MOVING FORWARD AS A TEAM

The implementation of Deltek, to date, has predominately focused on financial reporting, not process improvement. Now, as we move forward, we need to ensure that NANA can fully benefit from all of the transaction processing of the ERP solution. This means every level and every function of our personnel must join the effort to identify and lead the process improvement initiative to achieve a successful ERP implementation. In the coming days and weeks, you may be asked to analyze or modify your practices and procedures. It is my hope that every employee embraces this opportunity to improve our practices and assist the ERP implementation team in their efforts. HERE TO HELP You will get the assistance you need in adapting to the ERP solution. The NDC leadership team recognizes that we need to invest more in personnel development and system training than we did in the initial Deltek implementation. The goal of training is to create end users who are very comfortable with the functionality and day-to-day use of the Deltek standard set of processes. In addition, training will be complimented with an increase in supplemental support guides, procedures, on-line help and direct personnel support to ease the frustration of the transition.

AVOIDING THE PITFALLS

During each system implementation, there are those who prefer a business function be performed consistent with the way it was historically performed; which is different from business processes designed into the purchased ERP system. Modifying the software to adjust to existing business methods is the greatest reason why ERP system implementations fail – ultimately costing the company tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. There is no question that the impact to our personnel is greater when we ask our team members to adjust to a new way; but there is no question that the quality and capabilities of the NANA team is as strong as any company in the world. We need to benefit from the strengths of our people and our organization to adjust to the new and standard methods for each of these core processes.

STAY FOCUSED ON GROWTH

As Stan addresses in his article, we must take the opportunity of this recession to strengthen our business development, our customer service, and each of our back-office functions; each of these components are absolutely critical in sustaining continued growth at NANA. Great opportunities exist even in an economic downturn. By staying focused on our goals and implementing new best practices, NANA will be better positioned to capture opportunities that will help create economic opportunities and assist in sustaining a vibrant indigenous culture for our 12,000 Inupiat shareholders.

When I was a boy growing up beside the Crow Indian Reservation in Hardin, Montana, I dreamed of living a life improving the living conditions of Native American communities.  I find that NANA provides me with the support to continue this work.  As an architect who has served Native communities for more than 35 years, I am provided with the tools and the encouragement necessary to design quality homes, health care and educational facilities for some of Americas most in-need communities.

A unique part of my designs often include traditional healing rooms for health care facilities where each particular culture determines the cultural elements of the room’s design.  At the Dulce Health Care Center, the teepee-shaped meditation room has circular openings in the floor slab so tribal members can make contact with Mother Earth. Sand paintings enhance the earth’s pattern in these gateways to the nurturer of life.

NANA has provided me with the opportunities to help sensitize interns, college students, technicians, and administrative personnel to the cultural uniqueness of each tribe or pueblo. My latest design is for the New Mexico State University Native American Cultural Center, it is an iconic building that will provide a home away from home for Native American students from across America. This project is oriented around the cardinal directions and faces east, the creative beginning of life. A meditation room greets all who enter the building. The building’s footprint follows the “Circle of Life” concept by greeting the morning sun and providing an arching rainbow-like pathway around the gallery which embraces an outdoor dance arena and follows the seasons of life of the students who study in this facility. The cultural center is anchored to the earth by heavy walls which demark the winter and summer solstice and are keys to the seasons.

NANA has helped me to continue living my boyhood dream of providing professional expertise and service to the Native community and the profession by helping thousands of Native Americans have modern culturally sensitive health care facilities, schools and homes in remote, rural reservations across the Western and Northern areas of the United States.

The bulk of the funding, $10 million, is allocated for wind-diesel development and expansion in the NANA region. An additional $4 million will fund an expansion of the Kotzebue wind farm and was awarded to Kotzebue Electric Association.

Other projects include a half-million dollar solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation construction project slated for Ambler, a million dollar hydroelectric power feasibility study for the Upper Kobuk region, and a quarter million dollar study will investigate if wood-fired combined heat and power (CHP) systems can reduce overall heating costs in the NANA Region.

The success of these projects highlights how NANA, along with our in-region partners, is proactively addressing the energy crisis that the NANA Region faces to create a brighter tomorrow by levering clean energy technologies.

Six of us were on this particular flight from the NANA region’s largest village, Kotzebue, population 3,126 - to Noatak, population 449. Over the course of a few short days, Noatak’s population number would more than double as a cadre of NANA employees and hundreds of NANA shareholders descended on this small community located on the west bank of the Noatak river for the NANA Regional Corporation 2008 Annual Shareholder meeting.

There are no hotels in Noatak - no HoJo to retreat to after a meeting, no fancy restaurants, no rental cars. Each employee brought all essentials including a sleeping bag, pillow and mat. After we landed, we jumped on the back of a snow machine or into truck beds at minus 20 degrees and were taken to our new temporary home in the Noatak school. I set up camp in the hallway next to my co-workers, but there was no time for resting – there was work to do.

Setting up for the meeting is a logistical feat in and of itself. Everything from the screen, podium and projector, to the mountains of food for the after-meeting feast are flown in from Anchorage. It was a common sight to see NANA’s urban employees trade in their suits and Blackberry’s (which didn’t work), for a sturdy pair of warm boots and rope to hang banners. There was no sense of corporate hierarchy in Noatak. There was a job to do, and we were going to do it. Senior vice presidents, middle managers and office staff all rolled up their sleeves to get it done – equally and together.

The meeting felt more like a large family reunion than anything else. I watched as our shareholders met one another in the new Noatak school gym- they hugged, clapped each other on the back, and caught up with the latest news: kids, basketball, the cost of fuel oil, caribou. There were smiles, little ones running around, women at long tables cutting seal meat with the methodic roll of ulus underscoring their laughter, and men joking with each other as they helped carry their friends gear in from the cold.

There was, most definitely, the formal side to it all. Board members and senior officers gave presentations, answered tough questions, and listened to comments from our shareholders. But even the presentations and discussions differed from the typical corporate fare. Throughout the meeting, there was a tangible awareness as the impacts of the impersonal figures being discussed on the PowerPoint were translated into the everyday lives of people populating the seats in that gym. After all, this meeting wasn’t just about the future of their corporation, it was about the future of a people.

That sentiment easily captures the mistrust and suspicion that was often the first reaction when attempting a venture or partnership. At that time, tribes in the lower 48 were just coming into their own and they were not sure how partnering with NANA, or other aboriginal companies, would benefit them. Alaska Native Corporations, like NANA, had already been around for decades and were already well established corporations. There was much the young Lower 48 corporations wished to learn from ANCs, but they were also tremendously cautious.

NANA’s participation in RES helped us facilitate those relationships and gain that important trust. Through our corporation’s values and commitment to our partners and clients, NANA has built a reputation in the tribal business community founded on respect and mutual growth.

This year, three NANA Development Corporation board members assisted NANA companies WHPacific, TKC Integration, Qivliq, NANA Services, Akmaaq and NMS, in the continuation of our our company’s outreach to the tribal community. NANA’s future will, no doubt, include tribal ventures and projects that not only benefit NANA, but work to uplift indigenous peoples around the globe.