Mixed Signals : Mainstream firms must learn to adapt when doing business with American Indians.

Mainstream companies trying to do business with American Indian-owned firms or tribal leaders frequently find it frustrating. But, American Indian business advisers say, companies would have more luck if they observed the proper protocol in dealing with Indian business owners.

“Most people don’t have any clue as to how to deal with Indian people,” said Georgia Peterson, an Oneida Indian who owns San Pedro-based Oneida Information Systems. “Many people in the business world understand how to do business, but when they are dealing in Indian Country, it’s different.”

Peterson, who is advising a major billboard company in its dealings with a tribe, said, “You have to show absolute total respect, like with the Japanese people.”

Steven L. A. Stallings, president of the El Monte-based National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, an advocate for Indian business, agreed with Peterson that cultural differences can pose problems in establishing business relationships with Indian companies.

For example, he once advised a major utility company against presenting Pueblo Indian tribal leaders with a model of a geothermal energy plant the utility wanted to build. “The Pueblos would have found it offensive to see the equipment going into Mother Earth,” said Stallings, a Luiseno Indian who has worked with the center for 13 years.

Instead, he advised utility executives to explain how the geothermal power plant would benefit the Indian people by creating jobs and energy.

Mainstream companies are not only faced with cultural differences, but they are usually dealing with people “at the bottom of the economic scale,” according to Stallings. “Indians, individually or as tribes, have suffered social ills by not participating in the mainstream of free enterprise.”

The center, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year, recently reorganized from a regional to a national organization. Federal funds provide 60% of its $1-million annual budget, with the remainder contributed by private foundations, corporations and individuals.

The center’s staff provides a variety of financial and technical assistance to Indian-owned businesses around the country. In California, where there are 2,217 Indian-owned businesses, the center has advised about 500 companies, according to Stallings. It also operates a computer database that supplies companies with information on many of the nation’s 15,000 Indian-owned firms.

Stallings said he is frequently called on to help mainstream companies set up business operations on Indian reservations. This month, he is helping an Orange County computer company figure out how to set up product distribution centers on Indian reservations in San Diego and North Dakota.

Dealing with major corporations is easy. But Stallings said dealing with his Indian clients often requires consultants to travel to remote reservations by horseback, snowmobile, helicopter and seaplane.

“With a tribal enterprise, you are sometimes dealing with people who don’t speak English,” he said. “Maybe they only speak Choctaw.”

According to the 1980 U.S. Census, there were 1.3 million American Indians in the U.S. However, Stallings has estimated that the number may be closer to three million. One third of the Indian people live in California, New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma. In 1980, 58% of the male population on reservations between 20 and 64 were unemployed, the census found. Stallings said unemployment on some reservations is as high as 90%.

Significant Contribution

One way to create new jobs for American Indians is to encourage companies to set up joint ventures with tribes.

There are 25 tribes ready and willing to enter into joint ventures, according to a recent study conducted by the center. The strongest opportunities lie in the defense industry, where the Department of Defense has set a 5% minority purchasing goal and Small Business Administration policies favor granting loan guarantees to minority-owned businesses.

With the proper training, Stallings said Indian people can make a significant economic contribution.

One example is a year-old relationship between the White River Apaches and McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Co. in Mesa, Arizona. About 18 months ago, White River Apache leaders approached the public affairs office at McDonnell Douglas with the idea of Apaches making some parts for the company’s Apache AH-64A helicopter.

McDonnell Douglas officials embraced the idea, according to company spokesman Rob Mack, providing technical advice to help the tribe convert a 15,000-square-foot bowling alley into a manufacturing plant.

Today, the Apache Manufacturing Co. in Whiteriver, Ariz., produces 32 shapes and sizes of thermal insulation for Apache helicopter cockpits. The plant employs 20 people to make the insulation and wooden shipping pallets for the aerospace firm.

New Jobs

To show his respect for the Apaches, Bill Brown, McDonnell Douglas Helicopter’s president, learned to speak a bit of Apache so he could dedicate the plant in the tribe’s native tongue.

“Our objective is to help qualify the Apache Manufacturing Co. to take on additional work from McDonnell Douglas and other defense industry companies,” said Brown, when he received the 1989 Corporate Citizenship award from the center.

Don Booker, a consultant who is serving as plant manager, said he has already begun discussions about new jobs with McDonnell Douglas headquarters and other aerospace companies. “Our unemployment rate on the reservation is beyond 40%,” said Booker, an Anglo who has worked with the tribe as a business adviser and manager for several years. “We have a potential work force of 4,300 people.”

TRIBAL ASSETS

Indian tribes possess 51.8 million acres of land with the following economic assets:

Commercial forest: 5.3 million acres

Agricultural land: 2.5 million acres

Range, grazing land: 44 million acres

Oil and gas reserves: 4% of U.S. reserves

Uranium deposits: 40% of U.S. deposits

Coal: 30% of U.S. Western reserves

According to the U.S. Census, 1,366,676 Indians were living in the United States in 1980. The location of the population breaks down as follows:

Tribal Trust Lands: 2%

Alaska native villages: 3% Historic, rural Oklahoma: 8% Reservations: 24% Remainder of U.S.: 63% Source: National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development