Northwestern Shoshone Have Economic Development Plan

Recognized as a federal tribe barely two decades ago, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation has no oil or natural gas, no coal, no timber– and no good location for a casino. But it does have two keys to economic survival: leaders with business savvy and a plan– developed at Harvard University– that has the band poised for prosperity. It began five years ago with a ^$10,000 tribal council investment.

Today, the band has become a business concern grossing more than ^$15 million a year. And it's on a path that Tribal Chairman Bruce Parry says will eventually mean as much as ^$1 billion in annual revenues. The Northwestern Shoshone, more than members of other Utah tribes, have long been part of the white man's world. Their psyches were seared by what likely was the biggest massacre of American Indians in the West– soldiers slaughtered up to 500 along the Bear River in 1863.

The survivors, rejecting the federal government's attempt to send them to a reservation, threw in with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Even today, no one lives on the tribe's trust land, 184 acres at Washakie, a sliver of the old northern Utah church farm where they lived and worked after the mass conversion. Rather, the 465 tribal members– teachers, mechanics and business owners– make their homes mostly in communities along the Wasatch Front and in southeast Idaho. Most have married Anglos, and the Shoshone bloodline is getting thinner with each new generation. Many younger members are blond and blue-eyed, and have the bare minimum of Shoshone blood required for tribal membership: one-eighth.

The Northwestern Shoshone are distinct in another important way: Under Parry's leadership, the tribe has adopted an economic-development model rare in Indian Country. Their business interests are severed from tribal politics. And their businesses– centered in national-security and language-translation contracts, construction and, soon, alternative energy– are likewise divorced from their trust lands. Most (other) tribes have been limited in their thinking, Parry says. They believe they have to do something on their trust lands. But they can operate anywhere.

Focus on Making Money

Parry's own thinking is grounded in a pragmatic view of the past and an optimistic approach to the future. The 68-year-old, who went to work for the tribe a decade ago, grew up with one foot in the Anglo world, one in the Shoshone. His father, Grant Parry, is Danish. His mother was Mae Timbimboo Parry. Raised in Clearfield, Bruce Parry earned a bachelor's degree in education and a master's in management from the University of Utah. He taught, coached, was director of the Utah Office of Indian Affairs for 14 years and worked in private business– all jobs that gave him a glimpse of what the Northwestern Shoshone could do: He saw that his tribe's future was in business development. Parry joined the tribe as its executive director in the late 1990s and became the chief executive officer of the Northwestern Shoshone Economic Development Corp., its business branch, when it was formed in 2003. One of the first things Parry did was enlist a Salt Lake City-based merger-and-acquisitions attorney, Mike Devine, a non-American Indian, as chief operating officer.

Devine spends much of his time seeking far-flung business opportunities, especially where the tribe's federal status gives it an edge in winning lucrative government contracts. Though most of the profits are now pumped back into building the businesses, tribal members will ultimately benefit. Says Devine: We are into a proactive approach for sustained economic development and nation building.

Economic Development

Parry, Devine and Jon Warner, director of the tribe's housing authority, comprise the board of the Economic Development Corp. And by following the outline in the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, which the council adopted five years ago, the tribal council cannot fire them. Even if Parry was voted off the tribal council, he would remain on the board of the Economic Development Corp. Only the corporation's board can oust a board member. It's important for tribal businesses to be free to adopt purely business models, rather than act as employment services for tribal members, explains Stephen Cornell, professor of sociology at the University of Arizona. He and Harvard economist Joe Kalt developed the Harvard model. If the strategic message changes every two years, with tribal leadership, it sends a bad message to investors, Cornell said. But a change in leadership doesn't have to change the ability to maximize economic development.

Future in Geothermal

Foreign-language translators, hired from across the world by the Northwestern Shoshone corporation, speak dozens of languages and work in secure sites ranging from Draper to Washington, D.C. The company now has more than ^$3 million in translation and security contracts. The corporation also has performed more than 90 construction jobs, mostly on military bases. It gets the inside track because such bases are supposed to give 5 percent of their construction contracts to Indian tribes. Two years ago, the Shoshone corporation bought Bolinder Construction, a Tooele County-based company.

Parry and Devine say there's even bigger money to be made in the company's next push: renewable energy. They have leases on six sites in northern Utah and southern Idaho where they hope to build geothermal plants. Each plant would cost ^$280 million– money the corporation would have to borrow– but could net ^$35 million a year, Parry says. In addition, discussions are under way with California utilities that might buy the electricity the plants will generate. The Shoshone corporation also is discussing green-energy projects with a military base in California's Mohave Desert and joint ventures with tribes in Nevada and the Midwest. If we can't make money with these advantages… we're stupid, he says. We're not rich yet. We've put every penny we've made back into building our businesses. Devine cautiously endorses Parry's optimism: It's still early days.

Spiritual Forces at Work

Even if the tribe's businesses make it rich, individual members might not see dividend checks. Such payments, says Parry, rob people of ambition. We may eventually give dividends because I won't always be here, Parry says. But I'm against them because of the harm they've done in wealthy tribes, such as stripping individuals of motivation to work. Instead, he'd like to put money into college scholarships, health care, housing and aid for the aged. Already, the tribe is planning to use some of the profits to expand the headquarters building in Brigham City– a former bank, purchased two years ago. The expansion will allow for a larger library focusing on Shoshone history and culture. What good is it to make money unless you enhance the culture? asks Devine. Significantly, the tribe wants to buy more land at the two sites important to its history: the site of the 1863 massacre, four miles northwest of Preston, Idaho; and at Washakie, where the Shoshone farmed after converting to the L.D.S. Church.

Devine, like Parry, is L.D.S. and believes spiritual forces are at work in leading the Shoshone back to Washakie, just as spiritual experiences led the remnants of the slaughtered bands to the L.D.S. Church. But he also wonders if their frequent collaboration with other tribes– and their modeling of a way to achieve economic prosperity– could be a fulfillment of an L.D.S. prophecy concerning American Indians, referred to as Lamanites in church scripture. We're setting up something much bigger than any one of us, says Devine. The Book of Mormon says the Lamanites will flower like the rose.¹

Kristen Moulton & Christopher Smart

A lone responce to this article was also left on the page…

Notes…

1. Northwestern Shoshone Have Economic Development Plan, Kristen Moulton and Christopher Smart in the Canyon Country Exchange, May 10^th, 2008.

Moulton and Smart both write for The Salt Lake Tribune. Also See: Northwestern Shoshone Suspend Executives.