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Bannock Technologies wins contract with DOE

December 31, 2003 /

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The MDT Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program encourages and supports the participation of companies owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals in transportation contracts.

POCATELLO – A local startup company operated by a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes has won a Department of Energy contract worth more than $300,000, U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s office reported.

By Steven Friederich – Journal Writer

http://www.journalnet.com/articles/2003/12/30/news/local/news07.txt

Bannock Technologies will help manage a portion of the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in Carlsbad, N.M. The WIPP is a storage facility for low-level hazardous and nuclear waste.

Bannock Technologies will help WIPP’s main contractor with administrative work, company President Karen Haskett said in a phone interview Monday.

In business for a little less than two years, Haskett, Sylvia Medina and Jim Holm founded the company, Holm said in an interview last month. The company has a Pocatello P.O. box.

Holm said the company does environmental consulting, works on preserving cultural and natural resources and helps with waste management.

"But we’re always open to reaching into new areas with whatever comes along," Haskett said.

Haskett is a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes.

"Being a tribal member I wanted to be a role model for the people in my neighborhood and have it help out in that regard," she added.

Holm said he was a founder of Northwind Environmental, Inc. – a successful Idaho Falls-based environmental remediation company – but was looking to expand into a new company and helped found Bannock Technologies.

Northwind currently employs more than 200 people, Holm said. Though Bannock Technologies’ only employee is Haskett, she said the company should be hiring soon.

"I would really like to expand and grow and to help and do a lot of the work for the reservations and the native people," Haskett said. "A lot of work goes to non-native firms. I’d like to provide that kind jobs for them in a native-owned business."

Bannock Technologies is also working with BNFL, Inc. at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, serving in a quality assurance capacity and as safety inspectors, Haskett said.