Indian Country Today • 17th May 2025

Lions and Vineyards and Bears

Not long ago, a vineyard worker at the Santa Margarita Ranch interrupted a quiet lunch while making his rounds. He came upon a huge black bear eating a deer it had killed in the pinot noir section of the vineyard. Read how one California winery balances business with nature.

First Nations • 21st May 2025

How a Mississippi Tribe is Inspiring Its Youth to Become Digital Entrepreneurs

Over the holidays, a group of young members from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians made a splash (and some cash) at the annual Christmas market selling t-shirts, hoodies, tumblers, earrings, ornaments, and door hangers that they fabricated using digital technology. This pop-up business enterprise was the result of a new tribal initiative focused on youth entrepreneurship.

ICT News • 4th June 2015

Northern California Tribe Harnesses Sun and Wind for Renewable Energy System

It’s sunny and windy on the northern coast of California. So why not put these elements to good use to help power a reservation, expand energy independence and reduce the carbon footprint? That’s the thinking behind the decision by the 577-member Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria to install a renewable microgrid system on their tribal lands in Loleta.

Native Business Magazine • 16th May 2025

One South Dakota Tattoo Artist is Making His Mark on the World

When Paul Fiddler was only eight years old, he etched his first tattoo. Little did the young Fiddler know that a little pain would be his gain, and he would one day be a professional tattoo artist and owner of Phuzion Storm Tattoos in Rapid City, South Dakota.

ICT News • 19th March 2015

Choctaw Brothers Want to Make Tribes Self-Sufficient With Aquaponic Farming

Kaben Smallwood has a dream: One day, every Native American tribe will grow its own food and conserve natural resources in the process, too. The Choctaw native is well on his way to achieving that ambitious goal through Symbiotic, LLC, a company he founded in 2012 with his brother, Shelby, and a friend that builds nontraditional farming systems designed to recirculate water to raise fish and grow produce.

5th May 2025

Spirit of Enterprise: The Historic Requa Inn

When Jan Wortman was growing up on the Yurok reservation in Klamath, California, she and her family used to drive by the Historic Requa Inn and say, “Wouldn’t that be neat if we owned that place someday?” Someday finally arrived for Jan. She and her husband, Marty, bought the inn after relocating from Portland, Oregon.

First Nations • 21st May 2025

Going Mobile with Red Cloud Renewable

Since 2008, Red Cloud Renewable has trained over 1,100 Native individuals from more than 70 tribes on how to build and install solar furnaces, roof panels, water pumps, and lighting at its 10-acre campus on the Pine Ridge Reservation called the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center (RCREC).

Native Business Magazine • 4th September 2019

A Mashantucket Pequot Revives a Maple Syrup Enterprise

When Jeremy Whipple was 10 years old, his uncles, Robert and Richard Hayward, took him and his cousins down to the sugar shack on the Mashantucket Pequot reservation to show them how to make maple syrup. Uncle Richard “Skip” Hayward, the Tribal chairman at the time, launched and ran the operation for nearly a decade.

26th July 2023

'Our Foods Are Beautiful!'

Food is life. Food sustains the body and feeds the spirit. With this knowledge as a framework, First Nations community partner YAKANAL, a New Mexico-based international program, is reconnecting Indigenous people to their land and traditional agriculture.

Native Business Magazine • 7th August 2019

A Blackfeet Woman Builds TPMOCS From Heart and Sole

As a hard-working IP lawyer for Google, Maria Running Fisher Jones is creating some big legal shoes to fill someday. But it’s the little shoes that really fuel the Blackfeet Native’s passion. Running Fisher Jones invested $25,000 of her own money to launch TPMOCS ― an all-Native business that creates handmade moccasins for infants and toddlers ― for the sole purpose of creating economic opportunity for her impoverished Tribe.

3rd May 2020

Ho-Chunk Nation Envisions a Sports Complex

Next time you're driving westbound on Interstate 90/39, near Ho-Chunk Gaming Madison, picture this: a sprawling, state-of-the-art sports and entertainment complex that rivals the best of them ... Can you see it?

First Nations • 21st May 2025

Giving Staying Power to Solar Power

Kawerak, Inc. in Nome, Alaska, is a tribally owned and operated nonprofit consortium representing 20 communities in the Bering Strait region. To provide social, educational, economic, and other services to Native people in the region, Kawerak is creating future job opportunities for its youth by teaching them about renewable energy initiatives and advancing its agricultural operation at Pilgrim Hot Springs to address food insecurity.

Indian Country Today • 17th May 2025

Spirit of Enterprise: Pomo Nation Wine

Gary Ray Cordova and Ben G. Ray III are doing something we can all tip our glass to: They started a wine business called Pomo Nation Wine Group. “It’s the first 100% Native American-owned wine label,” explains 53-year-old Cordova. He and Ray are Pomo Indians -- the largest Native American tribe in California.

Indian Country Today Media Network.com • 1st July 2025

Single Mom Adds to Native Americans' $2 Billion Economic Impact in Colorado

Single mom Andrea Lesher was inspired by her special-needs daughter to start her own business. One day, while doing research on her child’s medical condition, she discovered something eye-opening. “I learned that more Native American children have birth defects than any other minority group in the United States." She had a lightbulb moment: She would start a nonprofit organization someday to help Native American children born with extremely challenging health problems.

Indian Country Today • 18th February 2018

Aquaponic Pioneers Tackle Food Insecurity

Their passion for farming began during childhood on their grandfather’s farm in Talihina, Oklahoma, where they would help plant, grow and harvest a virtual salad bowl of fresh produce, such as tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers and onions, strictly for the family to enjoy.

Native Business Magazine • 11th September 2018

A Mother of Invention Pumps Up Support for Breastfeeding Workers

They say necessity is the mother of invention. Nothing could be more true for Stephanie Conduff, a 35-year-old Cherokee mother of two for whom the need to pump breast milk privately, in public, inspired her to create the Leche Lounge in 2015.

Indian Country Today • 17th May 2025

Spirit of Enterprise: Pala Tub

Robert Smith, tribal chairman of the Pala Band of Mission Indians decided to open a business on a plot of real estate he inherited from his aunt. The reservation already had a mini mart, a gas station, a few eateries and of course, the Pala Casino Spa Resort. What it didn’t have was a laundromat.

5th January 2023

The Historic Malki Museum: ‘We’re COVID-Safe!’

Last year, a digital billboard off Highway 10 in Banning, California, not far from the Morongo Band of Mission Indians Reservation, flashed this reassuring message for three months: “Malki Museum: Celebrating Southern California Indian Culture for over 50 Years. We’re COVID-Safe!”

Native Business Magazine • 11th December 2018

A Cut Above: Native Stylist Brings Metropolitan Vibe to Salon in Rapid City, South Dakota

Marissa Frazier is a hair artist. For 17 years, she rented chair space from various salon owners to cut, weave, color, layer and style the hair of a steady flow of clients. But she always dreamed of running her own business someday, envisioning a modern, sleek salon like those in New York or Los Angeles, staffed by an “A” team of hair stylists.

26th July 2023

The Yuchi Language Comes Home

In Halay Turning Heart’s home, only the Yuchi language is spoken. “We have three kids, ages 6, 4, and 2, and we are raising them to be first-language speakers,” says the administrator of the Yuchi Language Project (YLP), a community-based, nonprofit organization in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, launched in 1994 by her father.