Biographies of Native American leaders in Obama Administration

John Echohawk, Keith Harper, Robert Anderson, Wizipan Garriott, Mary Smith, Mary McNeil, Yvette Robideaux

Compiled through web search
by Sharon Masek Lopez
January 8, 2009

John Echohawk, Keith Harper and Robert Anderson will advise Obama on changes proposed within the Interior Department.

Wizipan Garriott has been appointed First Americans Public Liaison.

Mary Smith, Mary McNeil and Yvette Robideaux have been assigned to work on justice, agriculture and health issues. Yvette Robideaux bio is below. I am still looking for information on Mary Smith and Mary McNeil.

John E. Echohawk

Executive Director, Native American Rights Fund
John Echohawk, a Pawnee, is the Executive Director of the Native American Rights Fund. He was the first graduate of the University of New Mexico's special program to train Indian lawyers, and was a founding member of the American Indian Law Students Association while in law school. John has been with NARF since its inception, having served continuously as Executive Director since 1977.
He has been recognized as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal since 1988 and has received numerous service awards and other recognition for his leadership in the Indian law field.
He serves on the Boards of the American Indian Resources Institute, the Association on American Indian Affairs, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development. B.A., University of New Mexico (1967); J.D., University of New Mexico (1970); Reginald Heber Smith Fellow (1970-72); Native American Rights Fund (August 1970 to present); admitted to practice law in Colorado.

Keith Harper

Keith Harper is a partner in the litigation department at the Kilpatrick Stockton law firm and heads the Native American Affairs practice group. Throughout his career, Mr. Harper has represented tribes and individual Indians before federal courts, the United States Congress, administrative agencies, and international fora in matters involving enforcement of the trust responsibility, expansion, and protection of tribal sovereignty; enforcement of tribal treaty rights; protection of land and natural resources; ensuring religious freedom for Native practitioners; and development of international instruments guaranteeing the rights of indigenous people. Among other matters, Mr. Harper has, since inception of the case, represented the plaintiff class of 500,000 individual Indians and continues to serve as class counsel in the landmark Indian trust funds lawsuit, Cobell v. Kempthorne.
Prior to joining the Firm, Mr. Harper worked for 11 years as a senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) and head of the Washington, D.C. Office. Mr. Harper also clerked for the Honorable Lawrence W. Pierce, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. A recognized expert on federal Indian law and policy, during his tenure at NARF, he also taught "Federal Indian Law" as adjunct professor at Catholic University Columbus School of Law and at American University Washington College of Law. In 2001, Mr. Harper was appointed Appellate Justice on the highest court of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, where he served until October 22, 2007.
Mr. Harper is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. While attending New York University School of Law, he served as articles and note editor for the Journal of International Law & Politics. He is the recipient of numerous awards. Mr. Harper is past president of the Native American Bar Association of Washington, D.C. and presently serves as a board member for the World Organization for Human Rights and Americans for Democratic Action. In 2001, he was selected as a Leadership Conference on Civil Rights delegate to the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.
He has presented papers, delivered remarks, and made presentations concerning Indian Law, Tribal Law, and related subjects at numerous symposia and conferences.

