Chief Executive

Manufacturing pens and pride

In the shadow of the Rocky Mountains on the rolling terrain of Browning, Mont., sits a squat, 40,000-sq.-ft. powder-blue building that houses a most unusual factory. The clattering machines that each day churn out 600,000 pens, pencils and markers are ordinary enough, but the work force is special. The warehouse manager, for example, is Donald Little Bull, and the second-shift supervisor is Le-Roy Bullshoe. The chief executive is Chief Earl Old Person, 52, head of the Blackfeet tribe and chairman of the Blackfeet Indian Writing Co.

For millions of Americans, Indian enterprise is synonymous with souvenir stands peddling leather moccasins and rubber tomahawks. But the Blackfeet and many other tribes across the country are determined to change that stereotyped image and provide employment on their economically depressed reservations.

Since 1972 the number of Indian-owned companies has jumped from about 1,800 to more than 5,600.

A decade ago, jobs near the Blackfeet reservation were mostly seasonal. Some Indians found work as ranch hands or lumberjacks during the warm months, but in the winter, when temperatures often dipped to --20DEG F, unemployment around Browning rose to 70%.

In 1970 Old Person journeyed to Washington to seek help. Federal officials suggested that the Blackfeet make pencils and offered financial aid amounting to about $300,000. An investment broker put Old Person in touch with private investors in the Northeast willing to provide more seed money. With a grand total of $500,000, including $101,000 of their own capital, the Blackfeet launched the company in 1971.

Though sales started slowly at first, today some 300 of the 500 largest U.S. industrial companies supply their employees with inexpensive, disposable Blackfeet products. Sears features the Indian pencils and plastic pens in some of its catalogues and sells more than 8 million of them annually. The U.S. Army and Air Force distribute Blackfeet wares in their PXs worldwide. With sales last year of $5.1 million, the company earned a net profit of $175,000. The business supports 100 jobs on a reservation where unemployment still hovers near 50%, and Chairman Old Person confidently plans to borrow more money to expand the factory. Says he: "We have built pride where there was none." And that makes the bottom line of the Blackfeet Indian Writing Co. look healthy indeed.

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