At the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s first Tribal Transportation Conference, "We’re Building More Than Just Roads," a three-day event on April 23-25, 2007, in Green Bay, the UW Law School’s Great Lakes Indian Law Center received one of WisDOT’s first Tribal Excellence Awards, marking the successful collaboration of WisDOT with tribal governments over the last few years.

The conference was sponsored by WisDOT, the Federal Highways Administration, the UW Law School’s Great Lakes Indian Law Center, and the American Indian Chamber of Commerce and American Indian Construction & Trades Association.

At the conference, WisDOT brought together professionals from federal, tribal, and state organizations to increase their skills in understanding the government-to-government relationship between the tribes of Wisconsin and WisDOT.

The event was  intended to bring professionals together in a cooperative spirit, using the ongoing exchange of ideas as a means to build new friendship and new bridges between governments and service agencies. The goal was to send attendees home with a deeper understanding of how to provide culturally appropriate services to tribal communities.

Individuals encouraged to attend included tribal environmental and transportation staff; tribally elected government officials, members of tribal planning departments, WisDOT employees, elected government officials and administrators, state program coordinators and contract administrators, and representatives from American Indian-owned businesses.

Submitted by on April 20, 2007

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