Strengthening Families Symposium, it was something that I heard over and over again and something that I hear when people ask me where I work is, 'How do you not despair? How do you go to work and hear these stories every day, see the tears in these young ladies' eyes and young men, and know that you're sending them back to these communities and again you're powerless?' You have them for such a short period of time, which is usually 60 to 90 days, and we try to help them heal, teach them skills and hope for the best when they go back to the communities. And at this symposium, the pieces of the puzzle just went together for me. When the Healing Lodge was given honors in 2002, I was not part -- I'm still not part of the administration -- but it was the administration that was involved in the nomination process. And we have the big plaque on the wall, but not all of us know how that came to be. And being here this weekend, like I said, really put these pieces together for me. And it's the youth programs, the family violence programs, the economic development that is helping these children that I see every day. What I do on the front lines is just a small, small piece and I see this economic development and these fabulous programs as what's going to break the cycle of poverty. It's no secret that the poverty leads to addiction, abuse, violence, crime and helping these children at this stage in their life to be sober and clean and healthy is one small piece, but it is the salmon hatcheries and the revitalization of culture that is going to stop the addiction before they ever get to me. You will put me out of a job and I will gladly go because that, like I said, my light bulb went on when I was involved in the breakout sessions and hearing the speakers, that the Honoring Nations programs are what is breaking the cycle of poverty, which is bringing the self-determination, the self-governance, the revitalization of culture and what is going to eventually bring the Native American people out of poverty, out of despair and break the cycle of addiction that I see every day and help these children hold their heads high, be proud of who they are and continue to be members of a society that has in the past not been honored. So if anybody would like to hear, the story is fascinating and the web site is www.healinglodge.org and it's a beautiful facility. We do have -- and Julia will touch on this most likely -- we are run by a board and to be on the board you have to be a tribal councilperson. So our leadership is all Native, which I know is important, that we're learning about today with the self-governance and sovereignty, and we focus on Native American hiring. It's very hard, I know some of you must know that finding qualified Native people who are willing to come and work in the programs is sometimes difficult but we try to make sure that our administrator, our treatment director, the people who are making the decisions, know the Native culture and are making those decisions coming from that place. So that's kind of a nutshell of the Healing Lodge and what I've learned today. And I just want to thank everyone for all of their awesome input and what they're doing in their communities. I think it's easy to lose track of why we get up and go to work every day and the things that we do and I know you see the faces of your own children, but I see the faces of the children that I work with and some of them come from the tribes that you're representing. And knowing that, I can see like the floodgates closing and it coming to a trickle and through the generations the healing and the addiction decreasing. That's really the most important thing that I learned from being here. So I'll turn it over to Julia."

Julia Davis-Wheeler:

