Reservation Economic Summit (RES) 2005 Gets Underway In Las Vegas, Nevada

For Immediate Release, Feb. 9, 2005

For Media Information, contact Liz Hill: (202) 744-7629 (cell)

For More Information about the National Center , contact Kenneth Robbins, President/CEO: (480) 545-1298, ext. 235

LAS VEGAS , NEVADA , Feb. 9 “Reservation Economic Summit (RES) 2005” got underway yesterday with more than 2,000 representatives from Native American-owned businesses, the federal government and corporate America in attendance at Indian Country's largest and longest running business convention and trade fair.

“RES 2005” is organized by the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, a national non-profit organization that is celebrating 35 years of bringing business opportunities to Native communities. Today, the National Center is responsible for securing more than $800 million in federal and corporate procurements for Native-owned businesses, according to National Center President and CEO Ken Robbins, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. This translates into more than 16,000 jobs created annually.

According to Robbins, in 1969 -- the year that the National Center was established -- there were less than a handful of Native-owned businesses. In 2005, he estimates there are more than 360,000 Native-owned businesses.

This year, the National Center has partnered with Blue Moon Solutions, a communications and information technology firm based in Lubbock , Texas , and Texas A&M International University on a “Quality of Life Assessment” survey of American Indian reservations. The purpose of the assessment -- which was officially started today at “RES 2005” and which will be conducted on reservations around the country on an ongoing basis -- is to identify priority needs for which economic development, communications and information technology solutions can be designed and implemented on reservations.

“For the last couple of years at RES, we've been generating approximately $500 million in contracts,” said Robbins. “This year, we want to raise that number to $1 billion.”

National Center Board Chairman Don Kelin, a member of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma and President and CEO of Caddo Office Products, encouraged convention participants to be on purpose in both personal and professional lives and to ‘know exactly what you want.'

“To my Native brothers and sisters, if you work for corporate America, are a business woman, if you direct a non-profit, if you become a painter, a lawyer, an athlete, a politician, become a role model…give back,” said Kelin. “Be the agent that helps, hires and enforces Indian preference.”

“If we don't help our own people, why should others help us,” said Kelin. “We must set our own examples.”

The morning's keynote speaker was Professor Joseph Kalt, Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy and Co-Director of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Kalt also is co-author of a recent study of socio-economic change of American Indians on reservations between the 1990 and 2000 censuses.

“All of us are aware that American Indians are among the poorest identifiable groups in the nation, although an economic revolution is taking place,” said Kalt.

“During the 1980s, real incomes of reservation citizens declined by 8 percent, while the rest of U.S was growing handsomely,” said Kalt. “The 1990s saw a turnaround in these figures.”

“During the 1990s, real per capita income rose 11 percent for the average American and on gaming reservations, incomes rose more rapidly,” said Kalt. “On those reservations, in 1990s, Indian incomes rose 36 percent while on the non-gaming reservations, incomes rose 21 percent.”

However, Kalt cautioned that ‘there is still a long way to go' for American Indians to catch up to the rest of this country's citizens.' “On average, American Indians have incomes about 40 percent lower than the U.S. average,” said Kalt.

“In every aspect of nation building, Indian America is stepping forward and making progress,” said Kalt. “At the same time, many nations remain mired in poverty…Indian Country is developing, but not even everywhere…why?”

Kalt reiterated the findings of the Harvard Project regarding the relationship between sovereignty and economic development. What he called the ‘grant planners approach to economic development,” or tribes living from ‘grant to grant, does not promote economic development. “What we are seeing now is the replacement of this approach with nation building.”

“Nation building is about Indian tribes taking over their own affairs and doing it themselves,” said Kalt. “Sovereignty promotes economic development.”

Diane Cullo, Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Tribal Colleges and Universities, and who is representing President George W. Bush and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings at RES 2005, said that that the people attending tribal colleges are “the key to economic development in America .”

“Tribal college grads are our future leaders and they need your support to change the landscape in Indian country in the future,” said Cullo.

Rick Stephens, Senior Vice-President of Internal Services at The Boeing Company – RES's ‘title' sponsor --, noted that today, The Boeing Company has 98 Native American suppliers and in 2004, awarded $144.5 million in contracts to Native businesses.

The Boeing Company also has partnered with the National Center , as well as the Arizona Indian Chamber of Commerce, to develop strategies for increasing the participation of American Indian businesses on Boeing's Apache helicopter program in Mesa , Arizona . Boeing also has formed Mentor-Protégé agreements with two American owned businesses, All Points Logistics and Precision Machine and Manufacturing, to help those companies develop technical and business capabilities so they are able to compete successfully for government contracts and suppliers, noted Stephens.

Greg DuMontier, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and President and CEO of S&K Technologies in St. Ignatius , Montana , said that ‘tribally owned and Native American-owned businesses are the most hidden and most misunderstood talent in the country.' DuMontier also talked about the ‘backlash' in the news media focused on the successes that have been seen recently in Indian Country.

“We must take away the notion the press has…that tribally-owned businesses and Alaska Native corporations do not provide benefits to their communities,” said DuMontier. “We are here to prove that is untrue.”

“Indian Country doesn't take jobs and export them,” said DuMontier. “We promote and support the American economy.”