Hesperus hosted its inaugural National Forum at the Verizon Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. on November 3, 2022. Celebrating Native American Heritage Month and Veterans Day, the Forum was designed to bring together government officials, corporate leaders, Native American artists, and non-profit leaders to highlight the contributions of Native American and Alaska Natives. Through stories, panels, and conversation, our attendees came away with a sense of the Warrior Ethos that infuses Native American and Alaska Native military service, the challenges facing our veterans in tribal communities, the opportunities to educate our native children in digital literacy and STEM throughout Indian communities and the legacy and influence of Native American art throughout American culture.
John Bailon and his brother Cheston (Navajo and Santo Domingo), both United States Marine Corps combat veterans, opened our conference with a discussion of their experiences as post-9/11 combat warriors in Iraq, the Warrior Ethos, and the heritage of Navajo service in the United States Marine Corps. We followed up with a discussion, moderated by Victor LaGroon, Chief Diversity Officer of the Veterans Administration, around creating education and employment opportunities for Native American and Alaska Native veterans in tribal communities with Matt Brogdon, Executive Director of Hesperus; Derek Eagle Lee Williams, Senior Program Manager, Indigenous Programs at Amazon; and David Camporeale, Director of the Office of Policy and Research, Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS), US Department of Labor.
After lunch our panel series continued with the challenges and successes of STEM education and access in tribal communities, moderated by Matt Brogdon, included Navy pilot and NASA astronaut John Herrington (Chickasaw) and University of New Mexico Regent Sandra Begay (Navajo), both members of the Hesperus Advisory Board. Highlighting our partnership with Dell Technologies and the Girls Who Game Program, John Sun, Vice President of Health and Human Services at Philips Corporation moderated our panel on digital literacy and the next generation and creating education and employment paths with Dr. Tara Nattrass, Senior Education Strategist at Dell Technologies; Lieutenant Colonel Ashlie Christian, Director of Operations for the Center for Leadership and Diversity and STEM at the United States Military Academy; Malachi Hammonds, the Global Co-lead of Native Americans of Verizon; and Christopher Key, Hesperus Board Member.
Our final panel of the day was about Native American art and its influence on American pop art and culture, moderated by John Bailon, with four Native American artists of various genres and mediums contributing to the discussion, including Michael Toya of New Mexico, Brian Skeet of Arizona, Patrick Sorensen of New York, and Antoinette Thompson of New Mexico.
Hesperus is proud to host a forum dedicated to the challenges facing Native Americans and Alaska Natives and the solutions that we work to provide in collaboration with our partners and sponsors. We are especially proud of the work we do to support the next generation of Native leadership, including our youth, veterans, and working adults, through education, employment and technology. We highlight the contributions of Native American culture and art to our modern American society and hope to educate more and more people who aren’t familiar with Native American culture or simply want to learn more about the history and contributions of our Native American & Alaskan Native communities.