"There are seven tribes that belong to the consortium and that is the Umatilla Tribe in Oregon, the Kalispel Tribe in Washington, the Colville Tribe in Washington, the Kootenai, Coeur d'Alene and Nez Pierce tribe in Idaho. That's seven tribes, right? Did I say them all? Spokane. And I see our Kootenai tribal chairman just walking in the door, Gary Aitken. He's on the board and all of the tribes passed a resolution after a working group got together in 1986 and they were all tribal leaders and they wanted to do something for the kids. And that's when the omnibus drug bill was going through Congress and the focus was treatment centers for youth and at that time, in the Portland area, we didn't have any youth treatment centers. And so Mel Tonasket, Bruce Wynn, Ernie Stensgar, myself, Amy -- your mother Amy -- a bunch of others of us got a working group together and this goes back to improving tribal government and what we can do for the youth. And so what we did was we formed a consortium of tribes and we invited any tribe that was interested to come in to work with us. And we especially wanted the bigger tribes, the Yakama, the Shoshone-Bannock, and of course the Colville. The Colville, which is one of the larger tribes in Washington, decided to come in with us, but the Yakama and the Shoshone-Bannocks, because they had their own treatment centers going, decided to not come in with us. So what we did is we formed a band, if you will, of tribal leaders to get this youth treatment center and to be designated as the residential youth treatment for the Portland area. Now I need to tell you that it was not easy. It was very hard because we had the competition of the coastal tribes, if you will. And no offense against any of the coastal tribes that may be here, but they have Seattle, Portland and that corridor where they wanted to have the youth treatment center over that way instead of inland. We wanted it east of the Cascade Mountains so we could serve all of those youth and so we did have a little bit of a tug of war there and we won them over and they decided to support us to go ahead and do this treatment center. I just needed to let you know that it was a lot of work; we had a lot of meetings, continuous meetings. We met with Indian Health Service and we were finally designated as the youth treatment center group. And then we had to go through that whole rigmarole of finding a building, finding a place, finding the land, getting appropriations. I can't tell you how many times we went back to Washington, D.C. to lobby and it was like a miracle from God that we got special appropriations back in 1989. Oh, we started this in 1986, in 1986 when we formed this tribal leaders working group to do this. We knew that we wanted to do it and it was in 1989, 1990 with the help of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, some of the staff people knew what we were doing [and they felt strongly] with it and so they helped us get special appropriations, which was...that's unheard of now. Anyway, we got the appropriations to build a building. And the reason I'm saying this is we are very proud of that building. It's a brand-new facility and after we got appropriated the money then we had to find the land because the omnibus drug bill said that you had to be near a hospital, you had to be near a metropolitan area, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. We wanted to put it down in Pendleton, Oregon with the Umatilla Tribe and we were looking at buildings down there. We wanted to have it on a reservation and Indian Health Service kept telling us, 'No, you have to be near a metropolitan area.' And it was like we were hitting our heads up against a wall. We tried to have it in Coeur d'Alene. The State of Idaho does not have a good reimbursement rate for treatment beds, Medicare; it didn't work out there. We tried to do it in Washington. We were looking over on one of the reservations and there are no buildings. You all know that. There's nothing on the Indian reservations that could house a youth treatment center. So what we did was we said, 'Okay, we'll build one.' We knew we wanted to build one. So we went back, we talked to the Department of Health and Human Services and they agreed to purchase land for us. So we ended up buying four acres of land, six acres of land, within the city limits of Spokane. Now, I know a lot of our tribes in the Northwest cannot understand why we are off the reservation but we had to do that. So the residential treatment center is in Spokane, Washington, and if any of you go there I really want you to go out and look at the treatment center, it's beautiful. It's one of the best facilities in the west and it's brand new and it's out in some trees. We have a sweat lodge for the young men, we have a sweat lodge for the young women, we focus on culture, on helping those young people deal with the substance abuse and the alcohol abuse that they're going through. We have elders come in and meet with them and talk with them about, some of those kids have lost touch with their culture, they've lost touch with their spirituality. Some of them have, they're just like little babes. So we're really working with them to come back. But so that's how we ended up with the federal land, and I'm leaving a lot of other things out. We had to fight with the City of Spokane to even build that residential treatment center because the neighboring people around, they didn't want us there. They did not want us there. So we had to battle with the city, the counties, everybody, to even get that facility there. And so that's why it's so good to see that the Healing Lodge has been recognized for improving tribal governments because even though we couldn't actually do it hands-on ourselves, as tribal leaders what we could do is help all the young people that we could -- not just one tribe, but all of us tribes and help them so they don't have to go through what we see every day. And a lot of us are recovering people ourselves. I'm not ashamed to say I'm a recovering alcoholic; I've been sober now for geez, since 1988. No not '98, since 1980. So that's 20 some years. And I know Antone [Minthorn]is the chair of our Umatilla and I know he has a long time [in recovery] -- I hope you don't mind me saying that -- but there's many of us that really believe strongly in this, the Healing Lodge. And for any of you that do get a chance to come up that way, we have visitors that come from Canada. You know Charlene Belleau and Fred Johnson, those people that did the Alkali Lake video, they're interested in coming over to do some...they've gone from sobriety now to real inter-healing. They've gone from one step to another step and so we have a lot of visitors from Canada. They come and tour our facility. We've had visitors from Navajo; we've had visitors from Oklahoma, California. They all come to see our treatment center and it makes me feel really good. And I know that Gary is a member of the board and Gary, when you go back and talk to the other board members, tell them that we need to keep this going and keep it strong and invite everybody to come to the Healing Lodge and have a meeting or something there. So it was a lot of work, but it was worth it, and as Jennifer has talked about or touched on, working with those kids is an award that you're giving back as an adult to them so they don't have to go through hell, as it's said. So thank you."

