The Enterprises (Navajo Agricultural Products Industry (NAPI), NACE & more)

An enterprise is a business the Navajo Nation owns — like NAPI (farming), the Navajo Arts & Crafts Enterprise (NACE), NTUA (utilities), Navajo Oil & Gas, and the gaming/casino operations. They’re meant to make money and employ Navajo people. The idea behind them — bring outside money in and keep Navajo people employed at home, so the Nation isn’t depending entirely on outside funding.

A leader should know this history — it’s the whole point of the enterprises. Here’s the reasoning behind them. (General history; exact dates and details should be confirmed against the record.)

The problem: federal funding for programs could be cut at any time — leaving Navajo people without jobs or services. The idea: “Let’s employ our own people.” Build Nation-owned businesses, and steer the Nation’s contracts to Navajo people, so the money stays home. The safeguards: the NBOA (Navajo Business Opportunity Act) and the Navajo Business Regulatory Department were created to make sure those contracts actually go to Navajo businesses and the rules are followed. The catch: back then there wasn’t much Navajo-owned business yet, and the enterprises often weren’t profitable. The goal was always to grow them into self-supporting engines — not keep them on a yearly allowance forever. Go deeper: the law and oversight behind the enterprises  ·  Economic Development 101

NAPI — Navajo Agricultural Products Industry, the Nation’s big farming enterprise. NACE — the Navajo Arts & Crafts Enterprise. Section 17 — a federal tool that lets a tribe set up a business corporation with certain protections, if structured right. Source list — the approved-suppliers list for Nation contracts; some say enterprises on it crowd out private Navajo firms.

Before asking what’s broken, it helps to know who’s even supposed to be in charge. Here’s the map for the enterprises — the law, the referee, and the watchers. Why this matters →

What’s the law?Each enterprise has a charter or plan of operation (some are set up as federal Section 17 corporations), and the Navajo Business Opportunity Act (NBOA) and business-regulation law set the rules around them.

Economic Development 101 → — Who regulates it? (the outside referee)The Navajo Business Regulatory Department, federal corporate rules for Section 17 entities, and — bluntly — the market. An enterprise on a yearly allowance isn’t passing that test. Who oversees it? (the inside watchers)Each enterprise’s board of directors, the Controller, and Council oversight. The danger candidates name: loading boards with government actors instead of business people.

Audit 101 → — What’s broken — and what candidates would fixOn this page: the yearly allowance, jobs and revenue off the Nation, and boards that don’t grow the business — plus how candidates answered, summarized from their interviews.

A starting map — confirm current laws and body names against the Nation’s official resources. General civic information, not legal advice.

• Supposed to grow — but stuck. Several candidates ask why enterprises get budgeted money year after year instead of becoming self-supporting.
• Jobs and revenue off the Nation. Some operations run their actual business far from the reservation — not the Diné people they were built to employ.
• The wrong customer. Enterprises were meant to pull outside money in. When the customer is mostly Navajo people, the money just circulates instead of growing.
• Local owners shut out. Outside companies get to do business the Nation’s own enterprises or Navajo owners could be doing.
• Boards that don’t grow the business. Leadership that does just enough to keep a job, instead of building the enterprise.

These are problems candidates and the record describe. We name what’s broken — not accuse any one person.

Here’s something worth seeing across the whole site: the same root failure keeps showing up wearing different clothes. A board or leadership that’s there for a job — not to grow the thing — produces the same result everywhere:

In the enterprises: no growth, “reinventing the wheel,” a yearly allowance instead of profit. In 638 health care: the same kind of board failure becomes weak oversight, mismanagement, exposure to fraud. See the 638 page → In government: people in seats running the motions, not building or fixing the design.

It’s not seven separate problems. It’s often one problem in seven places — leadership there to hold a position instead of grow what they were trusted with.

See the root — Accountability & Justice →

Read summaries of how they answered:

Relinda M. John Her own framing question: “why do these businesses continually need Navajo Nation money, when they should be thriving as their own businesses”Asked why NTUA, NECA, and Arts & Crafts get budgeted money yearly instead of thriving on their own — and would move them toward standing on their own.

Jamie Henio — Cal asked: Are the Nation's enterprises and ranches a surplus or a deficit? Why do we have ranches? Why are outside companies like Speedway allowed to sell fuel when the Nation owns Navajo Oil & Gas? Why aren't local Navajo owners given that opportunity, and where would their capital come from?Judged each enterprise like a business — surplus or deficit — using a SWOT lens (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). Asked why Speedway sells fuel when the Nation owns Navajo Oil & Gas, and why local Navajo owners aren’t given the chance.

Greg Bigman — Cal asked: Do you agree with Section 17 for the enterprises, and what about oil and gas?Supports Section 17 corporations when properly structured — the danger is loading the board with government actors instead of business people.

Christopher D. White — Cal asked: Why do enterprises like the Navajo Shopping Center fail our businesses?Pointed to the Ganado post office nearly closing and the Navajo Joe’s failure as symptoms of a broken procurement process.

Titus J. Nez — Cal asked: What about the Nation's enterprises, and getting Navajos into business?stop routing contracts to the enterprises and “giving them back to our Navajo businesses that are women operated, that are 100% Navajo owned”.

