The longer I do this job, the more I see that success - in business or in life - is not a matter of circumstances. So often it seems a matter of sustained willpower.
Tonight's "Native American Entrepreneurs" story on the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska is a case in point. Photographer Mike Malanga and I spent two days in Winnebago, Nebraska, doing interviews and shooting video for the story. We spent several hours with tribe chairman John Blackhawk, talking to him about the tribe's efforts at business-creation (the tribe now operates more than a dozen different business entities, from government contracting operations, to tobacco shipping, convenience stores, motels and a Native American news website: www.indianz.com). In 2007, according to tribal documents, those businesses together netted more than $1 million in profits for the 4-thousand member tribe.
Winnebago, Nebraska is not Silicon Valley. Where did that entrepreneurial spirit come from?
The truth is the Winnebagos of Nebraska created it "out there" on the Nebraska plains, from their own steely determination to become an entrepreneurial people. Blackhawk tells us that in the 1970s, tribal leaders realized that the tribe needed its own economic identity. And by no longer relying on the federal government, they could take back their identity and pride as a people.
The path chosen by the Nebraska Winnebagos was not without some serious potholes. Early business-creation efforts failed. There's always a risk that political pressure will put nephews and nieces on a business payroll, making that company unproductive. Even the casino business started by the tribe didn't work out as planned. The big gusher of money from their casino on the Missouri River (about 90 minutes north of Omaha) became a trickle when rival casinos opened across the river from Omaha in Council Bluffs, MO.
In the mid-1990s, the Winnebagos of Nebraska created an independent business entity, HCI, Inc. From that point, the tribe's efforts began to pay dividends. There have also been some controversies over the financial condition of HCI. Despite that, the tribe continues to move onward with the idea of building an entrepreneurial identity. Young children in school are encouraged to think like entrepreneurs.
Surely the tribe's companies will have their ups and downs, just like any business, and just like the US economy. But the ideas of business-creation, of risk-taking - those ideas don't go out of style. The Winnebagos of Nebraska will likely be able to reap the benefits of that in the years ahead.
Comments
Has NBR looked at the company in Kyle, South Dakota, that makes Tanka bars? These bars are modern-day "pemmican"--dried buffalo meat with cranberries--that Indian hunters carried for instant food. Tanka bars contain zero transfats and very little sugar, making them popular with diabetics. They provide a tasty and healthy snack.
Kyle, South Dakota, is on the Pine Ridge Reservation, not far from Wounded Knee. The Tanka bar entrepreneurs are members of the Oglala Sioux (Lakota) Tribe. The company's toll-free number is: 800-476-7212.
I thought tonight's story on the Ho-Chunk of Nebraska was wonderful, but incomplete considering the omission of the entrepreneurial achievements of the Ho-Chunk of Wisconsin. Wisconsin covers much of the pre-Colombian homeland of the Ho-Chunk and, as I understand it, the tribe was torn apart due to repeated forced relocation to Nebraska (paralleling the infamous Southeastern Cherokee Trail of Tears, except that the WI Ho-Chunk kept returning home time and again). My understanding from the Ho-Chunk I know is that they are the State of Wisconsin's 3rd largest employer (following only the state government and the UW system). What I have seen with my own eyes is that they are remarkably diversified into several lines of business (as are the Nebraska Ho-Chunk). I say this not to invite comparisons of the Wisconsin vs. the Nebraska Ho-Chunk but to try to make the story of a remarkable people that much more complete.