Martin Harvier and Monica Simeon: Building Sustainable Economies: Approaches and Perspectives (Q&A)

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Martin Harvier, Vice President of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Communty, and Monica Simeon, CEO and Principal Partner of Sister Sky, field questions from the audience about their roles in building sustainable economies for their respective nations.

Resource Type
Citation

Harvier, Martin and Monica Simeon. "Building Sustainable Economies: Approaches and Perspectives (Q&A)." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 25, 2010. Presentation.

Stephen Cornell:

"We've got a little more than 20 minutes so please, questions for Martin about what Salt River has done or anything else, questions for Monica about Sister Sky and their experience. The floor is open. Any questions?"

Audience member:

"Martin, you're 51 percent Native-owned and your policy on purchasing or acquiring stuff through Native partners, correct?"

Martin Harvier:

"Yes."

Audience member: 

"How do you mitigate the price gouging or something around that area, because we had the same thing happen on our reservation?"

Martin Harvier:

"You know, that's kind of a concern right now. There are some...let's just take the paper like I said, somebody selling paper. There are some businesses that let's say they were in another area, but because of our policy and the preference that's given to community members, a lot of them will get into something that they weren't involved in because they know they have preference. It's been very difficult, but the tribe has had to look --especially with the economy, the downturn in the economy -- we still have to look out for the best interest of the community and there's been some that we've had to say, "˜You know what,' some of them are getting into it and they're actually the middle man. So they're purchasing the product and they're jacking the price up when the community can go directly to whoever is producing that product and get it cheaper. There's actually been a...the community has actually tried to put a price range that if they fall within that frame, they'll still use the community business, they'll still try to work with them. But we've actually had that, where some community members that are in a business, but they see an opportunity over here and they'll go into it and it actually kind of jacks the price up a little bit. But the community, as leaders we still have the fiduciary responsibility of our community, we've actually had to say, "˜We can't pay that much for this product.'

Audience member:

"Have there been instances where you had to go off reservation to non-Indian companies?"

Martin Harvier:

"Oh, yeah." 

Audience member:

"I mean even though there is a company on the reservation. How do you get the community member who ventures off just to jack up the price? How do you get the community member to kind of finally realize to stay within the means?"

Martin Harvier:

"It all goes back to certification. When they get their certification that they're on the list of preferred vendors, to get on that list we already kind of know what price structure they're going to use. So if there's a product and they're on that list, I'm not sure, I forget how many we said we have on that list. We know we can go to them and get a good price, but what I'm saying is that there have been individuals that see that opportunity and they'll go out and they'll do that. They'll be the middle man for another individual. There also is a bidding process that goes in. I'm sorry. There is a bidding process that happens. We just don't take the one. If there's others that provide that product, there is a bidding process that goes through to get the best price."

Stephen Cornell:

"Other questions? Yes."

Audience member:

"I just want to applaud the courage that both of you have throughout because I can imagine...[unintelligible]. The question that I have centers around the two-pronged issue around how do you go about [unintelligible] and protecting your traditional knowledge so that competitors don't imitate your product. And then second, how do you go about ascertaining that knowledge within your community in a good way so that you draw the knowledge in your community [because] I can tell the community has grown in pride, in knowing that they know their medicines and herbs...[unintelligible]?"

Monica Simeon:

"That's a great question, thank you, and we've really struggled with that as we've grown. We started doing a lot of research on, if you're a company and you are marketing your product based on heritage, there is a lot you must be mindful of in terms of maintaining that honor and that authenticity but that respect. We took great pains to write missions and values, to always come back to that. If there were any way that we felt we would offend or be too specific with the plant tradition, then we weren't going to do it. That's critical. Now, one other way that we've been able to maintain and validate our authenticity is the Made by American Indians trademark. So it's a great product, it's a great fragrance, but it really is about a bigger social cause. When you buy a Made by American Indian product, you're supporting sustainability, job creation and economic diversification. So those are things that the consumer says, "˜Yeah, I want to be a positive part of that.' Aveda tried to launch a line called 'Indigenous' and this happened back in 2003, I believe. Aveda is a great international company, national company out of Minneapolis, very big, bought out by Estee Lauder but when they launched 'Indigenous,' consumers said, "˜How dare you? You are not Indigenous; you're not from a community. You're a big corporation. Don't do this.' And they had such an outcry that they actually pulled the line. So now I know how much they spent in product development, in marketing and everything else but they were sensitive to the outcry of the consumers. We've been in business since 1999 and we were always very afraid that somebody may say, "˜Uh, how dare you do this?,' but our Native communities really hold us up and say, "˜Good job.' But they say it because we're firmly founded in our values in what we want to do, in what we want to bring to market. Now to kind of piggyback off of what Martin has shared, I've had people come to me and say, "˜Could you sell these? Gosh, you have a great niche market.' Does it go back to promoting positive cultural sharing? "˜No, I'm sorry, I can't sell ash trays, I can't sell whatever it is, I'm not in construction. That's not what I do.' So I've seen that and I've experienced that, but when we build our businesses, our community-based businesses, build it on a solid foundation because you want to build a business that's not just going to be here but for my kids and my grandkids."

