Focus on diversity

Industry and government seek Native Americans for tech jobs

Tribal colleges can help students develop needed tech skills without going too far from home. "I feel like I'm helping to save the earth" - Desiree Benally

By Lisa Furlong
Contributing Editor

For Native American students, especially those raised on reservations, getting the engineering or IT degrees and skills they need to land technology-based jobs is a challenge. It's even more difficult to find tech work close to home.

Even preparing for college can be tough. Although reservation schools and libraries may have computers, less than half of the homes on North Dakota reservations, for example, have telephone lines. Despite such hurdles, tribal colleges help students learn spreadsheet software, database management concepts and the basics of programming. But the course work generally offered in the tribal colleges' associates degree programs is geared to office administration and not careers in technology.

This situation seems unlikely to change any time soon. According to the America Indian College Fund (AICF, Denver, CO, www.collegefund.org), more Native American students pursue degrees or certificates in childhood education or nursing than in computer science. Since technology infrastructure is still being developed on many reservations, students have few role models to steer them toward tech careers.

Donna Statzell.

Donna Statzell, dean of student services at College of the Menominee Nation (CMN, Keshena, WI), says that in 2003 twenty-eight students were working toward degrees as microcomputer technician associates of applied science (MTAS) and "nine or ten" toward computer science associates degrees. The new CSA program has yet to graduate students but previous MTAS grads now work with the tribe in traditional IT support functions, some at the tribe's casino. "I do see more students transferring to state universities," says Statzell, "but it's too soon to say what the trend toward technology studies will be." CMN can't deliver many online courses, says Statzell, because it's located in a heavily forested area with few computer connections.

Michelle Signalness.

The student profile
Two types of students study at tribal schools: those who graduated from high school or dropped out of college ten or more years ago and those just out of high school who are more techno-savvy. "Older students usually want to stay on the reservation because of family ties," says Michelle Signalness, an instructor at United Tribes Technical College (UTTC, Bismarck, ND). "The younger students are more eager to find jobs in urban areas."

UTTC associate academic dean Dennis Renville says, "When we ask students at orientation how many want to stay on the reservation, a few hands go up. When we ask how many want to move to urban areas, maybe two-thirds of the hands go up. Unemployment is so high on the reservation, they have no choice but to move."

While UTTC students come from forty-five different reservations, 65 percent come from North or South Dakota. "Five years ago," Renville reports, "our average student was female and twenty-eight years old with 2.5 children. We're now seeing younger students." In general, older students starting school now may be less familiar with computers. Younger students, however, are more likely to have had experiences with computers in high school and through corporate outreach programs.

Internships are encouraged at most schools. Tribal colleges report that students worked with various federal agencies in Washington during summer 2003. Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (Albuquerque, NM) said some of its students interned with the Federal Aviation Administration, the General Services Administration and Intel (Folsom, CA). Crownpoint Institute of Technology (Crownpoint, NM) career job placement counselor Juanita Tom reported that students interned at a variety of NASA locations.

Diane Calftail plans to transfer to a four-year college.

Diane Calftail: combining study and work at Blackfeet CC
Diane Calftail's educational experience is typical of many Native Americans who choose to stay at home when they begin or return to their studies at tribal colleges.

Calftail, who belongs to the Blackfeet Nation, returned to school after twenty years. Her factory production and customer service jobs got her interested in computers, so she returned to school at Blackfeet Community College (BCC, Browning, MT). First she earned an associate of applied science degree in office administration. Then she took courses for a degree in microcomputer management. To pay for college, she worked in many of the BCC departments that deal with databases.

"It's hard to find work in such a small community," Calftail says of life on the reservation. For that reason she and her husband, who studied small business management at BCC, want to take a few more courses to prepare them for jobs in other areas. Calftail hopes to explore the telecom field.

The hiring perspective
Even when there are technical job openings on the reservation, finding qualified candidates can be difficult. It's been a problem for Lakota Technologies Inc, which is located on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation (Eagle Butte, SD). LTI provides data conversion and call center/help desk support.

Marc Benoist of LTI: only a handful of tribal colleges offer four-year degrees.

LTI's operations manager Marc Benoist, a Cheyenne River Sioux, says the company looked for a network administrator for over a year. The position also involved supporting the tribal telephone authority. The $50,000 salary attracted many applicants, but 80 percent were from outside the U.S. Of the qualified candidates, few wanted to settle in such a rural area as Eagle Butte, says Benoist. The duties of the network administrator are being addressed on a limited basis by present staff, he says, with additional support from another Native American firm that does network management. The nearest tribal college, Si Tanka Huron University (Eagle Butte, SD), explains Benoist, has a limited number of technical courses so was not in a position to supply candidates.

