Expo highlights reservation business to-dos

PABLO — When Margo Gray-Proctor visited Pablo Dec. 2, she had a pretty simple message: shaping the Flathead Reservation economically all starts with the people living here.

Gray-Proctor served as the keynote speaker during last Wednesday’s first annual Indian Business Development Expo, sponsored by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and held in the Joe McDonald Health and Athletic Center gym. The expo featured three different panels, a variety of speakers and business development resource exhibits.

The event opened with a prayer and welcome from Salish Kootenai College president Joe McDonald, and an expo overview by Jerry Lamb.

Then it was Gray-Proctor, known as the “Indian Oprah” for her business savvy and self-made status as a strong, minority woman in the business world. A member of the Osage tribe from Tulsa, Okla., Gray-Proctor is currently the president of Horizon Engineering Services Company, a “Native American, woman-owned civil engineering firm.”

She said that in her entrepreneurship oriented family, she was considered the “black sheep” for entering the field of law enforcement. But in 1998, she founded Horizon with her friend Carl Cannizzaro, and has turned it into a multi-million dollar business. Though the economy has taken a turn for the worse, Gray-Proctor said she hasn’t had to lay off any of her 17 employees and that they say they are happy just to have a job. Because of the low point in the economy, she said that for those looking to get into the business world, now is the time.

Gray-Proctor had plenty of advice for how the Flathead Reservation can thrive and take advantage of its many natural resources. The key, she continued, is that there isn’t just one simple remedy; there are various ways the reservation economy can be manipulated and improved. But Salish and Kootenai tribal members must be the ones taking the impetus, ready to improve the state of their tribe.  With the natural beauty of the area, including Flathead Lake, Glacier National Park, the National Bison Range and the Mission Mountains, she insisted that tourism is an extremely important component of the local economy.

“I was told last night 3 million people come through your reservation each year,” Gray-Proctor said. “That’s huge, and they’ve all got to eat, buy gas, use a restroom.”

She also addressed aspiring entrepreneurs and other local small business owners by encouraging them to work exclusively with tribally owned businesses. In her business dealings, she said she works exclusively with tribally owned businesses, a number totaling almost 35. And those businesses can be for any sort of office supply needed: from paper clips to the seats and tables set up in the gym for the expo, the business owner should be tribal. This reliance on tribal-members keeps money on the reservation, and strengthens the quality of life for the area residents, she said.