00:00.58 Jeremy Begay Okay, yeah, in addition to that I think another personal highlight has been just knowing that we've been able to compete with larger companies especially that do work on the Navajo nation last count there were over 40 companies. Um. Working throughout the United States that have permits to work on the Navajo nation and knowing that our small 8 ight-person crew can compete with these larger companies to do work on our own lands and and do ah, a good job and a successful job. Um to get our clients. Compliance is is a personal victory for me. But. Like I said before in the introduction. All it comes down to our our small personal highlights I guess seeing elderly people children our our our grandmothers and grandpas receive services that they they they have never had before because. Even on the Navajo nation still, there are families who are living without electricity without water without developed roads any kind of infrastructure seeing the smile on their faces when they first received these these services you know, thanks and some some so part to our efforts. Is really the end highlight I guess that that that affects us the most and and instills a greater love for for doing this work. 01:22.38 archpodnet Yeah, absolutely I I can 100% relate to that as someone who has done work on the Navajo nation on projects that bring you know power and fiber optics and things like that. It's it's a very cool experience. Um. But anyway I won't get into that because I could tell stories but I won't um I also wanted to say like you mentioned, um, you know that you're only a couple years old and again that was one of the reasons why I was really excited to have you guys on this episode I really wanted to show. Um. You know companies from um, you know cogstone and the firelight group. Um, who are bigger and more established all the way down to um, we were supposed to have Anastasia um, from maoons consulting on here. Um, who you know she's a 1 lady show. 02:08.68 Jeremy Begay He hit. 02:18.30 archpodnet Um, and hopefully we can have her on you know, an individual episode sometime later since she's in the field today and you know when you're a one- lady show you gotta you gotta do the thing that you gotta do so um, but I think it's it's really important that this episode shows that there is um that range of companies. That are indigenous led and shows that that you can start a company and you can um you know, build something like this I think it's really easy for students to see you know a big cogstone and think like oh my god I could never get there. Um, you know where doesra is at but it's like. You know it's a process and and you start with you know, like like you said with C Cruzo like 3 years you know a small group and and you build or you don't like also staying small is great but it's it's nice to show listeners especially like indigenous students who might be listening. Um, that there is this like range of possibilities within the serum world. So okay, going going from that. Um, maybe let's pick one of the you know firelight or um cogstone and and talk about some. Highlights on that larger scale. 03:38.63 Steve DeRoy Oh I'd love to hear from Cogston. Yeah. 03:42.34 Desiree Ah, actually there is a project that I'm just finishing up. You know one of the issues with me. Um, is there. There's always my day job well with a lot of travel community members here in gabrolin otonva territory we have a lot of. Cultural educators and tribal leaders who we because we're non federally recognize um any type of cultural heritage work or education that we do within our own community as well as to the public is as a second job and so it's always. Cool when I have the ability to be paid on my day job to do stuff that forwards the tribal interests and cogstone recently completed a project where they are restoring a wetlands and the wetlands is next to ah. A number of different sites that unfortunately ancestral remains had been found both in the fifty s sixty s and in late 90 s 2000 and you know one of the things that I've been doing in my own research as an archeologist and working within in Tongvillean particularly on catalina. Is trying to get out of this idea that it's only sites or trails or lines that we're interested in but that those features on the landscape are part of a larger living area for communities. So I've written and published that. Hugely in tongva territory. You have the main village site but anywhere from 3 to five miles outside of the main village site is the village use area which will include other sites. Besides the habitation sites but resource for instance like resource collection sites um sacred sites ceremonial sites. Um, access to water as well as lithic procurement sites and that's all part of the village and so as part of this project that we were doing the assessment. Um for the restation restoration of the wetlands I propose to do a landscape study. Um. And to to really record the connection of this wetlands to 2 villages that are within um, 1 right next door but also within that three mile radius being pavungna and pavungna is the sacred site to the gabalinno tongva as well as the hochman. Um, it is the location of where we emerged from and the location of that village site is on is recorded as 3 different sites but in talking with community members and I did I got to do some oral histories. 