One Phone Call

It started with a simple appeal for help.

Early summer of 2001, Data Conversion Laboratory Vice President David Skurnik received a phone call from a large systems integrator seeking employment opportunities for two Native American tribes the systems integrator was mentoring. Having heard that DCL sometimes subcontracts portions of conversions to other organizations, he was hoping that DCL might consider working with these tribes.

The idea intrigued David, in part because DCL had already successfully completed a project for the National Institutes of Health working with a Native American tribal firm based in South Dakota. What really struck a chord was why the tribes needed work so badly. Unemployment on the reservation, is astronomically high (sometimes, over 70 percent of the native population), so that most young people have to leave to find jobs elsewhere. This situation is devastating for the tribes, both economically and psychologically: the loss of the young threatens the very survival of Native American culture and traditions.

David, who fervently embraces his own cultural and ethnic identity, was sympathetic and quickly agreed to do what he could to help. After discussion with DCL senior management, an upcoming military project slated for commencement in the fall was targeted as the pilot conversion for these tribal firms. In the interim, he received a follow-up call from the systems integrator informing him of an upcoming roundtable by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, chaired by Sen. Daniel Inouye, addressing the high unemployment rates on Native American Reservations across the country. He asked David to speak before the committee.

"Once people have hope, it has a trickle-down effect on other aspects of their lives," Diane Kimbrell Howell, IITC Program Manager

Appearing before the committee in September 2001, David informed the committee about the "significant human element" involved in document conversion. He also described the need to convert Department of Defense (DOD) technical manuals to SGML and XML. The Army's Logistics Information Agency, representing the Office of the Secretary of Defense, acknowledged the need for conversion, with other military personnel at the meeting concurring. The Chairman of the meeting, Mr. Malcolm Bowekaty, the Governor of the Zuni Tribe, suggested the establishment of a special subcommittee to investigate the idea, stressing that this would generate real employment opportunity for the tribes, and be of significant benefit to the military.

In May 2002, at a follow-up appearance before the committee, David discussed the benefits of SGML and XML, while Malcolm Bowekaty and other Native American leaders testified to the positive effect of such a program on multiple reservations. Following these meetings, Congress approved a $34 million initial allocation for the first year of the program, with more money to be allocated in future years. The program was officially called the Native American Document Conversion Program (NADCP), with a focus on converting military technical manuals to PDF, SGML or XML and graphics to CGM and SVG. Dimension 4 was chosen to mentor the tribal firms on graphic conversion, with DCL mentoring on text conversion.

The White Buffalo

At program inception, ten tribal groups set up an Anchorage-based consortium called the Intertribal Information Technology Company (IITC) to receive the funds and distribute them equitably.

The logo chosen for the organization, the silhouette of a buffalo, signifies the expectations raised by the program. "Our IITC logo depicts the white buffalo, which in our culture means the return of prosperity and hope," said IITC Vice Chair Darlynn Panteah of the Zuni reservation in New Mexico. "Information technology in our communities is a white buffalo in many ways, enabling our people to work in this industry and maintain our traditions." Thus, the NADCP program has had a paradoxical result: it has brought the tribes involved into the 21st Century, while helping to sustain the cohesiveness of communities and preserve the past.

"DCL was essential to the success of the program," said Diane Kimbrell Howell, program manager at IITC. Ms. Howell had originally served as Lab Director at the Pueblo of Zuni's Archeological Program. The Governor of the Pueblo, Malcolm Bowekaty, eventually brought her into IITC's pilot program, where she worked under Ms. Panteah.

DCL has been not only a partner, but also a mentor to the tribes. Through its "train the trainer" program, members of the tribes traveled to DCL's New York office to master the techniques of document conversion. They then returned to their reservations to teach others. "DCL has done an excellent job" mentoring the tribes, said Ms. Howell.

Biggest Challenges

As often happens, the biggest challenges were not technical but rather managerial. For many tribal members, these NADCP jobs were the first paid employment they had ever had. These new employees had to learn to adjust to the unfamiliar demands of the business world, which in turn became a challenge for their managers. DCL helped with managerial assistance and by providing methods of performance measurement and reporting, which also served as financial benchmarks for the project. "The employees and the tribes could then answer the question 'Are we on track'?" said Ms. Howell.

Measuring Success

One measure of success is new job creation, and Ms. Howell pointed to more than 300 technicians, as well as 24 top-tier managers, employed on Reservations in sophisticated computer environments in jobs that didn't exist before. There has been significant positive feedback from clients, and perhaps most impressively, more than $1 million of contracts have been signed to date for document conversion work outside the NADCP program. And perhaps most importantly, Ms. Howell believes that technical mastery of the conversion process has given the tribes a sense of solidarity and pride. "Once people have hope, it has a trickle-down effect on other aspects of their lives," said Ms. Howell.

DCLnews Editorial