Editor's note: This is the first of a three-part series focusing on the Tule River Reservation. Parts two and three will publish Friday and Saturday
The rise of Eagle Mountain Casino, the creation of new businesses like Aero Industries and the initiation of public works projects to rebuild the infrastructure on the reservation all have breathed life back into the Tule River Reservation and its people, who struggled for years to find employment and adequate housing.
When the casino opened in 1996, the tribe used a portion of casino revenue and federal grants to start the Tule River Economic Development Corporation and hire professionals who, over the past decade, have helped to improve every aspect of the fast-growing community.
"Well before Indian gaming even started, the tribe recognized that it needed something to keep them alive," said John Nash, chief executive officer of TREDC.
The Tule River Indian Tribe consists of more than 1,200 members and, according to Nash, the unemployment rate on the reservation has dropped from more than 80 percent to around 25 percent in the past decade.
"Our job at TREDC is to come up with alternatives," Nash said. "If the only job you have available is to work at the casino, that's a pretty yes-or-no question. But if you have different options, you have opportunities to do other types of work."
The tribe wants to offer its youth options as they grow up and graduate from high school, Nash said.
"We want to make it possible for them to pay the bills and still stay close to home. That's pretty critical," Nash said. "Since the advent of gaming, the tribe recognizes that while gaming is a good resource, there are other opportunities and possibilities. If you don't diversify, you set yourself up for problems down the road."
Nash said Indian tribes across the state are looking at other opportunities for business. TREDC is a development corporation that has already initiated several businesses and handed them off to qualified business professionals.
"We are involved with a company called SMA, which retrofits diesel engines for general aviation aircraft," said Dave Nenna, tribal administrator. "That will probably be our next area of growth. We are just waiting on a supplemental-type certificate from federal aviation to move forward with that."
"We also have a gyrocam business that makes surveillance cameras for aircraft that can be fixed or stationary," Nenna said. "Depending on who wants to use it, whether it's homeland defense or law enforcement, it has a lot of different applications."
Nenna said the tribe is looking into upgrading the reservation's infrastructure and water system by creating a sewer system to get wastewater to the wastewater treatment plant, a project the tribe hopes to begin later this year.
The tribe is also working on developing property near the airport and negotiating with the city of Porterville to attract new businesses that might not otherwise come to town.
"In effect, to take the advantages that the tribe has because of its sovereign status and couple that with the resources the city has, and in effect make us much more competitive in terms of what everybody else up and down the county is doing," Nash said.
Nash declined to state what businesses TREDC is negotiating with, but he did say they were focusing on several issues including the ability to work with government entities and contractors and bring them to the area.
"There's a big push for the federal government to work with Indian tribes," Nash said. "They want to work with disadvantaged communities and the history of Indian reservations across the nation is pretty plain. Tribes have not necessarily had many opportunities. It has only been in the last 10 or 15 years where they've really started to take advantage of those opportunities."
That is the reason that the Tule River Tribe and TREDC are involved in a number of industries that are diversifying employment opportunities for tribal members, Nash said.
"It always amazes me when we hear the employment numbers for the big employers in the area. You always hear about the Porterville Developmental Center and Wal-Mart as the big employers. But when you look at the tribal employment picture," said Nash, "and how many people they have on the payroll, they rank right up there. And I expect to see that situation continue to rise."
Contact Katie Hicks at 784-5000, Ext. 1051, or khicks@portervillerecorder.com
This story was published in The Porterville Recorder on June 24, 2004