ANA Leadership Tributes & Messages

In 2009 — at the age of 34 — I was confirmed by the United States Senate as ANA’s Commissioner. At that time, ANA had a budget of $45 million and nearly 30 employees, with a portfolio of grantees hovering around 200 communities.

During both terms as ANA’s Commissioner, it was an honor to advocate for Indian families, children, and youth on behalf of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). I was able to support Indigenous communities throughout the United States and had the pleasure of coordinating many site visits with other ACF and HHS officials, including two Secretarial visits to Native Language and immersion schools in Montana, Alaska, and Hawaii. Some of my fondest memories were tours of social development projects in both South Dakota and New Mexico, and I applaud the continuation of socio-economic development across the country. 

During my tenure, we were able to develop the first ACF Tribal Advisory Committee, which assisted with the development of ACF’s Tribal Consultation Policy — which mandated tribal consultation be held annually at the agency level — and ACF’s Tribal Conferences. We also provided extensive training and technical assistance to indigenous communities looking to fund their community-driven projects. We successfully increased ANA’s budget to the highest levels at that time, $52 million, and created new grant competitions that focused on economic development and intensive support for Native language programming. We also promoted youth leadership and created opportunities for them to engage Department leadership at unprecedented levels. 

Despite being a small program within a small agency housed within a large department, we were able to make significant impacts and really changed the way ANA was perceived inside and outside Washington, DC. In addition, and as a result of the tremendous work we undertook on behalf of ACF, we elevated the position of Commissioner to Deputy Assistant Secretary for Native Americans. 

The accomplishments during my terms were only possible because of the committed staff and all the inspiring communities we had the pleasure to support. Their passion and dedication fueled our work, and I am so glad to see the continued progress of the program.

Happy 50^th Anniversary ANA! I’m honored to be part of this amazing milestone and wish current and future staff, along with current and future community partners, continued resilience, courage, and success.

A member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Lillian has worked in Washington, D.C. for nearly 20 years, devoting her career to supporting the educational pursuits of Native American students, protecting the rights of indigenous people, and empowering tribal communities. Prior to her service at ANA, Lillian served as the Executive Director of the National Indian Education Association (NIEA), where she worked extensively on education policy and appropriations impacting American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students. A former staff attorney at the National Congress of American Indians, Lillian has received numerous awards and recognition, including being named one of seven young Native American Leaders by USA Today Magazine, one of “40 Under 40” from the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, and American Indian Woman of the Year. 

ANA owes tremendous gratitude to Sherman Timothy “Tim” Wapato, who served as ANA’s Commissioner from 1989 to 1993.[i]

The U.S. Congressional Record of April 23, 2009, honors Tim with a lengthy tribute. Here are a few excerpts of Tim’s life and contributions. Please join us in celebrating Tim’s life and legacy…

• Sherman Timothy Wapato, 73, entered the Spirit World at his home in Rapid City, SD on Sunday, April 19, 2009.
• In 1955, Tim enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he specialized in Communications and played basketball. After being honorably discharged in 1957, Tim moved to Los Angeles and joined the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Tim quickly rose to Lieutenant at the age of 34, supervising 188 officers and was the youngest to achieve that rank at that time.
• He was a frequent Instructor at the Indian Police Academy at Roswell, New Mexico, training tribal police officers to work on Indian Reservations.
• In 1972, the LAPD loaned Tim to the Colville Confederated Tribe to develop a Tribal Police Department and Court, which included fish and wildlife enforcement and fish and wildlife biology sections and a public highway safety program.
• After retirement from LAPD, Tim joined the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), and then was appointed Executive Director in 1980.
• While Tim was with CRITFC, he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to serve on the U.S. Pacific Salmon Commission. 
  • As Commissioner, Tim reported to the U.S. Secretary of State and was responsible for implementing international treaty provisions. 
  • He was elected Chairman of the International Treaty Council and became the chief U.S. Negotiator. 
  • A noteworthy success, still in force today, was the Pacific Salmon Treaty and the acknowledgment of Tribes as sovereigns and co-managers of their resources.
• In 1989, Tim became the Commissioner of the Administration for Native Americans at the Department of Health and Human Services. He immediately identified an opportunity for enhanced coordination and laid the foundation for the Intradepartmental Council for Native American Affairs and Interagency Working Group on Indian Affairs. These offices liaise within HHS and among federal agencies to promote the effective integration of programs and policies affecting Native Americans.
• Upon leaving government service in 1993, Tim and his wife A. Gay Kingman established the National Indian Gaming Association, which remains a powerful organization for tribes. 

