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Brian Cladoosby is a recognized leader both here and in the other Washington. The longtime Swinomish Tribal Community Senate chairman, under whose tenure the local reservation has realized unparalleled economic growth along with major advances in social services and health care facilities, has during that time often shared a speaking dais with governors, state and federal lawmakers, cabinet officers, and even a U.S. President.

Yet more remains on his to-do list, he told the Weekly News last week.

“Swinomish has a great future,” Cladoosby said, “and I would be blessed to continue to be part of it in a leadership position for my people.”

Cladoosby, past President of the National Congress of American Indians, is seeking re-election to the Swinomish governing panel, this time facing a challenge from 27-year-old Alana Quintasket, who held key campus roles while attending the University of Washington and Arizona State University.

Quintasket was featured in the Jan. 29 issue of the Weekly News.

Cladoosby, a 1977 La Conner High graduate, was first elected to the Swinomish Senate in 1985. He became Senate chairman a dozen years later.

Throughout that time Cladoosby has harkened back to the foundation laid by previous Swinomish leaders while also steering an ambitious and modern course going forward.

“I have had the opportunity to be shaped and molded by some of our best leaders over the years,” said Cladoosby. “The late Laura Wilbur, Robert Joe, Sr., Chet Cayou, Sr. and Susan Wilbur just to name a few and, of course, Landy James, who played a very important role in my life during high school. These were very strong leaders who helped mold me into the leader I am today.”

It is their legacy, Cladoosby said, that has helped propel an ongoing Tribal focus on cultural, educational and health care advancements.

“Swinomish,” said Cladoosby, “has been very progressive over the years in its approach to providing essential governmental services for its people and is one thing one of my mentors told me – that we as leaders are to be the best at providing services for our people.”

Cladoosby said that is a priority shared by his Senate colleagues, with whom he has traveled the country visiting other tribes and tackling a wide range of issues and causes of interest to Native Americans and non-Indians alike.

Cladoosby, for instance, was among those called upon to speak when Washington Gov. Jay Inslee launched his run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, a campaign that brought climate change to the forefront.

The Swinomish Chairman hasn’t shied away from addressing thorny subjects – from natural resources management to the historical trauma experienced by Native Americans as a result of past government policies – leading some in the national media to label him an activist.

As a young Tribal Senator, Cladoosby returned to La Conner Schools as an instructional aide, a position that would help shape the direction of his later chairmanship.

“In the early 90s,” related Cladoosby, “I worked for three years at La Conner Middle School and while there I was able to help Vince Sellen teach a Native American Studies class. He was one of many who planted a seed with the Senate to work toward providing some form of scholarship aid for our high school graduates. I’m proud the Senate has gotten to the point where we are able to provide a full-ride scholarship program for our people to the school of their choice.”

Cladoosby was also instrumental, working alongside former Superintendent Tim Bruce, in providing paraprofessionals to assist teachers in La Conner classrooms.

“That year in December, on Tim’s birthday,” said Cladoosby, “the Senate approved the first three paraprofessionals and when I called him on that day he said it was the best present he had received. Now we have 13 paraprofessionals working in our Birth-to-Six Program through high school.”

Cladoosby touts a bevy of other accomplishments, each of which he shares with fellow Senators.

“Our drug and alcohol recovery program is one of the best in the country,” he said. “What the Senate has been able to do is nothing short of a miracle. The statistic I grew up reading and hearing was tribes have the highest rate of drug and alcohol abuse than any other group in the United States.

“When we experienced our first heroin overdose death here at Swinomish,” Cladoosby noted, “we started the ‘This Has to Stop’ initiative and as a result we have saved many tribal members’ lives. The Tribe now runs the Didgwalic outpatient treatment center. We also serve non-tribal members, who make up 80 per cent of our clientele and come from four different counties in our area. We are currently at capacity, serving 250 patients, and we are now in the process of expanding to be able to serve 500 patients.”

Four years ago, the Swinomish Senate approved the first Dental Health Aid Therapist Program in the Lower 48 states, an action that was reported in a two-page front section feature in the New York Times.

“We now have three therapists and two of them are Tribal members serving our people,” said Cladoosby. “This once again is a model for other tribes to follow. We worked with Skagit Valley College to have this taught at their school and they agreed to do it. Soon in the future our members will not have to go to Alaska to be trained. They will only have to go to Mount Vernon.”

Cladoosby likewise praises the development of a Swinomish social services umbrella that covers free eyeglasses, hearing aids and orthodontic braces for members; back-to-school funds for Tribal youth to purchase new clothes and shoes and pay for school athletic team fees; a youth recreation/prevention program; utility subsidies for elders and others; fuel discounts; trips for elders; cultural activities, including those related to Canoe Journey support; monthly community dinners; Christmas money for Tribal members; and assistance covering funeral expenses.

“Those,” Cladoosby stressed, “are just some of the things our Senate has put in place for our members.”

Cladoosby also alludes to economic diversity and growth on Swinomish Reservation that has evolved over the course of two generations. The Tribe has grown from a 40-person payroll when Cladoosby graduated from La Conner High to one of Skagit County’s largest employers, with over 1,000 people comprising the Swinomish work force.

“Our infrastructure is amazing,” said Cladoosby, “and being able to contribute almost $30 million in salaries into our local economy is hard to believe. We have made it possible to have a job for every member who is qualified to fill one of these positions.”

Cladoosby was in the first of his seven five-year Tribal Senate terms when Swinomish invested in a bingo hall.

“Thirty-five years later,” he said, “we now operate a casino, hotel, three gas stations, a cannabis store, golf course, oyster sales and our Didgwalic Treatment Center.”

Cladoosby said presiding over NCAI and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians has opened doors for Swinomish and provided access to high-ranking officials on the national stage.

During the 2016 Tribal Nations Conference in Washington, D.C. it was Cladoosby who wrapped then-President Barack Obama in a ceremonial black-and-red blanket and presented him a woven cedar hat, which Obama called a “moving” gesture.

Sharing the limelight with an American president marked how far Cladoosby has come since his childhood here.

But here is where Cladoosby hopes to remain, preferably at the Tribal Senate table, he said.

“Growing up here and being a lifelong resident,” said Cladoosby, “has allowed me to do things that some only dream of. When I meet youth – and I have met many across the nation – when I leave them I want them to think: ‘when I grow up I want to be a leader like him.’

“That,” Cladoosby insisted, “is how I felt with the leaders we had here at Swinomish.”