Stephen Cornell:

"Charlie, yeah?"

Audience member:

"I had a question and I think it's more for Martin, but I am overwhelmed in a way by the observation and appreciation for what you all are doing. As a non-Native, I think that the narratives that the Native community brings and shares with the non-Native community is really important and you are both creating inspiring and positive narratives, not only for your own communities but for the other, the non-Native communities. That's my observation. And I guess my question to Martin, I first heard about this on a story that ran on NPR nationally last October and I went online and I actually copied the transcripts for that in the link and sent it to non-Native participants in my communities so they would understand the power and the opportunity of working with tribes in area of economic development. I came a little bit late, so I'm not sure if you covered it, but could you talk a little bit more about your community's hosting and working with non-Native enterprises and business and in fact extending your tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction to non-Native businesses, which is kind of flipping the equation around? Can you talk a little bit more about that, unless you covered it before I came in?"

Martin Harvier: 

"I don't think we really kind of touched on that. I think for the longest time, we call them people from the outside -- developers -- had a fear of developing on Indian Country, just the process that it goes through. A lot of them, the developers that come in and develop, if they develop off community the process is a lot quicker. You see an empty lot there, six months later you have a building. There's processes that you go through in Indian Country probably you all know. Our community has not only tribal land, but allotted land. So a lot of the land that we have is individually owned by community members, so there's a process it goes through. The area that I talked about, the corridor in our area where the development takes place, the tribe owns very little of that property. So when somebody comes in and they meet with a landowner or Devco, our development company, and talk about that property, they can talk to them but then they have to go talk to the individual landowners to see if that's something they even want to do on the community. The process is they work with our community staff but also after that's all done the Bureau of Indian Affairs still has to approve it. So there's a process, and a lot of times developers that come from the outside don't want to go through the process. We had a big kind of a fight with developers in our community. As you know, in a lot of Indian Country, infrastructure's not there. When you develop, if the infrastructure's there it has to be there so what we had to do, our infrastructure fees were so low we had to raise them. And it was a time when the economy was bad and the developers were coming and using the landowners against the council saying, "˜Hey, we'll go somewhere else,' threatening to leave in that area. Well, as a council we had to stand strong because that funding will help support that area as far as fire, police and the water. We had to do it to put the infrastructure there for the development to take place. They fought it but after it was all done and council improved the increase of impact fees, the complaining stopped and the development continued to happen. And sometimes tribes just have to stand strong because...they just have to because that stuff's just not there. But I think there's just a fear...example, even back to bank loans. There was a time when banks would not loan to Native Americans, especially like a mobile home. They would not take a mobile home on a trailer because if they didn't pay their bill, they didn't have the process of going out there and picking it up and a lot of that's been changed. The court systems have allowed them to come out and do that, so there's a lot of changes that happened in Indian Country that allow developers to come in and develop, the process. And I believe we have good staff. We have good staff that know the process and they're able to work with the Bureau, they're able to work with the landowners and get things done. And I think we've really enjoyed seeing the development that's happening in our community. It's getting a lot easier."

Stephen Cornell:

"I've got a question for Monica. It's clear that you've got a lot of support from your community and pride in the community and what you've done. Could you say a little bit about the degree of support or encouragement or even practical help that you've had from the tribal government and what role they've played either in your success, or if they've been obstacles you've had to overcome or how has that worked out?"