Tim was known for his humor, vision, ability to provide leadership in crisis, and strength of will.[ii] His early abilities in school and sports certainly translated into professional and personal success. His clarity of thought and ability to community was a significant asset to ANA. 

Wopila tanka Tim ~ Thank you for your service and leadership to ANA and Indian Country.

An important part of ANA’s celebration of its 50^th Anniversary is recognizing the tremendous leaders who guided and advanced the mission of ANA over the years. David Lester is one of these legends and his astute leaders at a critical time in history changed the arc of ANA’s long trajectory. David, a citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation, served as ANA’s Commissioner from 1978 to 1983. 

Among so many of David’s contributions, here is one from the early days of ANA, when we were known as the Office of Native American Programs, or ONAP. This story comes to us from Thomas Vigil, who became the Deputy Commissioner of ANA under David’s tenure as ANA Commissioner.

Tom Vigil remembered that the federal government’s support of self-determination was met initially with some anxiety. At the same time, Native people had trepidations about self-determination as a new policy that would do more harm than good and possibly diminish the federal government’s trust relationship and responsibilities to tribes. David, however, equated self-determination with sovereignty and saw the policy as a real chance for tribes to govern themselves and promote their own interests.

At the time, ANA was a new office trying to establish its role within the federal government. ANA’s funding model was unique at the time—direct funding to tribes to allow them to determine program priorities and deliver the services directly. In the 1960s the federal government had complete authority over tribal trust land. According to Tom Vigil, “If a tribe wanted to irrigate a ditch or make it deeper, they couldn’t without approval from the federal government. Tribes couldn’t harvest any trees or even cut posts. How could anything develop?” 

During the 1970s, this kind of oppressive bureaucracy by the Bureau of Indian Affairs was prevalent and pervasive, despite President Nixon’s strong support of tribal self-determination.

Unfortunately, some of ANA’s early grants to tribes did not readily demonstrate beneficial impacts as intended. At the same time, the federal government still wanted to deal directly with tribes and ANA was at risk of being dissolved. David was determined to save ANA but he needed to find a way to design ANA grant programs to show impact and effective. David found the solution during a staff retreat—the  ANA Social and Economic Development Strategy (SEDS) grants.

The theory behind SEDS was simple. As Tom Vigil explained, Native communities “can’t develop anything without considering their social, economic, or physical needs.” To do this, David took a lesson from self-determination and asked the tribes and Native-serving organizations what they needed most to support their communities. This grant model also would improve the tribal sovereignty by building governing capacity. It also would support other federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was in charge of implementing the new Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1976. Looking back, Tom Vigil said David’s decision to create SEDS grants, from a lens of self-determination, not only saved ANA but also was regarded as a revolutionary concept at the time.

We are forever grateful for David Lester’s leadership, and we thank him for his vision, strategic acumen, and commitment to make ANA a meaningful federal grant program and a valuable resource to tribes and Native communities. ANA continues to implement David’s vision today and is embarking on the new era of tribal self-determination, as set out by President Joe Biden in Executive Order 14112, Reforming Federal Funding and Support for Tribal Nations To Better Embrace Our Trust Responsibilities and Promote the Next Era of Tribal Self-Determination (12/6/2023). ANA is committed to protecting and supporting Tribal sovereignty and self-determination, and to honoring our trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations. We recognize the right of Tribal Nations to self-determination, and that Federal support for Tribal self-determination has been the most effective policy for the economic growth of Tribal Nations and the economic well-being of Tribal citizens. 

We know, as did David 50 years ago, that self-determination policies years—whereby the Federal Government has worked with Tribal Nations to promote and support Tribal self-governance and the growth of Tribal institutions—have revitalized Tribal economies, rebuilt Tribal governments, and begun to heal the relationship between Tribal Nations and the United States. 

