Building Opportunities: How Swinerton Advances Native American Economies Through Intentional Partnerships

For more than 25 years, Swinerton has partnered with tribal nations to align construction delivery with community priorities. Through early planning, intentional outreach, and sustained collaboration, these projects are designed to create measurable value not only for the built environment but in the local tribal economy as well.

The Opportunity: A Different Way of Thinking About TERO

Tribal nations have long recognized that economic sovereignty depends in part on the ability to direct employment and contracting opportunities toward their own members and businesses.

The Tribal Employment Rights Ordinance (TERO) was established to help make that possible by reducing unemployment, preventing discrimination, and supporting local economic development through Native hiring and business participation.

Yet across the construction industry, TERO is too often treated as a compliance requirement–simply a check-the-box activity–rather than a meaningful opportunity.

Swinerton approaches TERO differently, treating it as a framework for partnership, ensuring construction dollars circulate within the community, creating jobs for tribal members, and strengthening tribal businesses, extending the impacts well beyond construction completion.

The Challenge: Economic Impact Must Be Planned Early

One of the most important lessons from Swinerton’s experience in the Native American market is that economic impact is not created at the end of a project. It is shaped during preconstruction.

The decisions that determine how much of a project’s value stays in the community—creation of labor opportunities, identification of NAOBs, how scopes are packaged, and what barriers need to be removed—are made before starting construction. If those decisions are delayed, opportunities for tribal participation can be lost.

That is why Swinerton focuses on aligning procurement, trade partner outreach and workforce strategies with tribal priorities from the earliest stages of project planning.

The Approach: A Model Built Around Participation, Capacity, and Trust

Swinerton’s approach is designed to create meaningful economic participation for tribal members and NAOBs throughout the project lifecycle.

During early budget development, Swinerton’s estimating team assembles a Tribal Economic Partnership Plan, which identifies labor opportunities and scopes of work that align with NAOBs. Outreach plans are then developed to engage the NAOB community through job walks, information sessions, bid notices and other key touchpoints. Trade partners are engaged early and guided through the prequalification and bidding process, with technical assistance provided to help firms compete for current and future projects.

For tribal clients, this creates a more accessible procurement process that does not simply invite NAOB firms to compete; it actively prepares them to succeed. The result is greater local business participation and a better opportunity for project dollars to remain within the tribal economy.

On the workforce side, Swinerton hires a dedicated project administrator, typically a tribal member, as a tribal hiring liaison on all significant tribal projects, to oversee the partnership among the project team, the community, and the TERO office and align hiring efforts with tribal priorities and member availability.

This structure not only supports project staff but also helps ensure tribal members have direct access to opportunities, strengthens communication and trust, and creates a more proactive hiring process.

The Results: Measurable Participation Across Tribal Projects

Swinerton’s approach has produced strong participation outcomes across multiple projects.

For the Spokane Tribe Economic Project (STEP), completed for the Spokane Tribe of Indians, all three phases of construction included 100% TERO participation by Swinerton and averaged 13% by the subcontractors. Swinerton achieved 38% TERO participation on the 12-story, 439,000-square-foot Emerald Queen Casino Hotel, a progressive design-build project for the Puyallup Tribe of Indians. On the Muckleshoot Casino Resort Hotel, 26% of Swinerton’s labor-hours were performed by Muckleshoot Indian Tribal members or other qualified tribal members, supported by Swinerton’s onsite presence and continuous employment of tribal members since 2018. On the Lummi Administration Building, 25% of all labor was performed by members of the Lummi Indian Nation. Swinerton also averaged 50% TERO participation on the Yakama Legends Casino Expansion and Hotel.

These results go beyond compliance metrics. For tribal clients, this reflects direct employment opportunities for community members, stronger participation in project delivery, and a greater share of economic benefit retained locally. They also reflect long-term partnerships with TERO offices, hiring processes designed around tribal member availability, and a genuine commitment to the principle that construction on tribal lands should benefit its community.

Beyond Labor: Strengthening Native-Owned Businesses

Meaningful economic participation does not stop at labor hours. It extends to the business owners doing the work and whether they grow more capable and successful in serving their community after project completion.