Monica Simeon:

"I think my tribal council and tribal government have been supportive in terms of bringing us in. And actually we got a $35,000 grant from them through a community economic development program or our tribe. The Spokane Tribe took a series of six entrepreneurs and gave us grant money. We had every aspect of business from start-ups to businesses like ours and I have to tell you, putting everybody in that kind of environment where we learned from one another and mentored one another, that was an incredible opportunity. And in that video you saw, we only had two piston fillers, we actually got another set through the tribe's grant program. So they continue to support us. We still continue to be kind of a rare thing, certainly in our community, and we found a lot of support nationally in Indian Country. So from other Native entrepreneurs to other tribal leaders, we found that support base. That's what I love about owning a company that caters to Indian Country is because we really do have that ability to become unified, to support one another, to share resources, Native business to Native business. So it's been...you have to get out there and you have to network and you have to meet the people, but once you invest in that time in building those relationships you do have a very strong network to pull from."

Stephen Cornell:

"My other question -- unless somebody's got a hand up -- was to Martin and that was financial literacy and whether the...I know some tribes have invested a good deal in financial literacy programs partly just for their own citizens to gain financial literacy but also as a support for entrepreneurs, because many of them have people who want to start a business but have very little experience with financial management, and I was just wondering if that's something that you all have done and what your experience has been with the need for or the delivery of financial literacy."

Martin Harvier:

"We touched on the Salt River Financial Institute, that's one of the enterprises that we turn to as far as educating our community members, our youth, on financing. We also have the Boys and Girls Club, which is good. They also give information to our youth as far as financing. Like I touched on, it's very important we feel as a council, as leadership, and again it goes back to we see it all the time when our children, our youth turn adult and they get their stipend of trust money. A lot of times they get it and it's gone and they're out there in the community, a lot of times they'll buy a car, which is an old car and the next thing you know it's broke down. They don't have a car. They'll loan it to friends. They don't know what to do. They get a bunch of money and they don't know how to use it. With the Institute, with the Boys and Girls Club, I think it's instilling in them, giving them ideas of what they can do. Again, I touched on the corridor, the construction that's going on, the opportunities that they'll have. We need to open up their minds. Even in the schools we've been telling them, we need to get them in the fields that when they get out of school they know where they can go to get an occupation. So we've been trying to educate again through the Institute, through the Boys and Girls Club to the school. Again, it's very important that our youth understand that the money that they get's not going to last forever, they need to invest it in a way that will help not only them but their children and their grandchildren."

 

 

Monica Simeon: Building Sustainable Economies: The Story of Sister Sky

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Sister Sky CEO and Principal Partner Monica Simeon provides an overview of Sister Sky, a business Simeon co-founded with her sister Marina Turning Robe on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Simeon also explains how Sister Sky is working to cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit among her nation's youth.

People
Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Simeon, Monica. "Building Sustainable Economies: The Story of Sister Sky." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 25, 2010. Presentation.

"We've been in business since 1999 and we have three full-time employees and four tribal youth employees -- between four and six. Really our company mission is to create natural bath and body care products inspired by Native American herbal wisdom. So the core of our products are liquids like body lotion, shampoo, conditioner and body wash. Our niche market is the Native American resort and spa industries, but we've really improved our business model to also launch the product mainstream in national markets as well as international markets.

Our product philosophy: anything we bring to market must be founded in Native American herbal wisdom or cultural sharing. That truly is what makes our product line stand out. We have three product categories. We have the hotel amenity category, which we sell all the shampoos, conditioners and lotions to Native American hotels. We have the spa category, so we also manufacture and make all the spa products -- the massage lotions, the massage oils. And then we have the retail both domestic and international, full-size products that we sell to natural markets like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. And there's a real big natural product category now that Sister Sky, our company and our brand, is really poised to go after.

Company values: I just want to go over them very quickly, because it really does speak to the reason why we choose to operate our facility, our manufacturing facility in our own community. Cultural sharing is a big part of our company value in terms of what we...anything we bring to market must embrace the beauty or the heritage of Native American culture as a universal value. So instead of making products like lavender or peach, we're going to infuse sweet grass into the product, we're going to tell the story of sweet grass, we're going to wrap that story around the bottle -- the product label -- and we're going to bring it to market in a way we think and we believe that we share part of our culture in an honorable and respectful manner. Seven generations, we're very firmly founded in responsible business practices. So that's a universal Native American value in terms of what I do today does not just affect me, but future seven generations.