06:22.20 Desiree Um, with community members and being and taking them out to the wetlands and getting their their history of of going to the wetlands. Um, how their community how them and their families use the wetlands in the past and just wetlands in general and being able to feed that information into this landscape. Study which I'm calling the povogna cultural landscape and then applying the national register criteria and basically saying and recommending it for eligibility for the national register and that's something that as as a tribal community. You know we've always wanted to do but haven't been able to do it so being able to get this contract propose that this should be done and being able to get paid to do it and of course hanging out with community members and and recording them was such such a pleasure and being able to. Take a lot of the public education that our community leaders have done in the public and actually write it up and being able for instance, um, Craig Torres is who's one of our cultural educators when he talks about the gabbelin o tong for relationship to the land and he talks about maha. Which is this relationship that we as gaberlin otonva members have been um, tasked with by the hum of Vetum which are the first peoples we were taught that we have a relationship not only with the land and the animal and the plants but also the air and the water and as a good. Um. Tongva person that we have to take that into account and so he's recently been recording videos but I was able to put a lot of that information that he's been sharing both within our community and the public into writing. In order for people to understand why it's so important to acknowledge the cultural landscape as it. Um as it relates the to the gabelin otonva community so being able to um, like I said get paid to do that and spend time with the community. It was just. So exhilarating and I've been um, going through and in seeking out ah rfps in order to do similar types of tribal work and luckily we've been successful in that. 08:40.52 Steve DeRoy So Steve here. Ah you know before before we started firelight I spent a good decade of being curious. 08:42.50 archpodnet That's awesome. 08:51.22 Steve DeRoy And it was through that curiosity that I really wanted to see the different ways in which we can capture and and document and tell the story of cultural heritage and so ah, my my experience just kind of um. Ah, expose me to a number of different ways that you might be able to do that and so when we when I start a firelight with my friends we thought hey let's let's work together. Let's let's do do some interesting projects and and um and let's work on behalf of indigenous communities. Not just for the big industrial. Companies or the the government let's let's apply our skills and our education and our resources to support indigenous aspirations and so so for us it was it was one of these things that I think we had a um. It was good timing because there were a number of court cases that affirmed the rights of indigenous peoples here in Canada but also um, it was a different way in which we we were doing consulting. So so we we were we were putting. Communities that we were working for those nations indigenous governments in the driver's seat and giving them the like basically saying you're you're in control of this research process you're in control of this project and we'll help you secure the funding and will help you get get this project off the ground but you're going to be the one driving the process. And it was a very different fundamental approach than what other consultants were doing I think at the time where they would come in and they would lead the process and they would do everything and and and a lot of that capacity was was not retained at the community and so. Um, there was a few few ingredients for success for us and I think for for us as we as we grew because I think there were a number of indigenous nations that were like hey we want to. We want to work with firelight. Um. Firelight kind of grew in terms of size and our and our role as as someone who was like the sole one of the sole people that did all the work I had to. Transition my role within my own organization to say okay well how do I build systems for for that growth to ensure that we can. We can ah essentially build the next generation of researchers and so. 11:12.81 Steve DeRoy Um, so the way we approached our work both internally and externally was this idea I think Ashley mentioned earlier this idea of like working yourself out of a job and and we were building systems in ways that we would be able to say okay well these are transferable so we can. We can apply the research both internally we can onboard new researchers as we hire them and and get them to follow these kind of documented processes and approaches and at the community level. We were also able to build capacity and support the community and and support. Community champions within those nations to be able to be in the driver's seat and so it was this idea of ensuring that capacity building or enhancement was was instilled in all of that and so we had we had um. Ah, few ingredients for success and so for me I feel like that's the highlight that I that I wanted to share is as as a indigenous person who has an indigenous company working for indigenous nations doing this kind of crm or heritage work. It's it's the idea that um. That you need to kind of build an army if you think about it or build a team. Yeah, like yeah, it's it's much bigger than you as an individual that um that and and that's that's way we've grown and now we're working from coast to coast to coast. We've done international work and we're working in the states. And in Alaska and and it's been a really fascinating. Um, it's fascinating to watch our community. Our company growth in that way. 12:48.15 Jeremy Begay Well I got to say it's really inspiring to hear all of you talk about your histories and doing this and we hope to someday be at that level someday. We'll get there? Yeah, ah. 12:57.80 Steve DeRoy Oh you will. You'll definitely get there. Ah. 12:58.88 Ashley Spivey Yes, you will get there and and Jeremy just to give you some words of encouragement. We we started kina and in March of 2020? Um, so and and I you know I had a new baby at that time too. So um. And it. It was really hard for the first the first year um but you know we just kept you know we just kept working our networks and and building networks and um, you know working with tribal partners that we you know had the chance to work with in the past and and slowly but surely you know we're working our way. Um, you know and into this this firm that I'm really proud to say is I I you know think and hope is is definitely helping folks. So but. 13:47.96 Steve DeRoy Actually it's funny when we start a firelight. We had a new baby as well and so it was like it was like we were growing this kid and then growing a company and yeah it was it was. It's. 13:57.18 Ashley Spivey Um, yes. 14:01.63 Steve DeRoy You know you put your heart into this work too and I think that's that's what what this? What this for me. The highlight is is that you know this is our heart and this is our soul and this is our livelihood that goes into this and um and we believe firmly in in our approach and that I think for us, we just put our blinders on. We keep focusing on. 14:02.33 Ashley Spivey Ah, yes. 14:08.38 Ashley Spivey Um, yes, and then. 14:20.71 Steve DeRoy On our goals moving forward and try not to get too distracted about what other people are doing. 