Several of the other tribal schools tracked by the AICF do offer technical courses, but even so few graduates earn associate of science or applied science degrees. To complete their degrees, most students usually go to state universities or other campuses far from the reservation. Only a handful of tribal colleges now offer four-year degrees, although many are working toward four-year accreditation.

IT is growing at Turtle Mountain
According to the AICF data collected from thirty-two tribal colleges between 1999 and 2002, at least eighteen offered computer-related associate of science or applied science degrees. Most tribal colleges number their CS grads in the single digits, and in some cases there were none. But at Turtle Mountain Community College, which serves the Turtle Mountain band of Chippewa, vice president Carol Davis has seen a growing interest in computer-related careers. Over the past three years, seven or eight TMCC graduates have gone on to earn BSCS degrees from Minot State University (Minot, ND). Three of them now work for the college.

TMCC MIS director Todd Romero, a Pueblo, is an EE who serves as a role model, Davis says. That may be one reason several students are pursuing EE degrees at North Dakota State University (Fargo, ND). The two schools have developed a working relationship to build a career pathway: high school students attend a math and science summer program at TMCC; TMCC students attend an enrichment program at NDSU. "We're working hard to encourage technical education and to prepare future engineers," says Davis.

When the Turtle Mountain band, which pioneered outsourcing contracts with its company Uniband, lost its data-entry contract with the U.S. Immigration Dept, the tribe relied on the college to retrain its workers for medical billing jobs in fulfillment of a contract with Indian Health Services.

Opportunities with the EPA
Many of the best and brightest students at tribal colleges look for government jobs. The Environmental Protection Agency is a natural employer for those who grow up in Indian Country: there is a cultural affinity for work that protects and restores the land - and, ironically, many toxic cleanup sites are located on or near reservations.

Jamie Langlie manages the EPA Intern Program (EIP) that hires promising college graduates for two-year internships designed to feed into other permanent positions. According to Langlie, the EIP received more than 1,800 applications in 2003. Some of the roughly 380 qualified applicants were Native Americans. The agency actively reaches out to graduating students and coaches them in resume writing and interviewing skills.

Once hired, EPA interns attend a three-week long conference and work out individual development plans with their managers. Interns do a minimum of four rotations, which may involve working for EPA in Washington, DC or in one of its ten regional offices, at a national lab, on Capitol Hill, with a nonprofit organization or with state or tribal governments. The EPA seeks undergrad and grad students majoring in environmental engineering, chemistry, physical and biological sciences, CS and public policy. (For details see www.epa.gov/ezhire).

In addition, the EPA partners with the Environmental Careers Organization (ECO, Boston, MA, www.eco.org) to create training opportunities for undergraduates. More than half of the 1,600 students hired through the programs in the past decade have been minorities, including Native Americans. They have worked on projects that range from Superfund cleanup sites to air and water quality monitoring to GIS mapping. Roughly 20 percent have gone on to work for the federal government, another 10 percent to local and state governments and nearly a third to corporate jobs.

Environmental justice offers career opps
The EPA's environmental justice program encourages individuals who live in targeted areas to help resolve environmental clean-up problems. The program interacts extensively with tribal leaders and tribal colleges.

Danny Gogal

Says Daniel E. Gogal, senior environmental protection specialist with the EPA's environmental justice office (Washington, DC), "The EPA helps tribes build environmental capacity by establishing their own EPAs, much as states do. This kind of development brings with it career opportunities across the board, including engineering. Aside from that, the EPA wants a diverse workforce. Over the years the agency's criteria changed to reflect the difference between Anglo and Native cultures with regard to water quality. That is due in part to the concerns of Indians, who tend to consume much more fresh-water fish than most urban dwellers."

Employers are looking
Even government agencies eager to hire Native Americans sometimes have trouble finding candidates with the right qualifications for technical openings. Mary Carter, a member of the oversight recruiting team for the Gulf of Mexico region of the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (New Orleans, LA), says that the agency's problem is due partly to timing. The MMS realized too late that they must recruit in the fall to find candidates for its summer 2003 internships through the American Indian Science & Engineering Society (AISES, www.aises.org). "Our team will attend the AISES convention in Albuquerque this fall, and we'll start looking for engineering students to work summer 2004 as petroleum engineering technicians. They can have ME, EE or CE credentials. Our regional director is glad to be working with AISES and the AISES chapters."

State and local agencies are likewise enthusiastic about hiring Native American students. At Colorado Springs Utilities (Colorado Springs, CO), Shirley Martinez of the company's EEO office is pleased with its high conversion rate for interns hired through Inroads of Southern Colorado, which places minority interns, including Native Americans, in corporate internships. Inroads interns work across engineering, business and communications disciplines, and the company generally hires eight or nine students each year. Last year all were offered full-time jobs following graduation.

