Tribal business signs installed on highways

Signs were being installed this week alongside highways on the Wind River Reservation to bring attention to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes’ Tribal Employment Rights Office (TERO).

The Wind River tribes are paying the Wyoming Department of Transportation to manufacture and install the signs at nine locations along state and U.S. highways where the highways travel through the Wind River Reservation.

“This type of cooperation represents a long-standing and continuing partnership between WYDOT and the Wind River tribes,” said WYDOT Chief Engineer Gregg Fredrick.

Locations for the TERO signs include U.S. 20 at the north and south ends of Wind River Canyon.

The blue and white informational signs give a telephone number for tribes’ TERO office near Fort Washakie.

“TERO ordinances require that all employers who are engaged in operating a business on reservations give preference to qualified Native Americans in all aspects of employment, contracting and other business activities,” said Wind River Reservation TERO Director Stanford St. Clair. “The mission of the TERO program is to assist the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes in developing effective Indian preference laws and TERO programs and to ensure that the native people receive their basic entitlement to employment, business and entrepreneurial opportunities on and near the Wind River Indian Reservation.”