Alvin H. Warren

Alvin Harlyn Warren (Santa Clara Pueblo)
Partner/Executive Vice President
Blue Stone Strategy Group

 

Alvin Warren is an enrolled member of Santa Clara Pueblo and lives in Santa Clara with his wife and children. He has dedicated his career to serving the people of his Pueblo as well as other Tribes in New Mexico and across the United States. From 2008 through 2010 Warren served as Cabinet Secretary of Indian Affairs, having been appointed by former-Governor Bill Richardson and confirmed unanimously by the New Mexico State Senate. During his tenure he led a cabinet-level department that peaked at 16 regular employees, an operating budget of almost $4.2 million and a Tribal capital outlay budget of nearly $70 million. Warren worked closely with the tribal leaders of the 22 Indian Pueblos, Tribes and Nations in New Mexico, Governor Richardson and other state leaders to develop and accomplish an ambitious, proactive agenda to enhance funding and services to Native Americans and strengthen state-tribal relations. Warren led the department through a daunting state budget crisis and transformed the department into one that fulfilled a central role in facilitating communication and collaboration between the Governor’s Office, the other 32 cabinet agencies, and the 22 Tribes on programs and issues affecting Native Americans. He played a key role in the enactment and implementation of the New Mexico State-Tribal Collaboration Act in 2009 and the enactment of permanent funding for the New Mexico Tribal Infrastructure Fund in 2010, which will yield $110 million in funding to Tribes in the first ten years alone.

Warren is a former two-term Lieutenant Governor of Santa Clara Pueblo and currently serves as a Tribal Council member. He has been elected or appointed to serve a total of nine terms in various positions in Santa Clara’s tribal government, including Tribal Treasurer. As Lieutenant Governor, Warren led several key initiatives, including recompiling and modernizing the Pueblo’s law and order code, adopting and implementing a Domestic Violence code, making Tribal wages more competitive based on a market analysis, securing almost $2 million for the Pueblo’s priority infrastructure projects, developing policy initiatives based on community and program surveys, completing a comprehensive Community Health Profile and Improvement Plan, securing $1.5 million in federal funding to initiate a community-based behavioral health program, and overhauling the Pueblo’s Human Resource Policies. In addition, Warren worked for sixteen years to assist his Pueblo and other indigenous peoples with mapping, protecting and reacquiring their traditional lands. He has been the national director of the Trust for Public Land’s Tribal Lands Program, an associate director of the Indigenous Communities Mapping Initiative, director of the Santa Clara Pueblo Land Claims / Rights Protection Program, and a consultant. Altogether, he assisted Santa Clara Pueblo with reacquiring title or additional rights to over 16,000 acres of its ancestral lands, including the Pueblo’s reacquisition of the 5,046-acre P’opii Khanu Headwaters Area in 2000.  He also coordinated the first International Forum on Indigenous Mapping in 2004.

Warren is the chairman of the Native American Democratic Caucus of New Mexico and has previously chaired several boards and commissions, including: the New Mexico Tribal Infrastructure Board; the New Mexico Indian Affairs Commission; the New Mexico Behavioral Health Planning Council’s Native American Subcommittee; The Trust for Public Land’s Tribal Lands Advisory Council and the Santa Clara Pueblo Governor’s Task Force on Youth and Families. He has served on Governor Richardson’s Green Jobs Cabinet, Health Care Reform Leadership Team, Poverty Reduction Task Force and Lt. Governor Diane Denish’s Children’s’ Cabinet.  He also served as vice-chairman and member of the Santa Clara Day School Board of Education and has served on Santa Clara Pueblo committees responsible for mortgage lending, land claims, water rights and Tewa language preservation. In 2001 the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture appointed Warren to the first Technical Advisory Panel for the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Native Public Media and the Curriculum Committee for Leadership New Mexico.  Alvin has received several awards, including the 2010 Excellence in Leadership Award from the American Indian Chamber of Commerce of New Mexico. He is 2010 graduate of Leadership New Mexico and has been an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, a Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership Fellow, and a colleague with the New Mexico Strategic Leadership Institute. Warren graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor’s Degree in History with High Honors and Certification in Native American Studies.