Positive economic impact: we are firmly committed to contributing to the positive economic impact by sourcing and buying supplies and goods from other Native entrepreneurs. So really that is what we can do in our role as business leaders is to buy from other Native companies. But the last is business leadership. We really truly believe positive social change can happen in our communities through business leadership, through business ownership. I think as we see more community-based businesses built we see the shift. We see those community-based businesses start chambers on their reservation, be a resource for one another, and that truly is business leadership that will really create such a positive ripple in our communities.

The operation: the core of our company is in the manufacturing and distribution of our products. Now in 2007 we moved our manufacturing facility from a rented clean-room facility in Spokane, Washington, back to our reservation. And that was firmly, firmly rooted in the fact that we value economic development and we value business leadership within our own community. We maintain quality control, scheduling and capacity by operating our own manufacturing facility. Just to touch on what Martin was saying was that it's very important to be able to deliver, it's very important to know your business, but it's very important to perform and we understood that. So we took the big leap and said we're going to build, we're going to fully invest in this company, and we're going to build on our reservation, because this was something that we weren't doing for a hobby but that we were actually going to make a living at.

Now the nuts and bolts of what we do: This is our manufacturing process. We mix, fill, pack all of the products in our clean-room facility so our equipment includes a 600-gallon mixing tank, a four-head piston filler, automated capper and labeling machine. And there's some of the equipment that we have in our facility. Our capability: again, touching on the fact that when you fully invest in a manufacturing facility, you have to be able to deliver. You actually have to be able to have the capacity to do all of this and the capability. So when we invested in our facility, we needed to make sure that we controlled the production scheduling [because] when a customer needs a product they actually need it, right. We needed to have product quality control, the integrity of the products. We needed to be flexible. We needed to own the facility, which would help us create products that maybe were more ideally suited to some of our customers -- maybe a tribe wanted a specific formula or maybe they wanted their own logo on the product -- so being able to own the manufacturing facility allowed us to really be in a position to grow the company and be flexible. But beyond all that, we had to be responsible and reliable because it is extremely important that our community-based businesses understand that. That is the first rule of business -- you have to be able to deliver.

Our capacity, our production capacity is 25,000 gallons per month. We produce, our output is about 60,000 one-ounce units per minute. Our shipping capacity is [22,000] cases per week for 88,000 cases per month. It was really important for us to be able to run all these numbers because our scenario says this is how much business we can handle; this is how we're poised to grow. So again, capacity and capability was important for us as a community-based business to invest in so that we could be more competitive, but that we could really go after some contracts and get them.

Our current distribution: we have literally started our company in the niche market in Indian Country. By that, we were making all the shampoos and conditioners and lotions to service Native American resorts. We really believe that to be our best opportunity, and it really did put us in a position where we had enough sales to where we could actually invest in the company. So we identified early on a niche market that we served. But by being able to invest in our facility, we set our sights on, okay, let's launch the brand nationally and internationally and that's where we stand today. But it's really important for us to be able to identify that initial niche market and it really was about how are we going to capitalize or how are we going to really get into the "˜Native-to-Native,' "˜Buy Native'-type initiative so that we can grow and support our business beyond just our reservation boundaries.

So with us investing in our manufacturing facility we really see, as an entrepreneur, a lot of growth potential. So we now have the capacity with all of this bulk...equipment from the mixing tank to the filling to the labeling and the capping, we have the opportunity to go after bulk contracting, government contracting, 8A-type status. International trade right now is very big, so we're doing a lot domestically to send products overseas. Now we have capacity to do that and these products are all being made on our reservation. So it's very appealing to foreign retail markets as well. We have the ability to do private label. So we're currently MBE certified and it's a real similar certification program that was discussed earlier, but through that there are actual corporations that are very interested in doing business with companies like Sister Sky. So large corporations like Target that are interested in saying, 'We'd like to give you a contract to do a private label bulk filling.' So with what we've invested in our facility in our own community we have potential to do that so we see a lot of growth.

