First Americans Museum Luncheon Brings Big Business

On Wednesday, March 8, which featured guest speakers, Comanche Nation Chairman Mark Woommavovah and CEO of Numunu Holdings under Comanche Nation Enterprises George Tahdooahnippah attended the Oklahoma City Chapter of the American Indian Chamber of Commerce Luncheon at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.

The event was centered around diversifying Comanche Nation’s business portfolio. 

“It's going to bring in business. People want to do business with the Comanche Nation,” Woommavovah said. “And doing these networks, we're able to find out what each organization has to offer and what benefits we can do to share, to serve our Comanche people.”

The goal was to get out into communities and build connections and partnerships, according to Woommavovah.

“This gives us a platform to do it, to share our Comanche story, the story of pride and how we have pride in our elders and our youth,” he said. “Our communities are seeing that and they want to be involved in it. They want to be part of it. So, it's historic for us.”

At the event, Woommavovah educated attendees about the Comanche Nation.

“I wanted to share with them a brief state of the nation of our tribe, our past history and where we are today as a Comanche Nation,” he said. “And highlight a couple of our programs. Which we highlighted our Comanche Academy and we highlighted our language programs.”

He said those programs are essential to talk about.

“These are the programs that are ingrained in our Comanche culture,” Woommavovah said. “It shows our Comanche pride and our language, as well as how we're taking our younger generation and teaching them traditional ways.

Woommavovah said he was proud of Tahdooahnippah’s speech which he highlighted Numunu Staffing and Numunu Construction as well as his career and the pride it brought to the Comanche people.

Tahdooahnippah said the Comanche Nation Enterprises is a corporation the Comanche Nation runs to go after federal contracts.

He said these events are learning experiences suitable for networking and discussing failures and successes.

“These events are great…it's great to have someone come and tell them how they got there and what we need to do,” Tahdooahnippah said. “Because I know like us, starting out, we want to be like a lot of them great tribes that are doing good economic development-wise, such as Ho-Chunk and Chickasaw. So, you know, what better way to look at someone that's already doing it, doing it now.”

Numunu Staffing and Numunu Construction use these events to produce growth.

“We got Numunu staffing in the 8(a) program. And the 8(a) program is good because it's federal funding. It's money that's moved, set aside. You don't have to compete with anybody that's given to an 8(a) company,” Tahdooahnippah said. “We're going to start a construction 8(a) company called Numunu Construction. We're actually doing a building right now for the Comanche Nation right at the tribal complex. It's the records retention building we're building. So, that was our first contract that we won. These events [are] great and it's a great opportunity for us to grow.”

Meeting the people was a highlight for Tahdooahnippah, which includes other tribal leaders.

“The Kiowa chairman, chairman SpottedBird, vice chairman, Mr. Tsotigh. You know, I'd known him when I was a younger kid,” he said. “I know Mr. SpottedBird's son when I was growing up. And to be in the same room with a lot of these people, it's great. And it's just highly beneficial.”

Tahdooahnippah said he felt great at the event and looks forward to creating revenue for the people.