As part of the celebration of Native American Heritage Month, the Biden-Harris Administration recognized the largest group of Native American federal officials and senior staff to date, including the first Native Cabinet Secretary, Secretary Deb Haaland.
Throughout her career in public service, Secretary Haaland has broken barriers and opened doors of opportunity for future generations.
After running for New Mexico Lieutenant Governor in 2014, Secretary Haaland became the first Native American woman elected to lead a State Party.
She is one of the first Native American women to serve in Congress, where she focused on environmental justice, climate change, missing and murdered indigenous women, and family-friendly policies.
She made history by becoming the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary in the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Secretary Haaland belongs to the Pueblo of Laguna and is a 35th-generation New Mexican. She grew up in a military family, where her father was a 30-year combat Marine who was awarded the Silver Star Medal for saving six lives in Vietnam, and her mother is a Navy veteran who served as a federal employee for 25 years at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Secretary Haaland attended 13 public schools as a military child before graduating from Highland High School in Albuquerque.
As a single mother, Secretary Haaland volunteered at her child’s preschool to afford early childhood education.
Like many parents, she had to rely on food stamps at times as a single parent, lived paycheck-to-paycheck, and struggled to put herself through college.
At the age of 28, Haaland enrolled at the University of New Mexico (UNM), where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in English.
She later earned her J.D. from UNM Law School. Secretary Haaland and her child, who also graduated from the University of New Mexico, are still paying off student loans.
Secretary Haaland ran her own small business producing and canning Pueblo Salsa, served as a tribal administrator at San Felipe Pueblo, and became the first woman elected to the Laguna Development Corporation Board of Directors, overseeing business operations of the second-largest tribal gaming enterprise in New Mexico.
She successfully advocated for the Laguna Development Corporation to create policies and commitments to environmentally friendly business practices.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been tasked with…
Brown and Caldwell, a leading environmental engineering and construction firm,…
Humboldt State University, one of four campuses within the California…