The enthusiasm extends into the private sector as well. Corporations that see Native Americans as potential employees and customers are working to get rid of the "digital divide." Companies like IBM (Armonk, NY), Intel (Folsom, CA) and Hewlett Packard (Palo Alto, CA) have set up programs to educate tribal leaders about the benefits of wired communities for better education and better employment opportunities. The corporations hope to show the leaders how technology can be a force to boost Indian culture rather than erode it.

Intel's Kyle Grant is working on a new generation of microprocessors.

Kyle Grant: the doctor is in at Intel
Kyle Grant, senior process engineer at Intel, earned a PhD in chemistry at the University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT) in 2001. Grant, a Tlingit from Alaska, began his higher education at Everett Community College (Everett, WA) where he earned his AA in chemistry in 1993. He then transferred to Central Washington University (Ellensburg, WA) to earn his BS in chemistry in 1997.

As an undergraduate, Grant worked outdoors under a National Park Service grant to collect water samples for the Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife and to analyze rain and river quality in the Ellensburg area. He connected with Intel at the 2000 AISES conference in Portland, OR, drawn by the appeal of the booming semiconductor industry.

Since Grant benefited from tribal funding, he wants other Native American students to know that various scholarships may be available from their own tribal councils, AISES or corporate intern/scholar programs. "So many Native students are challenged financially, yet they don't know that help is out there," he says. Grant attended graduate school at no cost by working as a graduate assistant.

At the Intel site where he works in Ronler Acres, OR, he says he continues to learn by working on a new generation of microprocessors.

Dakotah Lane believes that working for AT&T is a good experience.

Dakotah Lane: supporting public safety at AT&T Wireless
Thanks to active recruitment efforts by AT&T Wireless' Rick Newell, Lummi Dakotah Lane was a paid member of the company's data operations team (Bothell, WA) while working his way through the University of Washington. He graduated with his BSEE in June 2003.

Lane already had some part-time experience when he answered a February 2000 e-mail from Newell telling AISES members about internships. He worked a flexible twelve to fifteen hours a week that winter, then worked full time during the summer of 2000.

In September, he returned to school and a light course load so that he could spend twenty hours a week working at AT&T Wireless, where he was responsible for fixed end system (FES) enterprise support. After graduation he became a full time employee.

Lane says he has enjoyed working on the application side of data ops and is pleased that his group supports many public safety customers. "Working for AT&T has been a very good experience," he says.

HP's Chuck Newby helped get a Native American student center at Portland State.

Chuck Newby: HP infrastructure helps tribes get wired
HP works on tribal land and at universities. Its Digital Villages program, started in 2000, uses HP technology, solutions and consulting services to help underserved communities meet social and economic needs. The program is building infrastructure to link tribes in Southern California. HP also funds projects like a student center for Native American students at Portland State University (PSU, Portland, OR).

Chuck Newby, an HP engineer and an Athabascan, is a 2002 PSU grad with a BSCS degree. He was instrumental in planning and executing the center, which is designed like a Native American long house. Newby says the wired center enables tribal members to telecommute to classes and provides a sense of community for Native students on campus.

Newby dropped out of college in the 1980s because he was homesick for his tribal community in Alaska. That's why he appreciates the importance of giving Native American students a place of their own, even if that place includes members from different tribes.

"The center provides a sense of family and is a symbol of health and goodwill," says Newby. "It makes me feel good that HP provided not only a server and fifteen computers but funding for software and setup as well."

IBM does campus outreach
IBM has long been a leader in Native American outreach. The company sponsors programs like science fairs and camps for middle school children, plus many more programs for older students. IBM's "on-loan" executives have worked for AISES, and many IBMers mentor college students from minority-serving campuses to help them move into the corporate world.

Says Native American program director Michele Morningstar, "We feel that our new co-op/internship program has been a quick success because it identifies students before their junior and senior years." This new initiative brings pre-college freshmen into the company and helps them develop skills all through the college years. Three Native Americans were among students in the first group assigned to Native American mentors.

"AISES is still a primary recruiting vehicle for us, since many Native American engineering students belong to campus chapters," continues Morningstar, "but we've shifted our focus a bit from working with students to working with members of professional chapters."

Calvin Pohawpatchoko of Jeppesen-Sanderson hopes to interest Native Americans in technology careers.

Calvin Pohawpatchoko: using technology to help the culture
Also hoping to attract Native American students to careers in technology is Comanche Calvin Pohawpatchoko Jr., a senior designer with Jeppesen-Sanderson (Englewood, CO). Pohawpatchoko, who wants to develop an institute to equip Native students for computer-based careers, has almost finished a masters degree in CS from Regis University (Denver, CO). As part of his masters program, Pohawpatchoko is developing Java programs to store information on fast-disappearing Indian languages. He is concerned about the effects of the digital divide on not only Comanche students but students from all tribes.