Swinerton’s 13-year partnership with RJS Construction is one example of what long-term business mentorship can look like in practice. RJS Construction is a Women Native American-Owned Small Business and an Indian Small Business Economic Enterprise (ISBEE). The relationship began in 2010 when Swinerton introduced itself to RJS in preparation for the Yakama Nations’ Legends Casino Expansion. Following the success of the Yakama project, the firms pursued and won the Nez Perce Clearwater River Casino project in Lewiston, ID, completing it on schedule and within budget in 2014.

Over the course of that 13-year relationship, Swinerton mentored RJS through its successful SBA 8(a) application, provided ongoing advisement on project management and compliance, and supported their growth across multiple Yakama Nation Master Plan projects.

Through a mentorship approach, Swinerton supports a sustained investment in a local firm’s ability to compete, grow, and serve its community.

Workforce Development: Creating Career Pathways

Swinerton has hosted and participated in job fairs on tribal projects, working directly with TERO offices to connect tribal members with construction employment opportunities. Its long-standing relationship with the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, spanning 25 years, illustrates how these efforts can create lasting impact.

During an early project together, Swinerton hosted a job fair that brought tribal members together with project trade partners, creating direct employment pathways. As part of that effort, SAK Builders, now a Swinerton-affiliated firm, hired several members through TERO to complete concrete work on the project.

The impact of that initial engagement has extended well beyond a single project. Several of those individuals remain with the company today, continuing to develop their skills and advance their careers within the construction industry.

The commitment extends beyond the hiring events as well. Local workers hired by Swinerton receive ongoing mentorship and training with nationally accredited National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) certification, earning journeyman credentials they can carry anywhere, not just to the next Swinerton project. Swinerton works with trade partners to bring tribal members as full-time employees through apprenticeship programs, and coordinates outside educational and training opportunities for workers who want to advance in the trades. The goal is not a workforce that depends on a single contractor. It is a workforce that is stronger because of its experience.

A Broader Portfolio of Tribal Partnerships

Swinerton has completed more than 145 Native American projects across 39 tribal partnerships throughout the Pacific Northwest and California. The portfolio spans casinos, hospitality, healthcare facilities, administration buildings, cultural centers, and infrastructure, encompassing the full scope of what tribal economic development encompasses.

This breadth matters because tribal economic development goes far beyond a single industry.

Tribal clients are building systems that support wellness, governance, enterprise, and long-term community resilience. Construction partners that understand this broader context are better positioned to contribute to tribal priorities in a meaningful way.

Swinerton’s experience, across a wide range of project types, helps support streamlined, transparent processes rooted in open communication and industry expertise. For tribal clients, this means working with a partner that understands the complexity of construction and the larger economic goals behind the project.

What Tribal Leadership Should Expect from a Construction Partner

Tribal councils and leadership teams are sophisticated clients. They have seen contractors who show up with promises and leave without delivering. They know the difference between a firm that treats TERO as a compliance burden and one that treats it as a shared value.

The questions worth asking of any prospective construction partner are direct:

• How many of your labor hours on tribal projects were performed by TERO participants?
• Can you name the NAOB firms you have mentored and grown?
• What does your preconstruction NAOB outreach process look like?
• What happens to the workers you hire after the project is done?

Swinerton’s answers to those questions are grounded in more than 25 years of work in the Native American market, a dedicated Director of Native American Markets and a track record spanning the Puyallup Tribe, Yakama Nation, Lummi Indian Nation and Cowlitz Indian Tribe and beyond.

The Opportunity Ahead

As tribal nations continue to invest in economic development, construction can serve as more than a delivery mechanism. It can be a catalyst for opportunity, one that strengthens businesses, develops talent, and supports economic sovereignty when projects are planned and executed with intention.

The most successful projects are not defined only by what is built, they are defined by what is left behind: stronger businesses, skilled workforce members and resilient tribal economies.

Swinerton remains committed to that model through early engagement, intentional NAOB and workforce strategies, and the kind of cultural respect that comes from long-term partnerships. Not simply because it is required, but because it is the right way to build.

Swinerton is a 100% employee-owned national construction firm with more than 25 years of experience partnering with Native American Tribes across the Pacific Northwest, California, and beyond. For information on case studies, owner partnerships, or speaking engagements, contact Swinerton’s Director of Native American Markets, Greg Evans.