14:25.13 Ashley Spivey Right? Or and or get too discouraged. You know there is I think Jeremy Jeremy you mentioned competition you know? Yeah, there's there's a ton of competition and we have a lot like bigger hitters. You know quote unquote than than us. Um, but I think. 14:28.12 Steve DeRoy Um, yeah. 14:42.56 Ashley Spivey Folks at least again locally within the region or are starting to recognize um that they shouldn't just be going to academic institutions or you know and not to say anything negative about the culture resource management companies in the region. But you know they have some work to do when it comes to. Ah, knowing how to to work with and engage indigenous communities. Um, so you know we're just like like you said that you're putting your blinders on you stay in the course you're doing the work. You know that matters. Um, and I won't use the exact words that my partner Michelle Kakiel uses but we will outlast these other folks. Um, who who aren't doing it from from that heart place right? from that that place of of building capacity of supporting tribal sovereignty and in tribal communities. Um, because in order for it to be successful moving forward. That's what you have to do. That's what you have to commit to and it's hard to do that if you either don't have indigenous folks on your staff or if you're not actively engaging with indigenous pupils. So. 15:55.51 Steve DeRoy I heard recently this idea of um, what kind of company. Do you want to be like in terms of longevity and timeline. Do you want to be a 5 year old company. Do you want to be a 20 year old company a 50 year old company a hundred or two hundred year old company and so the idea that how do you bacon those values and those principles as an organization those founding principles the things that that you're going to measure your success for into the future. So when I'm long gone and and hopefully firelight still exists into that future. Um, and the people that are going to be leading that. That company moving forward will the vision and the the founding principles still exist and and will we be able to still use those as metrics to be able to measure our success and you know that that'll determine the kind of company it becomes if if you're looking at that multi-generational kind of. Timeline I'm I'm thinking so you know 7 generations forward. This is what I what my goals are and I want to be able to create some lasting change and be able to do things differently and and position indigenous peoples in the drive re seatipt and. And be able to do really good and inspiring work and so and those visions and those values and and how you see your company into the future will determine all of that and how you move forward. 17:23.48 archpodnet So I want to ask that question of of everyone then because you all clearly have very strong visions and ethics for how you want to run your company. How are you baking those into your processes. How are you making sure that that that's what actually happens like. 17:25.31 Desiree So here's. 17:43.29 archpodnet Like Steve mentioned. So. 17:48.33 Desiree 1 of the things that popped into my head and in fact I was just doing it today is that cogstone um supports interns from cal state long beach which is a local university and we've been supporting interns here at cogsville for a long time. But um. In 2008 as well as in 2009 we had a number of interns that were indigenous and were part of the American Indian Studies program and when we taught the internship. The internship was around curation of like once the artifacts come out of the ground. What happens to them and we were helping the nag coordinator at cal state long beach help with their niaa compliance. So a lot of the way that we were teaching the students was thinking about those larger issues and of course how it relates to Crm. Um, and so thinking about future generations training the next. Future generations both indigenous and non-indigenous because we had both types of students in our internship and we're gonna be doing another internship again this summer as well as in the fall and being to give them ah being able to give them an indigenous perspective myself and Cindy L Vitra who is. Gaberletto tongva as well as well as the ni coordinator at tols state long beach and giving them that perspective of you know artifacts aren't artifacts. They are so they're not resources and being able to have them think deeply about if they're going to have a future if you're going to work in crm in the future. Um, how they should think about approaching it and it's something I also taught when I was teaching a field school out on Catalina and so thinking about that and that's all stuff that you know we're not charging for but is really important and was important to the previous owner of the company and I am pulling that. Forward in terms of thinking about teaching. Um our future generations as well as making sure you know training them. Also how to to talk to indigenous community members because that is gonna be something that they're gonna do if they participate in the crm business if they're not indigenous themselves. Um. And that doesn't get taught at the university level at all and sometimes it is. You know you can learn it hands while you're doing the job but you won't learn it well so that's something that you know cogstone is always about is about teaching the future generations as well as our own. And employees as well. 20:22.75 archpodnet All right I I'm realizing that we're going over this segment So we're going to have to stop there but we're going to come back to that question right? when we come back from the break.