In announcing the next era of self-determination, President Biden said this, “Tribal self-governance is about the fundamental right of a people to determine their own destiny and to prosper and flourish on their own terms.” 

Wopila tanka, David. Thank you very much. We are honored to carry on this work for the next 50 years.

The First Nations Development Institute , of which David was Board Member Emeritus, offers this tribute to David:

David Lester served as the executive director of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT), based in Denver, Colorado, beginning in 1982. Under the direction of the elected leadership of the 54 federally recognized U.S. tribes and four First Nation Treaty Tribes of Canada, CERT dramatically restructured the federal-Indian relationship with respect to minerals, mining, taxation, and Tribal jurisdiction over environmental regulation on Indian lands.

Prior to joining CERT, Mr. Lester served as the Commissioner for the Administration for Native Americans in the Department of Health and Human Services, a position to which he was first appointed under President Carter in 1978 and later re-appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1980. While at the Administration for Native Americans, he restructured its program from core administrative support of welfare services to Indians into a development agency.

In 1970, Mr. Lester became the first president of the United Indian Development Association in Los Angeles, the predecessor organization to the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development. He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1967 with a degree in political science. Mr. Lester was married to Millie Chestnut, a member of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes in Montana, and had a son and a daughter.[i]

On July 30, 2022, Gary Niles Kimble passed away at the Veterans Hospital in Washington, D.C. He was was born in Fort Belknap, Montana, and an enrolled member of the Gros Ventre Tribe (the White Clay People-A’aninin). We feature local news outlet KRTV’s broadcast of Gary’s legacy in our own tribute to Gary’s support of ANA and all of Indian Country. 

Thank you for being an integral part of ANA’s fifty year legacy. 

Gary was a renowned administrator nationally and locally and retired in 2000 as the Director of the Tribal Child Support Enforcement Program at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. He held this position for eleven years. Before that, Gary was nominated by President Clinton and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in October 1994 as the Commissioner of the Administration for Native Americans. Before this Gary was the first American Indian to be the Executive Director of The Association of American Indian Affairs in New York City, NY, from 1988 to 1993. Before 1988, Gary was a Professor of Law at Northwest School of Law at the Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR.

Gary completed a Journalism degree in 1966 from The University of Montana. One day after graduation, Gary was drafted into the U.S. Army and served as a journalist with the 4th Infantry Division in Pleiku, Vietnam. He received an Army Commendation for Outstanding Service during 1967-68. After Vietnam, Gary worked at Boeing Aircraft Co. in Seattle as a Technical Journalist. Gary found a new love of Missoula and applied to UM Law School where he was accepted and graduated in the spring of 1972. At the same time, Gary ran in the Primary Election for the House of Representatives and was elected in the fall for the House of Representatives and was reelected for three, two-year terms. He concentrated on labor and employment relations, environmental matters, and public health and welfare issues. At this time Gary was General Counsel to the Fort Belknap Indian Community Council and was Counsel to the Paper Worker Union in Missoula from 1974 to 1979. Gary was also an Assistant Professor of Native American Studies at the University of Montana.

He also ran for an unsuccessful bid for Congress in the 1st District of Montana. This political career was inspired by the late James Welch’s book, “The Indian Lawyer” who was a fellow tribesman and good friend of Gary. Yet, because Gary was known nationally, in 1979 he was appointed Counsel to The Indian Affairs Committee in the U.S. Senate and was appointed Director of the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission in Portland and served from 1979 to 1982. The drive to return home was strong and Gary was appointed as Counsel to the Governor of Montana as the Coordinator of Indian Affairs Office in Helena from 1983-1985. During most of that period, he also was chairman of the board of directors for the Missoula Indian Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program.

During the 100th anniversary of the founding of the University of Montana, Gary received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1993 for his accomplishments. Gary owes his credit to his tribe, his family, and the schools that he attended, as he attended grade school in both Butte and Elliston, MT and finishing his high school degree in Deer Lodge, MT. His time at the University of Montana was priceless and many will remember him as a scholar and true friend.