Okay, this is the last part that I really think really touches on what we're talking about here, which is what are the benefits, what have we seen at Sister Sky, what are the benefits of building a reservation-based business? Well, there are two really critical certifications that we leveraged, which is the HUBZone [Historically Underutilized Business Zones] manufacture. We are a HUBZone manufacturer. There are a lot of corporations and there are a lot of government contracts out there that exist, set-asides for HUBZone manufacturers. Every reservation is a HUBZone, so that's to our benefit as a manufacturer. One other certification that we applied for and received having a product made on the reservation was the Made by American Indian seal. And what that is that's through the Intertribal Ag [Agriculture] Council. What that does for us as a commercial product is it really helps distinguish our product line as something unique and something authentic. There are tax advantages obviously. We don't have any state, city or county business and operating taxes. And when you start a business there's a lot of challenges, there's a lot of little fees, there's a lot of taxes. So any opportunity that you have to improve your cash flow by not necessary paying those because you're out of those...you're not located within those areas, that's definitely a benefit. We've had the opportunity to train tribal youth and this is a really exciting thing because we're very proud of the tribal youth that come to work in our facility but it also is a huge benefit for a small business to have extra hands, to have people help you, to be part of that process is a win/win situation as a small business.

The program opportunities like the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] loan guarantee, that was critical for us in 2000. We did move our facility in 2007 to the reservation, but we had to really invest a lot of money in that so we went through the BIA loan guarantee program because a conventional bank, we wouldn't qualify for a conventional bank loan. We were a company that had a lot of potential, identified a great niche market but we didn't have receivables to prove that we were going to be able to go after that type of loan.

One thing I just wanted to touch on really briefly was the Made by American Indians because I think that's certainly a very valuable certification that community-based businesses or even tribal-based businesses. If you're making a product on a reservation, get it certified Made by American Indians. It really helps consumers identify authentic products, but it helps differentiate and in a marketplace where there are so many options and there are so many, there's so much competition, anyway that you can differentiate a product, an agriculture product, a commercial product, this is a great seal to do that. And this is through the Intertribal Ag [Agriculture] Council. Initially it was used for jewelry but now as our businesses are, and we're diversifying our economies in our communities, there are a lot of opportunity to use this certification and we do. We put it on all of the bottles that we make. So it is something that... and I've had the opportunity to, as I'm launching the business brand nationally, when I go to National Natural Products Expo West Show and I tell the story of Made by American Indians, consumers are real receptive to that. They're receptive because Made by American Indians truly is our domestic free trade or fair trade type of certification. So we do, consumers in this country do a lot to support maybe coffee beans grown in South America, what are we doing to support our own communities and building wealth in those communities? So it's a great certification, I just wanted to touch on that briefly.

Challenges of a reservation-based business: there's a definite lack of infrastructure where I'm from. Things simple as wireless, telecommunications, three-phase power; these are certainly challenges that we face. There's huge transportation and logistics -- freight, UPS, FedEx. We had one giant order go out last summer and it was...it's kind of something that we really, maybe a lot of mainstream businesses don't experience, but we had three pallets that was going to one hotel for their opening and we had no problem manufacturing it, but we would not be able to run these pallets into Spokane to get them on the shipping dock. So we had called around and found a freight company to come into these muddy roads to pull up into our little facility and get them all out. So it was an exciting time, but it was a challenging time and those are the real concerns of at least us, Sister Sky, and where we're located. Some reservation businesses or community-based businesses may have a small customer base or market size, so what that really does is put their potential revenue limited based on are they serving the community, are they only serving the reservation community, are they serving surrounding communities, are they providing a product or service that is based on business hours so I know some ideas of some concessions or some type of lunch type service. So really that could be a potential challenge. We ourselves reach out to a large national Native American market so we can certainly pencil out potential market share, but if we were limited just to our area I could literally see how we would definitely be limited.

Lack of business support: there is a lack of business support where I'm located. There's not a lot of community entrepreneurs so there's not a lot of opportunity to network, there's not a lot of opportunity for chambers or training or resources, in my area. That doesn't mean that I as a business don't have outside resources, maybe the local SBA or maybe the National Center [for American Indian Enterprise Development] or some of the other American Indian chambers. But it certainly, for starting a business, is definitely a challenge because those resources often are not right there in our own community.

The positive impact of reservation entrepreneurs: I think role modeling is certainly the absolute top. When there are citizen entrepreneurs, when there are community-based businesses, it really has the ability to inspire other tribal members who may be considering going into business. Role modeling is key. It puts it in our own communities where we can see we can actually do this, we can be empowered, we can have an idea, we can figure it out, somebody else did it. Those things for the entrepreneurial spirit really do go a long way. Training, like I mentioned, we do tribal youth employment, we do training for tribal youth, but we've also done training for other tribal members who have come to work in our facility, and that's truly a positive benefit for our community in terms of allowing members to see business in action and that's very positive.

