The new president and chief executive of the Native American Bank wants the Denver financial institution to live up to the mission its name implies – a bank run by American Indians for Indians of all bands and tribes.
“I feel like I am the last missing piece to facilitate it becoming a true Native American bank,” J.D. Colbert said.
About 20 primarily Western and Alaskan tribes back the bank, which got its start in 2001 with a $12.5 million investment and a goal of funneling capital and promoting economic development across Indian country.
The tribes are betting that Colbert, one of only a handful of American Indian bankers in the country, is the person who can make it happen.
So how does Colbert plan to take a small $63 million bank at 999 18th St. with two branches in Montana and give it a reach that affects lives from rural reservations to more heavily populated native communities across the West?
“There are certain services we can provide from a distance,” Colbert said. “But we can’t fully reach our potential unless we have a presence.”
Colbert wants the bank to add more branches in a variety of places, which will require buying other banks or launching bank charters in other states.
He also wants to see the bank, which primarily provides small-business and tribal-enterprise loans, broaden into other financial services, including venture capital and captive insurance.
“We have an opportunity as time goes on to be a fully diversified financial-services organization, more than just a bank.”
To achieve those goals, the bank needs more capital, and that will require bringing in other tribes as investors.
“We not only want their equity, but we want to be their bank,” he said.
Colbert, who is Chickasaw and Creek, grew up in Oklahoma. He helped the Chickasaw Nation start Bank2, an Oklahoma City bank where he worked before taking the job in Denver.
He has worked with the Bureau of Indian Affairs loan guarantee program, visiting more than 50 reservations, and founded the North American Native Bankers Association to bring tribally owned banks together.
Although his Oklahoma connections aren’t why Colbert was hired, they are something the bank’s board hopes he can use to grow the bank.
“He is well known there, and it would be to our advantage to use his expertise,” said board member Lewis Anderson, president and chief executive of the Woodlands National Bank of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Onamia, Minn.
Native American Bank offers an attractive option for tribes that would like to get into financial services but fear going it in on their own, said Taylor Keen, a business acquisitions official for the Cherokee Nation in Tulsa.
“J.D. is very well liked here in Oklahoma. He is an established voice and well respected within the five civilized tribes in Oklahoma,” he said.
Abandoned at 6 months of age by his birth father, Colbert’s mother raised him and three other siblings on a nursing assistant’s salary. Colbert went on to obtain a master’s degree from Harvard, serve as a bank regulator with the Federal Reserve and administer the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.
His rising above the odds reflects in a small way the transformation undergoing larger portions of Indian Country.
Oklahoma tribes that 35 years ago operated out of mobile trailers with jerry-built power lines are now multimillion-dollar enterprises, Colbert said.
“The economy in Indian Country has never been stronger,” he said.
And that newfound wealth among some tribes is driving the creation of banks, a trend that began in the late 1980s.
Tribes with casino revenues sought to diversify from gaming and gain control of credit so they could provide home mortgages to their members and finance other business ventures.
More recently, tribes with petroleum, uranium and other resources have benefited from a spike in commodity prices. Other tribes have become adept at winning federal contracts.
A lawsuit by Elouise Cobell of the Blackfeet Reservation Development Fund and a co-founder of the Native American Bank could bring billions more into tribal coffers. Her lawsuit alleges the federal government mismanaged Indian trust funds and seeks a $27.5 billion settlement.
Most tribally owned banks have played down their ownership, in part to appeal to a broader base of customers. Although it will do business with all creditworthy customers, the Native American Bank wears its name proudly.
Colbert said he once thought the best strategy was to plant numerous small, tribally owned banks. Now he see a Native American Bank with numerous branches as the way to reach underserved markets.
Colbert, 50, expects he will need 10 to 15 years for the bank’s vision to take hold as it gradually builds the consensus and forges the coalitions it needs.
“Indian Country is large and profound,” Keen said. If anyone can help bring it together, Colbert is that person, he added.
Staff writer Aldo Svaldi can be reached at 303-820-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com.
Because of a reporting error, this story incorrectly stated that a settlement in a federal lawsuit by
Elouise Cobell and others could benefit tribal governments. The lawsuit concerns the management of individual Indian trusts.
Various tribes are pursuing separate lawsuits regarding the management of tribal trusts.