Wizipan Garriott

Wizipan Garriott, 28, has been appointed First Americans Public Liaison, a newly created position in President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. The position is aimed at honoring a nation-to-nation relationship with tribes. Amy Brundage, a spokeswoman for the team, confirmed Garriott's role Dec. 10. Garriott, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, could not offer comment on the development, as members of Obama's transition team have been instructed not to talk about their specific contributions.
Garriott's position on the transition group brings the total number of Native Americans serving on it to seven. Indian Country Today previously reported that John Echohawk, Keith Harper, Robert Anderson, Mary Smith, Mary McNeil and Yvette Robideaux all hold positions on the team.
Garriott, whose first name means "burden" in Lakota, graduated from Yale University in 2003 with a degree in American studies. He then went on to work as an assistant to former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who has been a key player in the Obama campaign and was recently tapped to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
After Daschle lost his bid for re-election in 2004, Garriott attended the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law in Tucson, and obtained a law degree there in June. In 2005, he also helped incorporate the He Sapa Leadership Academy, a college preparatory school on his reservation for students in grades eight to 12.
As Daschle became involved with Obama's campaign, the longtime politician ultimately recommended Garriott to become a part of the effort. Daschle's recommendation was helpful, as Garriott ended up joining the Obama campaign for president as a Native American outreach coordinator in Sept. 2007. In June, he was officially hired as the campaign's First Americans vote director. His chief objective was collaborating with tribes and Native groups, trying to get out the Native vote in many states, including New Mexico, Wisconsin, Montana and Michigan.
"For us, the campaign has always been about community empowerment," Garriott told ICT in late-September. "We've tried to put as many resources as possible into Indian communities so we can help our own people organize and empower themselves. That's what this is all about." He also predicted in the interview that Indian participation in the election would help sway the vote in close swing states.
Garriott is the son of Elizabeth Little Elk, who works for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in the child and family services arena, and Charlie Garriott, a teacher at Todd County High School, located on the reservation in Mission, S.D.
While in college, Garriott served as a peer counselor to younger Native students. Amid controversy over whether there should be ethnic counselors and cultural houses at the institution, he made it be known that he felt such networks are beneficial, especially for reservation youth.
In a December 2002 issue of The Yale Herald, Garriott noted that the majority of reservation youth hail from economically depressed areas, which can make it especially difficult for Indian students to adjust to mainstream colleges, both academically and culturally.
At Yale, Garriott also worked as vice-president of Night Shield Entertainment, a music-focused company founded by one of his Native friends, Gabriel Night Shield. Garriott assisted with promotion and helped with efforts on distribution, talent evaluation and music selection. Upon learning of Garriott's new appointment, Night Shield said he and many other tribal members were "really proud of what Wizi has accomplished." "We were joking about it the other day - maybe in about 20 years we'll be voting for Wizi as president," said Night Shield, who attended high school at St. Francis Indian School with Garriott in South Dakota.

Yvette Roubideaux

Dr. Yvette Robideaux MD MPH - Assistant Professor, Mel and Enid Zuckerman Arizona College of Public Health, University of Arizona Dr. Yvette Roubideaux is an Assistant Professor in the College of Medicine at The University of Arizona. Her work includes teaching and research on Indian health issues, with a focus on the quality of diabetes care for American Indians/Alaska Natives and Indian health policy. She is the Co-Director of the Coordinating Center for the Special Diabetes Program for Indians Competitive Grant Program, which is a 66-site diabetes and cardiovascular disease prevention demonstration project in Indian health programs. She is currently faculty in the University of Colorado Native Elder Resource Center Native Investigator Program. Dr. Roubideaux previously worked in the Indian Health Service as a Medical Officer and Clinical Director on the San Carlos Indian Reservation and in the Gila River Indian Community She has worked on a number of national committees related to diabetes, including the National Diabetes Program (NDEP) Steering Committee, the NDEP American Indian Subcommittee (Chair), and is the current Chair of the American Diabetes Association Awakening the Spirit Native American Team. She was also the President of the Association of American Indian Physicians for 1999-2000 and was appointed to the Department of Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Minority Health in 2000. She is co-editor of the APHA book entitled “Promises to Keep: Public Health Policy for American Indians and Alaska Natives in the 21st Century.”
Dr. Roubideaux’s work also involves recruiting American Indian and Alaska Native students into health professional and research careers. She is the Director of the University of Arizona/Inter Tribal Council of Arizona Indians Into Medicine (INMED) Program and Director of the Student Development Core of the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona/University of Arizona American Indian Research Center for Health. Dr. Roubideaux is one of the founders and past co-Chair of the Native Research Network, Inc., and recently received the 2004 Indian Physician of the Year Award from the Association of American Indian Physicians. She also received the 2002 Outstanding American Indian Faculty Award at the University of Arizona.
Dr. Roubideaux received her MD from Harvard Medical School and her MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. She completed the Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA and was Board Certified in Internal Medicine. She completed the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy in 1997. Location http://www.fcm.arizona.edu/index.cfm/1,149,317,0,html Copyright © Arizona Board of Regents 2009

You know the names of all 50 states but do you know where any of them come from?
Here’s the best information we could find on the origin of each:

• ALABAMA: Possibly from the Creek Indian word alibamo, meaning "we stay here."

