Four Corners Sustainable Futures Initiative Manufacturing

Deborah Englisch, Student, W.A. Franke College of Business

Northern Arizona University and

Richard Baron, Project Manager Arizona Manufacturing Extension Partnership

Navajo Nation Manufacturing

• Raytheon Missile Defense Systems • Tooh Dineh Industries, Inc. • Collectively employ 191 people on the Navajo

Nation in the manufacturing sector

Hopi Tribe Manufacturing

No manufacturers on Hopi land, or on any of their acquisitioned properties.

SWOT Analysis

• Strength (internal)• Weaknesses (internal) • Opportunities (external) • Threats (external)

Strengths

• There is a lower cost of labor. • Workers are available for assembly work.

Weaknesses

• Professionally trained employees are difficult to find.

• Native people with professional degrees generally accept lower wages in order to work on the reservation.

• Access to capital such as loans can be difficult to secure from traditional non-native banks.

• The leasing process is very difficult, time-consuming, and non-standardized across tribal lands.

Opportunities

Wages in China and across the Far East are rising, and may serve to bring manufacturing back to the United States.

Threats

• The slow pace of change is the biggest threat to encouraging manufacturing.

• Too many government and federal agencies involved with the reservation have conflicting missions and viewpoints.

Opportunity 1 (Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe)

• Determine the types of manufacturing that tribal members want and proactively market the lower cost of doing business on Native lands to existing manufacturers.

• Consider the exchange of revenue generated from leasing land for jobs.

Opportunity 2 (Navajo Nation)

Develop land along the I-40 corridor for industrial development.

Opportunity 3 (Navajo Nation)

Require that a portion of products purchased by the Navajo Nation government be manufactured on the Navajo Nation by existing manufacturers or new start-ups.

Opportunity 4 (Navajo Nation)

Offer business and technical consulting to existing manufacturing firms to make them as successful as possible.

Opportunity 5 (Hopi Tribe)

Develop the Winslow industrial park.