American Indian Business Leaders
by Joyce Helena Brusin
Montana -- home to seven reservations -- is home as well to the founding
chapter of American Indian Business Leaders (AIBL). Drawing on the skills
and experience of University of Montana Business School administrators
and students, AIBL was established to "assist and promote the American
Indian business student and/or entrepreneur."
This inclusiveness is important to current AIBL director and founding
member, Michelle Henderson. She points to AIBL's illustration of itself
as a circle. American Indian students leave their reservation schools and
homes for universities and colleges where they learn business and other
skills. The years away often diminish reservation contacts, says
Henderson, and these same students are left with no avenue to return
their skills to their home communities. AIBL seeks to complete a circle
back home through internships with tribal governments and colleges,
American Indian owned businesses, corporate and private businesses, non-
profit agencies, as well as federal and state governments.
"Our first career fair produced four internship placements for AIBL
students," says Henderson. Students worked with Norwest Bank of Billings,
Blackfeet National Bank in Browning, as well as Nike Corporation, and
Sears in Missoula. These internships, says Henderson, illustrate the
various ways American Indian business students and entrepreneurs can
benefit home communities. "They can open a private business," she
explains, "which contributes to the local economy; they can work with
tribal government using and teaching their management skills; or, as in
the case of Nike, they can work for far away corporations as suppliers
of goods and services to Indian country."
AIBL's faculty advisor is UM Business School Dean Larry Gianchetta. He
makes it a priority to attend the group's weekly meetings, and has been
impressed from the beginning with members' various activities and
enterprises. He stresses the importance AIBL places on assisting those
individuals and businesses who will add to a tribal community's "long-
term economic base." Such businesses, he says, tend "to be found in the
manufacturing, retail, service, or tourism industries."
"The potential for economic development in these areas is tremendous,"
he continues. "The readiness is there now as well. Tribal leaders have
come to realize that there is a relationship between being sovereign and
being economically independent."
AIBL modeled itself, says Henderson, after the organization "American
Indian Leaders in Science and Engineering," which has professional as
well as international chapters in place. AIBL has worked at helping
students at tribal colleges in Montana and South Dakota start their own
campus chapters of AIBL. Henderson and other UM members recently
completed a "Student Chapter Handbook," which gives a "map of activities"
for getting a chapter started.
This fall the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC)
announced a substantial grant to UM to help AIBL realize its long-term
goal of establishing chapters at every tribal college in the United
States, as well as at other interested universities and colleges.
Contacts in Canada have begun also. Michael Peters, an Ontario-based
certified financial planner, will write a series of articles for AIBL's
monthly newsletter explaining the intricacies of investing. In addition,
Peters is in the process of establishing a professional chapter of AIBL
to assist other Indian business professionals in Canada.
AIBL's tradition of inclusiveness extends to its membership on the UM
campus. Any interested undergraduate or graduate student may become a
member. One AIBL member, a UM history major, hopes to establish a museum
near his reservation home. He's already received advice from other
members on what Michelle Henderson terms, "the business side of things."
Even before graduating with his history degree, he has learned about
composing a professional resume, establishing a basic business plan, and
networking with possible sources of support.
"AIBL members are professionally prepared," says Henderson, and learn to
present themselves as such. Each member has his or her own business card,
and a resume book is in the works to assist this year's membership.
AIBL's own brochure is an example of a thoughtful introduction. The
"primary focus of American Indian Business Leaders," it says, "is to
utilize its student foundation to assist tribal economic development
through an emphasis on maintaining culturally appropriate American Indian
business development."