• ALASKA: From the Aleutian word alakshak, which means "great lands," or "land that is not an island."

• ARIZONA: Taken either from the pima Indian words ali shonak, meaning "little spring," or from the Aztec word arizuma, meaning "silver-bearing."

• ARKANSAS: The French somehow coined it from the name of the Siouan Quapaw tribe.

• CALIFORNIA: According to one theory, Spanish settlers names it after a utopian society described in a popular 16th-century novel called Serged de Esplandian.

• COLORADO: Means "red" in Spanish. The name was originally applied to the Colorado River, whose waters are reddish with canyon clay.

• CONNECTICUT: Taken from the Mohican word kuenihtekot, which means "long river place."

• DELAWARE: Named after Lord De La Warr, a governor of Virginia. Originally used only to name the Delaware River.

• FLORIDA: Explorer Ponce de Leon named the state Pascua Florida - "flowery Easter” on Easter Sunday in 1513.

• GEORGIA: Named after King George II of England, who charted the colony in 1732.

• HAWAII: An English adaptation of the native word owhyhee, which means "homeland."

• IDAHO: Possibly taken from the Kiowa Apache word for the Comanche Indians.

• ILLINOIS: The French bastardization of the Algonquin word illini, which means "men."

• INDIANA: Named by English-speaking settlers because the territory was full of Indians.

• IOWA: The Sioux word for "beautiful land," or "one who puts to sleep."

• KANSAS: Taken from the Sioux word for "south wind people," their name for anyone who lived south of Sioux territory.

• KENTUCKY: Possibly derived from the Indian word kan-tuk-kee, meaning "dark and bloody ground." Or kan-tuc-kec, "land of green reeds", or ken-take, meaning "meadowland."

• LOUISIANA: Named after French King Louis XIV. MAINE: The Old French word for "province."

• MARYLAND: Named after Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of English King George I.

• MASSACHUSETTS: Named after the Massachusetts Indian tribe. Means "large hill place."

• MICHIGAN: Most likely from the Chippewa word for "great water." micigama.

• MINNESOTA: From the Sioux word for "sky tinted" or "muddy water."

• MISSISSIPPI: Most likely taken from the Chippewa words mici ("great") and zibi ("river").

• MISSOURI: From the Algonquin word for "muddy water."

• MONTANA: Taken from the Latin word for "mountainous."

• NEBRASKA: From the Otos Indian word for "broad water."

• NEVADA: Means "snow-clad" in Spanish.

• NEW HAMPSHIRE: Capt. John Mason, one of the original colonists, named it after his English home county of Hampshire.

• NEW JERSEY: Named after the English Isle of Jersey.

• NEW MEXICO: The Spanish name for the territory north of the Rio Grande.

• NEW YORK: Named after the Duke of York and Albany.

• NORTH AND SOUTH CAROLINA: From the Latin name Carolus; named in honor of King Charles I of England.

• NORTH AND SOUTH DAKOTA: Taken from the Sioux word for "friend," or "ally."

• OHIO: Means "great," "fine," or "good river" in Iriquois.

• OKLAHOMA. The Choctaw word for "red man."

• OREGON: Possibly derived from Ouaricon-sint, the French name for the Wisconsin River.

• PENNSYLVANIA: Named after William Penn, Sr., the father of the colony’s founder, William Penn. Means "Penn’s woods."

• RHODE ISLAND: Named "Roode Eylandt" (Red Island) because of its red clay.

• TENNESSEE: Named after the Cherokee tanasi villages along the banks of the Little Tennessee River.

• TEXAS: Derived from the Caddo Indian word for "friend," or "ally."

• UTAH: Means "upper," or "higher," and was originally the name that Navajos called the Shoshone tribe.

• VERMONT: A combination of the French words vert ("green") and mont ("mountain").

• VIRGINIA AND WEST VIRGINIA: Named after Queen Elizabeth I of England, the "virgin" queen, by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584.

• WASHINGTON: Named after George Washington.

• WISCONSIN: Taken from the Chippewa word for "grassy place."

• WYOMING: Derived from the Algonquin word for "large prairie place."