BLYN – This isn’t a conversation. It’s a headlong leap onto a bullet train.
Ron Allen is the engineer, hurtling back and forth between the Pacific Northwest and Washington, D.C., negotiating on behalf of a small tribe while developing an ever-larger vision for the North Olympic Peninsula.
Allen, in his third decade as chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, is also officially an elder – he will soon be 60 – but he’s not about to slow down.
No, he has too many passions and too many trips to take.
In recent months, Allen’s been to meetings in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, and to conferences in Las Vegas, Nev., and Colorado Springs, Colo., learning about tribal reservation infrastructure and resort marketing.
He’s also been to Washington, D.C., where he helped establish the National Congress of American Indians’ National Policy and Research Center.
The center is both a think tank and a clearinghouse for research on Native American issues, from housing to health care to high-school dropout rates to trust lands.
Then there was the Colorado Springs conference in March, where Allen looked into the future of five-diamond hotels, one of which he’s preparing to build.
A seven-story hotel, overlooking Sequim Bay, will be the crowning edifice on a campus of attractions: first the Country Store and Gathering Place, for which ground will be broken this spring, and then a 12,000-square-foot conference center to be built adjacent to the 7 Cedars Casino in 2008-09.
“I’m a road warrior,” he said in an interview at the Jamestown Tribal Center.
He’s also driven to diversify tribal operations.
Last year, the Jamestown tribe purchased a health and medical supply company in Sacramento, Calif.
It bought the Dungeness Golf Course north of Sequim and renamed it the Cedars at Dungeness.
This is all part of Allen’s plan to, as he puts it, “take control of our destiny.”
“We totally depended on federal funds in the 1980s,” after the tribe achieved federal recognition in 1981, he said.
“We started off with $30,000 the first year and went to $180,000 the second.
“Last year, we received about $8 million, which is about 40 percent of our revenue base.”
