Planning run for Congress, CEO to step down

The head of the Colville Tribes’ business arm is stepping down and has announced he’ll make a second attempt to unseat Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers in her next election.

Joe Pakootas, 57, told the Tribal Tribune in a story published Dec. 23, that he plans to step down as chief executive officer of the Colville Tribal Federal Corporation after his contract ends Jan. 5.

Pakootas is finishing a five-year term as CEO, a record, and is the 25th head of the corporation. Pakootas, a former chair of the Colville Business Council, noted that most CEOs of CTFC have lasted from 10-12 months on the job.

He has his eyes on the 2016 congressional elections and said he plans to run again then. He garnered about 40 percent of the vote in November when he challenged McMorris Rodgers, the Republican fifth district incumbent.

Pakootas told the paper he had no employment plans for the immediate future, but he would like to “find a position where I could still be involved in either Tribal government or business.”

Pakootas, who holds an executive masters degree in business administration from the University of Washington, is credited with turning the tribal businesses profitable, working their way out of $8.1 million in debt and refinancing some $26 million. CTFC was formed to operate profitable tribal businesses, protecting them from those hard hit in the recession, which remained in the older CTEC (Colville Tribal Enterprise Corporation) organization.

“In the past year, we’ve distributed close to $17 million to the Tribes, also the corporation was showing close to a $7 million net profit for the total corporation,” Pakootas told the Tribune.