Johnny Russell Jr. — Cal asked: Should small business or the enterprises be the backbone?A contractor’s view: build the Nation’s own capacity instead of importing outside firms.

(Each name jumps to that candidate’s answer in their interview.)

Donovan Begay · Cal asked: Can you name three Navajo Nation enterprises, and why were they established?Named the casinos and NAPI, and offered the BHP mine, which Cal corrected as not Nation-owned. Said he would need to see the books before judging any enterprise, and asked why the Nation isn’t using its own technology company for data-center projects. Cal’s Take · his view, not a verdict

Eugene Badonie — Cal asked: How have the Nation’s ranches been managed? He criticizes the management of the Nation’s ranches — citing the Flagstaff and Espil ranches — saying money was put in unwisely, and wants better accountability.

Lewnell Harrison — Cal asked his philosophy on the ranches and enterprises. Harrison said the enterprises aren’t generating money and keep returning to Council for funds, and questioned why the Nation is in the ranching business at all — he supports buying land but doing more productive things with it.

Melinda Arviso-Ciocco — Cal asked: How do you make the Nation’s businesses pay off? She’d order a full performance assessment of the ranches and pursue legislation making it mandatory that enterprises like NTUA return a set amount of revenue to the Nation.

Emily Ellison — Cal asked: How would you structure the enterprise and 638 boards? Her core plank is Sunshine Laws — every flow of Navajo money on public record — with boards appointed through a formal qualifications-based process instead of campaign supporters, and tighter oversight of enterprises that report little.

Jerilynn Yazzie — Cal asked her to name the enterprises and what’s wrong with NACE. Having worked at the Navajo Arts & Crafts Enterprise years ago, she attributes its decline to financial mismanagement, board members who benefit from the downfall, and lowballing artisans — and would offer co-op space, fair pay, board term limits, and updated rules for the internet era.

Curtis Yanito — Cal asked: Would the ZenniHome disaster have been prevented if the NBOA were followed? Yanito said yes — three quotes and a background check would have caught it — and called it favoritism, now in bankruptcy and under investigation.

Lavonne Tsosie — Cal asked what happened with accountability on the $24 million ZenniHomes allocation. Tsosie says the money was allocated to her own community, that she toured the facility, and that she’s been “blacklisted” for demanding answers — as delegate she would petition for a special session and a special-prosecutor accounting.

Shaquille Begay — Cal asked how he would handle big contracts. Pointing to failures like ZenniHome, Begay said he wouldn’t vote quickly — he would assess each company’s origin, expertise, portfolio, and completed jobs first.

Joan Gray — Cal asked how she would work economic development from Resources & Development. Gray would start by going directly to her people — asking what they sell and how she could help promote it — and advocating for funding under the committee.

J. Kaibah Begay — Cal put the question to her too: “What is your opinion on the Nation’s ranches and enterprises, and what would you do if they run a deficit?” Her answer is on her Q&A page.

Dr. Christine J. Benally — Cal asked where she stands on enterprises versus the little entrepreneurs. Parcel big construction so local firms can compete; support 100% Navajo preference and question who’s behind 51% arrangements (citing ZenniHomes); streamline leasing hurdles; back ranchers, artists, and home-based businesses.

Here’s how Cal sees the enterprises — agree or not, it’s yours to weigh:

The customer should be the outside world, not our own people. The Arts & Crafts Enterprise should have a presence in New York, Tokyo, London — selling Navajo work out there and bringing the money home. Navajo people aren’t supposed to be the customer.

If we’re sovereign, the jobs belong on the Nation. An enterprise whose work and revenue sit off the reservation isn’t doing what it was built to do.

Grow them, don’t babysit them. An enterprise on a yearly allowance forever isn’t succeeding. The job of leadership is to build it into something that stands on its own.

Cal’s opinion, marked as his. Candidates may agree or differ — that’s the conversation. You decide.

Where the community stands: collecting — tallies and best ideas publish with the weekly findings.

A plan only matters if you can tell whether it’s working. Here are specific things to watch on this topic — so “we fixed it” means the numbers moved, not just that a law passed.

What to measure

• Each enterprise: surplus or deficit, and trend
• Jobs on the Nation vs. off it
• Share of customers/revenue from OUTSIDE the Nation
• Yearly subsidy needed (and whether it’s shrinking)

How to gather the data
Require each enterprise to report like a real business — profit/loss, jobs, customer base — to the people, publicly, every year. What success looks like
Enterprises growing toward self-support, more jobs at home, outside money coming in, subsidies shrinking toward zero.

Ask any candidate: how would you measure whether this is working? A real leader can name the number.

• Why were the enterprises created — and are they doing that job today?
• Should an enterprise that needs a yearly allowance keep getting one?
• Why are some enterprise jobs off the Nation — would you bring them home?
• Who should sit on these boards — and why?

• Economic Development 101
• The law & oversight behind the enterprises
• The 638 page — the same board-failure pattern.
• Glossary
• Watch the interviews.

• Candidate profiles
• Full interview write-ups
• Watch the interviews

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Reading is step one. Here’s a concrete move on this topic: Ask which enterprises stand on their own, which don’t, and why the jobs aren’t on the Nation.

See your full part — the To-Do List for the Nation →

You help decide what gets explored next — who Cal interviews, what questions get asked, what topics we dig into.

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Built with the people — and someday, by them.