Chief Operating Officer, Oneida Indian Nation and Oneida Nation Enterprises, LLC

My name is Pete Carmen, I'm the chief operating officer for the Oneida Indian Nation and its enterprises. Well, I work very closely with the Oneida Indian Nation leadership and helping them set strategies and priorities and then implement them which includes helping them run the day to day operations of multiple businesses as well as the administration, everything from human resources and legal, to IT, and then the operation of the businesses themselves. The Oneida Indian Nation has a lot of businesses and including hospitality, entertainment, recreation, and gaming. And the Oneida Nation has a large resort with a casino and then it has a second casino and there's a discussion about whether to build a third casino. And so, I would be involved right from the beginning of helping to shape the decision of whether or not to build the casino and then once we decide to do that, overseeing everything from the very beginning of selecting architects and builders, to hiring staff, to figuring out how to fund it, and then you need to really get involved in the strategic discussions about what kind of a program you're going to have there so we're not just duplicating the businesses that we already have. So, it's a lot of work involving a lot of people and a lot of decisions. The businesses that the Oneida Indian Nation runs would be complex in any scenario but now you add on to that the layer that it's a sovereign Indian nation and dealing with all of the principles associated with that and the fact that the sovereign Indian nation is interacting with other governments from the United States, to the State of New York, to local counties, to the local town, the sewer district, and you have to deal with all of these different governments while still preserving the Indian nation sovereignty and you need to get the project done. And so, it does add a lot of complication but it makes it a lot more interesting that way.