Building wealth in our communities: we create jobs. We are about sustainability, we're about economic diversification. Truly we need to build...to build wealth in our own communities through business leadership, we have every opportunity to address our own needs, solve our own problems and be really part of positive community development. And business leadership, this is something that I am very, very passionate about. Oftentimes in our tribal communities, we have political leadership but where is our business leadership? Many times in cities or in towns, coalition of business people have come together to create positive change, to build parks, to start charities. This is something that I think as we shift with Indian gaming as a great $26 billion industry and we think about sustainability and diversification, we have every opportunity as Indian people to build business leadership in our communities and the synergy between business leadership and political leadership will really contribute to positive community development. That's extremely important.

I wanted to talk a little bit about our tribal youth employees. These are some pictures of some of the tribal youth that we employ. What I'm proud about in what we do is that we bring tribal youth ages 14 to 17 to work at our manufacturing facility. And there's something very powerful about creating an entrepreneurial spirit at a very young age and in our facility, which is a manufacturing facility, our tribal youth see an actual process. So they see a product being made, a product being shipped, a product being packaged and there's a tremendous sense of accomplishment in that. And we think creating an entrepreneurial spirit at a young age is very positive. We had a 15-year-old tribal member who was helping, he was working and we were packing an order for Miccosukee Tribe in Miami, Florida. And again, I'm located, our reservation is located in rural Ford, Washington. So we're 45 miles north of Spokane, very isolated area in terms of not being close to any urban area. But we were packing this order to Miccosukee and the product, those little bottles were coming off the line and he was packing them and getting them into this box and he looked at the label and it had the Miccosukee logo label on it and he's like, "˜Miccosukee. Miccosukee tribe, where are they?' And I said, "˜Miccosukee tribe is in Miami, Florida.' He said, "˜There are Indians in Miami, Florida?' I said, "˜Yes, there are. There are Indians all over.' But what we do is we open their eyes to a larger world. We open their eyes to potential. They get to see...there was tremendous pride. He said, "˜Wow, so this is all shipping down to Miami, Florida?' 'Yes, from one corner to another,' and it is truly, truly a tremendous and a very empowering process for us as business people to witness that.

How do we create a positive environment for reservation entrepreneurs? I think early outreach. There's some examples from Salt River that are doing early outreach, training camps, those types of things. There's also something called the ABIL Chapter, which is www.abil.org, enable American Indian business leaders. These are youth that are being groomed right now to own their own companies, who are writing business plans, who are part of a network of future Native American business leaders. It's very exciting. "˜Buying Native.' And I love that I get to follow up because these were all the things that they were doing -- setting procurement goals, policies, outreach efforts. I think this is tremendous. I don't know what kind of outreach efforts that some tribes are doing but set up a day where you're just going over a two-hour orientation to how do community businesses do business with the tribe? I think that's important. Mentoring programs for prime contractors and large contractors. There could be an opportunity, there could be plenty of opportunities, especially with the construction that's going on in Indian Country, with mentoring some of your community-based businesses. You may have a large prime, but what are some of the other opportunities that exist from there, and maybe they're not real big at first but maybe they're something that is manageable that may not need a lot of capital investment. But how are we creating that synergy between our prime contractors and some of our community-based businesses?

The last is very, very important: set goals, measure results and report success. We have to move in a direction, we have to start somewhere, we have to have some policy, we have to have some program, or we will continue to just talk about "˜Buying Native' or "˜Native-to-Native' or the importance of turning the dollar in Indian Country, but I think we need to create that environment. And trust me, we would if we could -- Native businesses -- but we're not the leadership component. And the leadership component is truly what's going to drive "˜Native-to-Native' or "˜Buy Native' or turning the dollar in Indian Country. And it's the leadership component that's going to create the environment to help foster those community-based businesses." 

Native Report: Sister Sky

Producer
Native Report
Year

This edition of Native Report profiles Sister Sky, an innovative Native American company that is really owned by two sisters. (Segment placement: 8:33-15:40)

Native Nations
Citation

"Sister Sky." Native Report (Season 5 Episode 2). WDSE/WRPT. Duluth, Minnesota. 2010. Television program. (http://www.wdse.org/shows/native/watch/season-5-episode-10, accessed September 20, 2012).