Here is a round up of business news from around Indian Country.
Economic Development
• Bristol Bay Native Corporation has partnered with the NHL’s newest team, the Seattle Kraken, to anchor one of 13 marketplace locations in Climate Pledge Arena. The Alaska Native Regional Corporation said scenes of Bristol Bay will feature prominently on TV screens and marketing inside the arena, as well as on the scoreboards during televised games. As a result of the partnership, the Kraken team and coaching staff will host annual children’s camps in Alaska. The team will begin its inaugural season in October. “The Seattle Kraken’s key values of community, sustainability and inclusion align nicely with BBNC’s corporate values, and this partnership will provide opportunities to connect Bristol Bay and Alaska youth to positive role models,” Bristol Bay Native Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer Jason Metrokin said in a statement. “This partnership will also allow us to share and promote all the great things about Bristol Bay to NHL fans, concert goers and more in the Pacific Northwest.”
• Longmont, Colo.-based First Nations Development Institute is seeking grant applications from Native American groups based in the western United States that serve adults and transitioning youth with disabilities, elders, foster youth, and veterans and military families. The Western COVID-19 Response Grant applications are due June 24. Applicants must be located in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The grants will range from $23,000 to $28,000 and are made possible because of support from the May & Stanley Smith Charitable Trust, whose gift is aimed at ensuring the sustainability and resiliency of Native American nonprofits, organizations, and tribes. The funding can go to various uses, including providing personal protective equipment, housing and food assistance, leadership development, advocacy and communications and technology.
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Hospitality
• The Tachi Yokut tribe capped off a $1 million renovation project at its Sequoia Inn in Hanford, Calif., according to a report in Fresno, Calif.-based The Business Journal. The tribe saw an opportunity with the declining traffic during the pandemic to use the slower period to invest in the 56-room hotel in a project that began in July 2020. The facility was originally built in 1997 and was purchased by the tribe in 2005, according to the report.
Federal 8(a) contracting
• RiverTech LLC, a federal contracting subsidiary of the Alaska Native-owned Akima LLC, won a $40 million, five-year U.S. Air Force contract to provide academic and flight simulator instruction to the U.S. Air Forces Europe and Africa. The services are aimed at enhancing operations and combat-readiness of the divisions, and will take place at the Aviano Air Base in Italy, Royal Air Force Lakenheath in the United Kingdom and Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany. “Ensuring that today’s airmen have the requisite skills and knowledge needed to fly, fight, and win is critically important,” Scott Rauer, president of Akima’s Facilities Solutions Group, said in a statement. RiverTech is a U.S. Small Business Administration-certified 8(a) contractor focused on mission support, systems engineering and I.T. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Akima, which is an enterprise of NANA Regional Corporation Inc. NANA is owned by 14,300 Iñupiat shareholders with roots in a 38,000-square-mile section of northwest Alaska, much of which is located above the Arctic Circle. Akima employs more than 7,500 people across its various subsidiaries.
Tourism
• The Havasupai Tribal Council has extended tourism closures of the Havasupai Reservation and Supai Village in northwestern Arizona until at least February 2022 in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The tribe’s closure, which started in March 2020, will restrict access to its lands in the Grand Canyon National Park, which includes the iconic Havasu Falls. The tribal council has not yet set a date for reopening its lands to tourists. As a result of the closure, the National Park Service is asking river rafters on the Colorado River to continue voluntarily bypassing Havasu Canyon “to honor this request out of respect and safety for the Havasupai people.”
Government
• Bartholomew “Bart” Stevens, an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe in Arizona with ancestry from the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in Idaho and the Ute Tribe in Utah, was named Deputy Bureau Director for Field Operations in Albuquerque, N.M. for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, according to a statement. Previously, Stevens served as regional director for the BIA’s Navajo Regional Office in Gallup, N.M. and as superintendent of the Uintah and Ouray Agency in Fort Duchesne, Utah. He also formerly worked for the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) in various leadership roles. “Throughout my career, I have pledged not only to uphold the federal trust responsibilities to the tribes, but to leave Indian Country a better place than when I joined federal service,” Stevens said in a statement.
• As well, Kimberly Bouchard of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians in Wisconsin, a 27-year veteran of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was named Eastern Regional Office Regional Director at the agency’s office in Nashville, Tenn. Most recently, she served as deputy regional director position at the Eastern Regional Office, taking on acting regional director responsibilities until her latest appointment. “I am committed to continuing the BIA’s mission of supporting all tribes in their desire for self-determination while ensuring their economic development goals are realized,” Bouchard said in a statement.
