The Cowlitz Indian Tribe has welcomed its first non-elected chief operating officer in the tribe’s history.
Kent Caputo, the tribe’s COO, was introduced to the tribe’s membership during its bi-annual meeting in November. Caputo, who has experience working with the tribe and in Southwest Washington, was hired because of the “significant growth and development” the tribe has experienced, in part as a result of ilani which opened nearly five years ago.
Caputo has more than 30 years of experience in executive and legal positions. He worked at the Capitol in Olympia and was in a COO position for the Kalispel Tribal Economic Authority. He most recently served as general counsel and chief commercial officer for Northwest Innovation Works, a China-backed company that proposed a $2 billion methanol refinery facility in Kalama.
In that capacity, Caputo said he worked with the tribe on expanded cultural and environmental mediation. The company ultimately decided to end its lease after the Washington State Department of Ecology denied a key permit for the facility. Caputo said his interest in the region piqued through his work with Northwest Innovation Works, which led him to enter talks about employment with the tribe.
Though his current position is new, Caputo noted he has a history of working with the Cowlitz Indian Tribe in prior phases of his career. Much of his work as an attorney involved tribes. He also helped the Cowlitz Tribe as they sought federal recognition and a reservation.
“The tribe has gone through immense change just in the last few years,” Caputo said.
Since he started in his new role for the tribe, Caputo has been working to get a handle on the Cowlitz Tribe’s priorities on growth as he spends time with tribal leadership to gain some perspective on the issue.
Caputo said his job entails being the “lead staffer” who oversees the tribe’s governmental functions, as well as growing and overseeing business elements of the tribe. His current job is similar to the role he held with the Kalispel Tribe, where Caputo had oversight of its businesses, which included the tribe’s casino resort and a number of government services. Caputo noted the Cowlitz Tribe has its own gaming authority for ilani, which he works closely with to oversee the tribe’s most prominent venture.
Unlike tribes who received federal recognition decades ago, the Cowlitz received it in 2000. That resulted in a wider scope of where it operates, with resources in Tukwila, DuPont and Vancouver, alongside its headquarters in Longview and its reservation in north Clark County.
“When we think about the services we want to grow for our tribal members … we have to think well beyond having that one central location here in Southwest Washington where those services get provided,” Caputo said.
Those resources include health and human services for the Cowlitz’s roughly 4,700 members, as well as entertainment and hospitality business opportunities, which are currently most evident through ilani and on the reservation.
Caputo has a philosophy of not only working for the good of the tribe, but also the neighboring community at large.
“You want your tribal members to be healthy, but they can only be as healthy as the community they’re a part of,” Caputo said.
A visible sign of that community partnership is the tribe’s recent donation of a fire truck to Clark-Cowlitz Fire Rescue. Caputo noted the fire district is experiencing its own rapid growth, alongside the area that surrounds the reservation.
Caputo said being the tribe’s COO is a “unique and personally rewarding opportunity” for him. Although he doesn’t have native blood himself, he said he has a personal and political affinity for tribes gleaned through his work.
In the few months he’s been working for the tribe, Caputo said he is impressed by the Cowlitz Tribe’s leadership and its staff.
“I do think these leaders with Cowlitz really have a very good sense of how to diversify in that marketplace, how to look at other business opportunities,” Caputo said, noting those opportunities benefit the tribe and aid the growing market demands in the region.
“This not only serves, I think, the purpose of really helping this tribe that I’ve come to love … but also in a community that can really use that economic growth,” Caputo said about his role.
