From Monday, April 3rd through Thursday, April 6th, I attended the Reservation Economic Summit in Las Vegas, Nev. The purpose of this summit is to bring about a collaboration among tribes to find common wins and identify obstacles for on-reservation economic development. The summit consists of general sessions where the entire assembly gathers in a large ballroom to hear keynote speakers, U.S. Government officials, and testimony from experienced people in the field. The summit also highlights multiple break-out sessions every hour and allows participants to go from meeting to meeting based upon the scope of information that is sought after.

There was also a Trade Show going on during the summit. Various tribes, tribal businesses, and interested organizations set up to showcase their products and services. Our Southern Ute Growth Fund represented well and used this opportunity to network among the people. Many things that caught my eye at the trade show that could benefit our membership.

There was a company who develops tribal I.D.s that have the authority to replace U.S. Government passports. The I.D.s feature security features and the necessary serial numbers. I also came across a Native distribution company that is establishing their foothold in the northern states. This company is Native owned and wants to focus on transporting Native goods between Canada and the northern states of the U.S. Business is good and they are looking to expand in the lower states this coming year. There were also various companies who specialize in products and services that could benefit the Southern Ute Tribe as well.

In terms of the Summit, there were three very big takeaways that were mentioned by different tribes. The first key topic was entrepreneurship or business development, the second was food sovereignty, and the third was economic development corporations.

The first, food sovereignty, focuses on the idea of Native tribes not being dependent on outside sources of food. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) took the lead in explaining how food growing and processing is seeing a large spike in federal funding under the Biden Administration.

Many tribes have taken advantage of growing their own food and the USDA has a program that pays tribes to pay themselves for the food that is grown on the reservation for their own people. The deadline for most of this funding is May 2nd and many tribes are taking this very seriously and looking to get millions of dollars to start green houses, animal acquisition, building feeding facilities, and developing animal processing centers.

An area of particular interest for the Southern Ute Tribe could be animal processing. Here in our area, the wait to process livestock is backed up by three months or longer. People are having to schedule their slaughters for the following year just to get on the calendar. If we had our own processing facility, we could also process animals for non-tribal members to retrieve funding in the long term. There is clearly a market for this, and it would allow the Tribe the opportunity to create and sell our own Southern Ute poultry, pork, beef, or bison. This would also get us one step closer to the goal of enabling the Tribe to manage our own herd of cattle. This is crucial in the Tribe’s ability to sustain farming and ranching in our area. This is our heritage, and we need to take steps to preserve it.

The next issue of entrepreneurship and business development focused on giving start up business-minded people the confidence to launch and grow their own businesses. Seven different break-out sessions focused on this topic and the steps needed to avoid common pitfalls that many entrepreneurs face when navigating regulations, permitting, insurance, taxes, and such. There were plenty of resources and contacts provided during each session.

The third issue is the concept of an economic development corporation that resides within the Tribe. This is by far the most important take-away that I got from this summit. Our tribe has the Permanent Fund which is basically the Tribal Government and then we have the Growth Fund which is our business arm. The Southern Ute Growth Fund has a primary responsibility to seek ventures that have a high rate of return which comes back to the Tribe either in money for the Tribe or in capital to return to more projects. The problem with this is the expected rate of return. In order to pursue local business ideas, we would need to think beyond the rate of return. This is where other Tribal Economic Development Corporations have found wins and opportunities within the boundaries of their own reservation that are seen as more of a community investment or good will.

This is the bridge to a “hometown” win here on our reservation. This could be the vehicle that creates the food processing facility. This is the vehicle to build a business incubator here on the reservation. This is the brain center of tribal member ideas and implementing those ideas. I hope that it is something that we can bring actualize here at the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. Currently it appears that two development corporations are taking the lead in Indian Country. The first is the San Pasqual Economic Development Corporation and the second is the Dine Development Corporation. Both tribes made a strong showing at RES 2023.

These three very important topics of the Reservation Economic Summit can be very beneficial to the Southern Ute people, and I am hopeful that our tribe will find it worthwhile to look into each of these.