Joseph McNeil Log 2

The Fellowship has provided me such benefits over the last year regarding maintaining my position of development and influence in my areas of work. I used to think of myself as merely serving the wishes of my Board of Directors or Council Representatives in the way of receiving marching orders and fulfilling them without a strategic view. I can no longer accept that point of view as a single person doing the work as I used to. I’m learning to prioritize my available time and capacity to achieve the goals that have been set. I’ve also learned to say no when new projects do not align with the work I’m already involved with. I’ve been able to maintain and advance the developing plans and business operation positions during this time, without interruption or hindrance. Where these projects move to next will be up to another body or person to complete the facilitation and implementation, my part of the project structure development and planning is fulfilled. This has really been the difficulty in that as a champion of projects, developing and campaigning for them to garner support and refine them from critiques and debate is something to handoff. The reality is I can only do so much daily, and I can’t take on more than I could responsibly and effectively manage. This time taught me that in reflections from others, Fellows, coaching, management & work design coursework and the daily goals that inch by inch or play by play get achieved. The small tight team I’ve built around me is critical to achieving goals, but I alone stand before my Council, Board of Directors and the court of public opinion.

This experience has honed my skills to be ready for the next steps in the work that is my passion, renewable power generation for commercial and local use. My exposure, experience, and willingness to participate during this year had brought me to a terrific place of development of a capacity to build a new organization, a power-producing project, new legislation development, and deployment and management. Boy is that a run-on sentence if I’ve ever read one. I’ve learned over this last year to put my effort out there without compensation to see what I can do, and it hasn’t failed me yet in terms of making a difference to someone’s life or lives. I was approached to be on a Board Training for the SAGE Development Authority, which is the Department of Interior Chartered Section17. Organization to provide renewable electric generation for commercial sale and development of local renewable energy systems to offset the cost of electricity for our people. We are developing a plan for social justice and energy sustainability utilizing revenues from commercial revenue to feed the development of our local utility assets, giving ourselves our own hand up. The Board was later selected, I wasn’t invited, it was a letdown, but the very next month I was asked to sit as a Business Advisor to the Board of Directors. After a few more months serving in that capacity, I was asked if I could sit as the Interim General Manager pro bono and then appointed me as General Manager of the SAGE Development Authority.

Much of this credit was earned when I stepped in to facilitate resources on the fly to maintain Production Tax Credits for the Wind project on behalf of the Tribe and SAGE. I soon realized that the Board seat would have held me back, and this work that I’ve come to be instrumental in, working with our Tribal Government and development projects. This invigorates me for the potential progress that lies just underneath, and one needs to be brave enough to put yourselves out there. This is a real opportunity to make a real difference that will have an institutionally lasting effect for my children and their children, and so on. Now the work is to be grounded in the process, communicate to my community for project information, feedback, and support. Reach to the youth for their vision of our world, what they want our future to look like, and how they can see themselves in it. The daring to dream, learning, building the team, endure the changes, learn, keeping the faith, keeping it real, learning, and keep working it. There are more than you realize watching and listening to what you do, how you work, how you help and watch you get up when you fall. It’s been a great year to learn, and this gift from the Bush Fellowship has introduced me to so many people who’ve dared to dream to make a better world and work to that end. That exposure alone has meant so much, it’s been the reserve tank when your out of fuel so you can keep going to that next goal. Pilamayaye mitakuyapi, thank you my relatives.