The Colville Confederated Tribes and Washington State University are now business partners.
The two institutions announced this week a five-year partnership that includes athletic and academic projects. WSU football players will wear patches that read “1872 Colville Tribes.”
There will be other endeavors as well, including athletic events and learning opportunities for students.
At a press conference announcing the deal, both sides stressed it’s about more than athletics. That’s something Colville Tribal Chairman Jarred-Michael Erickson reinforced in an interview afterward.
"It kind of started just with an idea of how can we partner with a university? One that made sense, one that kind of fit with how we are as a family, kind of family close, you know, tightness.
"We ended up thinking about WSU as a good fit. They were within our Palouse tribe's traditional territory. That's where the Palouse tribe come from. So it seemed like a good fit and it just made sense. We've had other agreements in place with them, some on education, some on some other things, research that we do with them and stuff. But, this seemed like the kind of the next level to take that partnership even further," he said.
Erickson views the partnership as a long-term economic investment. It’s a chance for the tribe to leverage the popularity of Cougar athletics and tell the tribe’s story to a larger audience.
"I guess we've done better over the years financially, whatever you want to call it, that we've been able to actually tell our story better, which we haven't been able to do prior. We want to make sure that all 12 of our tribes, we're one tribe now, that we, all 12 of our tribes, we all know who we come from, where we come from. We still keep those within our enrollment records. And so, it's important that all of our tribes get, get the attention they need, deserve their story told and that we do work in those areas. And so, we've been extending that into Oregon a lot more lately as well," he said.
Erickson hopes the partnership will lead to more opportunities for Colville tribal students to attend WSU and learn skills they can use to work for the tribe in the future.
"We're about, oh, 1,700, 1,800 tribal government employees with our tribe. We're very big. We have about 600 in our natural resource department.
"We've recently started a healthcare authority. And so we've been trying to recruit doctors, nurses, you name it, right, for all of our facilities. And then for natural resources, foresters, WSU restarted their forestry program. They have their medical program in Spokane.
"So, it's a really good fit, not just tribal members, but we hope to get more tribal members into school and also then come back to work for us or for their tribe. But also, it doesn't matter if you're tribal or not. We need those professionals to come here.
So, I think this really helps get that pipeline and those conversations going. How do we get those people that are looking for jobs and good paying jobs here locally?" he said.
What does success look like five years down the road, when the agreement ends?
"We've been thinking about that quite a bit. There's a lot of things, you look at viewership, you look at things that, what do you get your bang for your buck nationally?
"We'll look at what partnerships were established, relationships that were built with other organizations, advertising wise. What did that pull towards our facilities and not just gaming? We have other things we're doing obviously, right, but I know people think about gaming. There's a lot of metrics I think we'll evaluate it with.
"I'll look to the team. I haven't talked to them in real depth about that. We have a team that's been working on this. We'll talk about that because we want to make sure that it seems that it was worth it that, when we spend our tribe members’ money, that it's going to a good use and long-term use.
"We're trying to really get towards that financial sovereignty that I've been preaching since I've been chairman. I don't like relying on anyone else because the one thing that I've always, I always hear is that we never have enough money, right? No matter where you are, it seems like it's always comes back to when you talk about sovereignty.
"Financial sovereignty has been one thing I've been really trying to hang out with my tribe and we've been pushing towards that and we really want to get there. So this is another component that I think really helps that. I don't want to be reliant on one source of revenue and this is where we're paying for this, but it helps hopefully generate more revenue in the future from other ventures we get through it and partnerships we establish with other entities.
"So we've already had a couple that have reached out and we're going to have some meetings set up. I'm not going to mention names, but it's already starting. So hopefully some of these come and create some new business ventures and we'll see what happens with it," Erickson said.
