- Details
- By Chez Oxendine
- Economic Development
The Puyallup Tribe of Indians has launched Tahoma Construction Services, a general contracting business that will expand the tribe’s economic portfolio and drive workforce development.
The company’s first project will be a Puyallup Tribe housing complex that includes 45 townhomes and 10 single family homes—a fully self-funded initiative for the tribe in western Washington.
Tahoma Construction Services, a subsidiary of Puyallup Tribal Enterprises (PTE), will handle the majority of the tribe’s internal construction projects going forward, according to Kyle Eley, the tribe’s director of finance and business development. Longer-term, the new company will look to diversify its revenue base by bidding on local construction projects and pursuing 8(a) certification through the U.S. Small Business Administration, allowing it to compete for federal contracts.
“The broader reach is to be a profitable company that provides long term construction jobs for tribal members,” Eley, who also serves as PTE’s COO, told Tribal Business News. “Rather than waiting for projects to come into the tribe, we want to go out and get projects in the nearby area because we have a strategic advantage being a tribal construction company and that should be leveraged.”
Once it’s up and running, Tahoma’s initial plan is to create 10 direct jobs within the company in 2024. Eley estimates another 100 jobs will be created through sub-contracts related to local gigs. Right now, the company is being spearheaded by Puyallup Tribal Enterprises leadership, but day-to-day operations will eventually be taken over by employees.
The company has made some “strategic hires” already, and plans to aim remaining direct hires at tribal members. Between jobs created at subcontractors and direct jobs at Tahoma, starting the business from the ground up makes it a good vehicle for workforce development, Eley said.
“Any direct hire will be first offered to tribal members, whether they’re qualified at the time or we get them qualified,” Eley said. “That’s the goal, we want to get as many tribal members as possible working for us.”
Tahoma’s chief focus right now will be on the tribe’s housing development project, which is slated to begin construction next month with a completion target of Dec. 2025. Once the project is completed, Tahoma will explore opportunities in commercial and residential construction, leveraging its tribal status for a competitive advantage, Eley said.
Federal contracting, especially in construction, has become a major revenue driver for many tribes, and Tahoma wants to tap into that market opportunity. Overall, federal construction awards reached an all-time high of $54.3 billion in fiscal 2023, a rebound from the prior year, according to market intelligence firm HigherGov. Virtually all of the increase was attributable to increased spending by the Army and Navy, while civilian agency construction awards were flat year-over-year, HigherGov found.
“We definitely want to try to get into that federal contracting piece,” Eley said. “We’re mainly focusing on manufacturing and construction.”
Over the past year, PTE acquired a candy manufacturing company and also invested in a clean energy firm, low-flow battery-maker Skip Technology Inc., based in nearby Portland, Ore. As part of the latter deal, PTE said it could build a factory near Tacoma, Wash., to build large-scale, long-duration batteries.
The Puyallup chose the two sectors to develop, Eley said, because they were things the tribe consistently paid external contractors for anyway. Rather than sending money outside of the community for construction or manufacturing jobs, it “made more sense” to build their own businesses to support those ventures.
“We saw something we were consistently buying, and we thought, ‘We could build that ourselves, and create jobs, and build that up organically.’ So we brought it inward,” Eley said. “We’re bringing manufacturing back into the area. We’re providing some good jobs for tribal members and other people in our community. This made the most sense.”
