From Deseret News archives:
Shoshone Trump is on a roll
About Utah
He wears a crew cut, for one thing. For another, he's Native American, and if there's anything Native Americans are not traditionally accused of impersonating, it's business moguls like Donald Trump.
But forget all that, because what Parry is a part of is so full of potential, so cutting-edge, than even though he's 66 he's not even thinking about slowing down, let alone retiring.
As CEO of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation's new tribal economic development corporation, Parry has taken "chief" to the executive level. To hear him tell it, the future for the tribe hasn't looked this bright since the prairie was thick with buffalo and the streams were filled with trout.
"I work a lot more than an eight-hour day and I should be retired," said Parry last week at tribal headquarters on Main Street in Brigham City. "But we're doing so many exciting things, I can't walk away."
What the Northwestern Band of Shoshone are doing, in a nutshell, is taking advantage of who they are. The tribe qualifies, according to federal Small Business Association guidelines, as a Super 8(a) company, which is like showing up at a fine restaurant and being guaranteed preferred parking and the nicest table.
Super 8(a) status enhances the ability of companies to compete for federal government contracts and is reserved for businesses owned by members of historically disadvantaged groups.
Since the entire Shoshone Nation, not just the Northwestern Band, is in many ways still recovering from a variety of long-ago land grabs and other injustices — the nadir coming at the Bear River Massacre of 1863 when some 300 Shoshone were killed in a northern Utah meadow by federal troops — there isn't much question about them qualifying as historically disadvantaged.
In the past 2 1/2 years, under the direction of Parry and other tribal leaders, the Northwestern Band has initiated contracts, or is on the verge of initiating contracts, in areas ranging from technology to translation services to construction projects to various commercial and manufacturing ventures. In the near future, they're hoping to help build a power plant and a travel plaza near the Idaho border. They also have plans to open a bank.
"We've been at this for 150 years," said Parry, referring to the tribe's efforts to assimilate into the American mainstream, "but I think we've made more progress in the last two than the first 148."
The natural question, of course, is why has it taken so long.
The answer, Parry explained, is "because we're doing what no one else is doing."
