Fort Peck Reservation promotes business ideas

WOLF POINT — Lee Abbott, a Sioux and aspiring businesswoman, plans to be a "bookkeeper on wheels" when she graduates from Fort Peck Community College in Poplar next year.

By JENNIFER PEREZ
Tribune Hi-Line Bureau

The demand for a mobile accountant on northeast Montana’s Fort Peck Indian Reservation is high — there are hundreds of small businesses spread throughout its 2-million-plus acres.

"That way I could handle one end of the reservation to another," said Abbott, 34, of Poplar.

She got the idea from an adviser at the reservation’s chapter of the American Indian Business Leaders.

But that’s not the only place she’s finding help to pursue her entrepreneurial future.

Abbott was one of about 100 people at the annual tribal economic summit in Wolf Point Thursday, learning the benefits of doing business on the reservation.

In addition to the insight she’s gained at the summit, Abbott also has access to one of the summit’s sponsors, the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribal Enterprise Community.

The nonprofit organization promotes economic development and helps small businesses on the reservation by providing information and assistance in obtaining state, federal and tribal tax credits, rebates, grants, loans.

"We’re here for one reason — to move northeastern Montana and Montana into greater prosperity," said summit organizer Mark Sansaver, executive director of the Enterprise Community.

Abbott would have liked to have seen more small-business owners at the summit, especially if they need help, she said.

Those on the reservation don’t have to live with debt, Abbott said. "We’re capable of bringing our economy up and lowering unemployment."

Summit speakers seemed to agree, stressing that the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes are in the position to better their economic prosperity.

For three years, Leighton E. Reum, of Wolf Point, and his 25-year-old son Corey, have run "Dakota Marketing", a company that recruits manufacturing companies to Indian reservations.

Attracting private companies has been a difficult process; too many businesses "aren’t buying into it yet," the elder Reum said

But the reservation is ready for more growth, he said.

"(The Fort Peck reservation) probably has more room for expansion than a lot of rural Montana or rural America," Reum said.

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