Small business incubator Native FORGE has launched its first cohort in partnership with the San Carlos Apache Tribe of Arizona.

Find your next great idea, find your FORGE! Meet a mentor, win music festival tickets, get curious, and BUILD!

As a way to provide the training and skills needed to run a business, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management have developed programs geared to help Indigenous entrepreneurs. The University of Arizona will work with five Indigenous entrepreneurs from the San Carlos Apache Tribe as part of Native FORGE.

Arizona’s Native American tribes are getting help fostering entrepreneurship among their members from the University of Arizona’s business accelerator. Last week, Arizona FORGE (Finding Opportunities and Resources to Grow Entrepreneurs) picked the San Carlos Apache Tribe as the first participant in Native FORGE, a five-year effort to help advance Native American business startups across the state.

When shipping issues were hurting the hemp-oil business they founded in Chicago a few years ago, Kameron Norwood and partner David DiCosola decided to build their own packing and shipping operation. They ended up building a whole new company, PackDash, which caters to the logistical needs of small- to mid-size retailers. They moved the company headquarters to Tucson and opened a fulfillment center near downtown in August 2021.

Recently, the University of Arizona created Native FORGE to support Indigenous entrepreneurs from Arizona’s 22 federally recognized tribes. Lisa Mueller, Chair-Elect of the EDI committee, talked with Brian Ellerman, Founding Director of Arizona FORGE on the creation of Native FORGE, what’s next for the program, and how others can model a similar program.