growing Spokane company owned and operated by a Nez Perce Indian woman is an active intermediary between the 560 Indian tribes in the U.S. and the federal government.


The woman, Jo Ann Kauffman, says she became frustrated in college with the high mortality rates and poor living conditions of American Indians and has worked for the past 16 years to improve them.


First as a Washington D.C. consultant, and then as a lobbyist there for Indians, Kauffmann has assumed work under many federal contracts focused on American Indians. In the last year and a half, her business, Kauffman & Associates Inc., has grown to 40 employees from 10.


We dont represent Indian groups, but act more as an intermediary between the hundreds of tribes in the U.S. and federal officials, she says. I think we are more effective for Indians now than when we were lobbying.


Currently, about 95 percent of the companys business is focused on American Indian issues, and that overall emphasis wont change, even though the U.S. Department of Education also is beginning to hire it for other purposes, Kauffman says.


She says her Native American background provides a real-life cultural perspective into tribal communities and gives Kauffman & Associates an edge when seeking federal contracts in which a sensitivity to Indian needs is a plus.


While in Washington, D.C., in 1989 with her husband, Tom Keefe, who then worked for U.S. Sen. Brock Adams, D-Wash., Kauffman spent a year as a consultant working on Indian concerns, then launched her company in 1990 as a one-person lobbying firm focusing on the same specialty. Keefe, an attorney, has provided the firms legal counsel since 1993.


It was the desire to move the family away from the congestion of Washington, D.C., to a slower, reservation environment that prompted Kauffman and Keefe to move to Kamiah, Idaho, in 1994. There, the family lived in Kauffmans grandparents old allotment home, renovated it, then moved into another home they bought. The allotment home became the office for Kauffman & Associates.


Because of the same family-first thinking, the family and business moved again, to Spokane, in 2000, she says. The move here provided a better educational opportunity for the youngest three of their four children, who now range in age from 16 to 31, she says. Also, Keefe ran unsuccessfully here for a seat in Congress in 2000.


The move to Spokane helped Kauffman & Associates grow by providing access to a highly-trained work force, Kauffman says. Another key growth ingredient came when the company qualified for the U.S. Small Business Associations Section 8 (a) designation. That nine-year designation allows the federal government to contract with Kauffman & Associates without having to advertise for bids, which has led to several new contracts.


Originally from Seattle, Kauffman earned a bachelors degree from Western Washington University and a masters degree in public health from the University of California at Berkeley.


She says she travels about three times a month on three- to five-day trips to Washington, D.C., and other big cities where tribal leaders can gather readily. She says her employees, about half of them Native American and the remainder of mixed nationalities, travel almost as much.


In addition to Spokane, where 28 of the companys employees are based, Kauffman & Associates has branch offices in Kamiah; Sacramento, Calif.; and Washington, D.C.


Kauffman says the business has become a niche provider of management services to American Indians and now spends about one-third of its time on conference planning and logistics, about one-third on outreach and communication, and about one-third working with community businesses and organizations.


When we registered with the SBA, they said we were the only Native American management consulting firm in the state of Washington, she says.


Much of Kauffman & Associates work outside the scope of American Indians is coming as the DOE contracts with it to book, plan, and convene conferences and national conventions. Because of competence it has shown in arranging such events for American Indiansincluding a 700-person gathering of educators, tribal members, and students in Albuquerque, N.M., requested by President Bushthe DOE is currently asking the firm to schedule and plan other non-Indian events, says Kauffman.


We are now handling from 10 to 15 federal government contracts ranging in value from $25,000 to $1 million, she says.


Kauffman says her company had revenues of $3.2 million last year, is contracted for revenues of $5 million or more this year, and could expand that figure to as high as $25 million and have as many as 200 employees in the next five years, as it expands its service base.


The biggest project Kauffman & Associates currently is working on is as a $1 million subcontract on a giant sexual abstinence program. In that effort, the company began working for a Rockville, Md., concern that has a one-year contract with the federal government to promote sexual abstinence to a wide range of youth populations nationwide. Kauffman & Associates is focusing that message toward American Indians as its part of the effort.


We see the need to target the message to the parents of youth so they can have meaningful discussions with their children, she says. That message could resonate in Indian Country.


The companys on-the-ground approach to the problem is to set up 10 outreach efforts this year to disseminate sexual-abstinence information and share that message at major Indian events. She says federal funding for the second year of the abstinence project has been authorized.


A second large contract deals with the Indian population and substance abuse. Kauffman says the company is doing a series of studies on what interventions are effective in preventing bullying, violence, and suicide, each of which she says can be closely related to substance abuse.


Another example of a smaller, more gratifying project Kauffman & Associates has under contract is Project Jump Start, a program in which the Spokane-based company finds and assists businesses owned by American Indians. Two years ago, Kauffman & Associates provided marketing analysis information, gave imaging (such as logo design) direction to, and helped launch Web sites for 50 Indian enterprises. A second phase of that project to give the same type of assistance to 40 more businesses is currently under way in the Eastern Washington-North Idaho area, Oklahoma, western New York, and Alaska, says Kauffman. She says 10 businesses are being targeted for assistance in each of those four geographical locations.


The two phases of Project Jump Start have been funded for $250,000 each. At a $500,000 total to find and work with 90 companies, that amounts to about $5,500 for each company, causing Kauffman to assert, The federal government is getting a pretty good deal.


Part of Kauffman & Associates ongoing role with the Department of Education is to provide specific outreach and communication services to about 1,200 school districts in the U.S. that have a significant American Indian population.


Last year, Kauffman & Associates bought the two-story, 22,000-square-foot former Spokane Care Services detoxification center at 165 S. Howard, and now is remodeling it at a cost of about $500,000 to put its local employees under one roof.


The type of work we do requires a high degree of collaboration and creativity, and working at one location will save us a lot of time and money, Kauffman says.


Next month, Kauffman & Associates plans to occupy the 7,000-square-foot second floor in the building, lease out the ground floor, and let the new Howard Street Boxing Club, of which the Kauffmans youngest son is an active member, use the basement.


Baker Construction & Development Inc., of Spokane, is general contractor for that work; Restoration Specialists Inc., of Spokane, is doing most of the remodeling; and Womer & Associates Inc., of Spokane, is the architect, Kauffman says.


Kauffman & Associates currently employs 21 people in about 2,000 square feet of space at 425 W. First, and seven more in about 700 square feet of space at 10 N. Post, where last year it bought and retained the staff of Insight Web Design Inc., of Spokane.


They (from Web Design) have dramatically improved our in-house ability for communications, and enhanced our ability to reach beyond Indian tribes, says Kauffman.


Contact Rocky Wilson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at rockyw@spokanejournal.com.