Kodak: from AISES to NAC
Kodak (Rochester, NY) encourages Native American employees to actively recruit members of their tribes. In the 2003 the company hired seven Native American interns. Kodak's Native American Council, one of the company's eight employee networking groups, was started in 1991 as a result of the company's 1990 AISES sponsorship. The group provides mentoring activities and a lecture series to educate fellow employees about Native American culture and issues.

Says David Kasnoff, manager of communications and PR for global diversity, "Our CEO, Dan Karp, wants the best ideas to turn into products, services and marketing initiatives. We want to create a culture of inclusion so that we will benefit from employees who can look at a product and say, 'This will work in my community,' or tell us why it won't work. We want employees who mirror our customer base and the world."

BHP Billiton: committed to Native American students
BHP Billiton (Waterflow, NM), a diversified resources company, is dedicated to recruiting and training Native American students, says Geri Tsosie, organization development advisor of HR.

BHP Billiton's Desiree Benally graduated from college with help from a company scholarship.

Desiree Benally: saving the earth at BHP Billiton
Desiree Benally became a 2002 BSCE graduate of New Mexico State (Las Cruces, NM) with help from a BHP Billiton scholarship. Today she is a mining engineer with BHP Billiton. As a BHP scholar, she started working for the company doing vegetative data collection in summer 1997 after her freshman year.

For Benally, leaving her family home in Kirtland, NM, on the edge of the Navajo reservation, was easier because she'd spent the first ten years of her life in Las Cruces, while her parents were students at New Mexico State. "It was like going home," she says. "I was more used to being in the minority than living as part of the majority."

She stayed in school through summer 1998. The following summer she worked for the environmental group of the Army's Industrial Operations Command (Rock Island, IL). Benally returned to Fruitland, NM to work at BHP during her 1999-2000 holiday break, and again from June 2000 through January 2001, before completing her final semester.

During her first summer with BHP she worked at the company's three mines. In summer 2000 she was assigned to the engineering department at the La Plata mine. She worked on culverts and ponds, checking the hydrology watershed to correlate storm and runoff events to existing structures to meet federal standards. During her six-month stint as a student employee she worked in the engineering department at BHP's Navajo mine doing similar but more detailed assignments.

When Benally graduated from college she faced a difficult decision: should she return to Illinois for an appealing full-time job with the Army Corps of Engineers or return to BHP, which was closer to home and paid better? She chose BHP, and says she enjoys rotating to different assignments.

Benally first worked in the project and long range planning group, dealing with compliance issues and developing long range plans for 2026. In March 2003 she moved into the short range production engineering group, working on restoring mining pits. She expects to rotate into yet another assignment by summer 2004.

Benally is still fleshing out her long range goals, but she hopes for an overseas assignment at some point. She thinks about earning her PE or a masters in CE or even an MBA. Another option, she says, would be an environmental law degree.

The biggest surprise about her work so far, she says, is that she's using "maybe 10 to 20 percent of what I learned at school. The rest is gathering information. In school they tell you the givens; in real life you have to find the givens and develop your own criteria. Often that means doing research and getting to know the people who have the information.

"I feel like I'm helping to save the earth by working with the environmental and water resources department here," says Benally. "My advice to other students is that engineering is a great background and gives you lots of flexibility, but be sure it's something you enjoy and not something you're doing just because you were good in math and science. I've seen many people leave the field because they were directed there by others and didn't really enjoy it."

Rachel Yellowhair of Raytheon likes the company's commitment to diversity.

Rachel Yellowhair: Managing data at Raytheon
Navajo Rachel Yellowhair, an information systems technologist II for Raytheon (Tucson, AZ), graduated in 2001 from the University of Arizona in Tucson with a BS in math. She was a good candidate for IT work because she had held an on-campus teaching job at U of A.

Yellowhair says that coming from her reservation in Kayenta, AZ to attend college was a big adjustment, but some early preparation helped. Even before she started at U of A, she spent two summers at the Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, MA. During her first summer she participated in the Upward Bound math and science program for disadvantaged minority students, and so impressed her supervisor that the lab hired her for the second summer as a lab assistant.

In her job at Raytheon she interacts with other Native Americans, managing infrastructure at Raytheon's northern New Mexico facility which is located on Indian land. She is also an active member of Raytheon's Native American affinity group and outreach chair for the Tucson chapter of Raytheon's Native American Indian Association (RNAIA).

"When I was looking for a job I knew that there were some companies that helped Native Americans. That was important to me," she says. "I was happy to land at Raytheon, which is committed to diversity."

Launching a career in a technical area may be a challenge for Native American students, but as these technical folks show, once they get started Native students can make successful lives in the technical world.

D/C

Lisa Furlong is a freelance writer and editor in Center Harbor, NH.