Michigan tribes make investments exterior of gaming to learn residents

Since 2012, Dowagiac-based Mno-Bmadsen has been borrowing a web page from Warren Buffett’s buy-and-hold playbook by investing in companies exterior of gaming that return dividends to the residents of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi.

So far, the technique has paid off for the tribe’s non-gaming funding arm, which has constructed a portfolio of 20 companies that collectively generated $200 million in income and make use of about 700 individuals, principally in Michigan and Indiana. The agency’s intentional funding focus within the areas {of professional} providers, development, manufacturing and industrial actual property has yielded a “multiplying effect” as new firms come into the fold and add new expertise and income that Mno-Bmadsen can then reinvest in extra progress, stated CEO Julio Martinez.

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Martinez’s imaginative and prescient for the agency is a grand one. He envisions Mno-Bmadsen greater than doubling revenues and worker headcount in lower than 5 years. The government is charting a path towards $500 million in income and round 1,400 staff by 2030. He stated Mno-Bmadsen hopes to attain that concentrate on via a mix of rising present portfolio firms and buying new ones. One rising market wherein Mno-Bmadsen would possibly scout new offers is the utility sector, together with energy technology and distribution, he stated.

“We’re kind of at an inflection point,” Martinez advised Crain’s Grand Rapids Business. “We’re going to have a really good year this year, which will allow us to kind of spring forward in the next two years. If we can keep that up, I could see (revenue) doubling in five years, which would be fantastic. That might be too aggressive, but I think that could happen.”

The projected progress for Mno-Bmadsen, together with different Michigan-based tribal funding and financial growth arms, comes on the heels of main growth of their financial affect within the state of Michigan.

A examine out in August discovered that Michigan’s 12 federally acknowledged tribes generated $1.24 billion in whole non-gaming financial spinoff in 2024 throughout 78 tribal enterprise entities, up from $288 million when the subject was first studied 5 years in the past in a report that included 9 tribes. 

Grand Rapids-based Waséyabek Development Co. LLC, the non-gaming financial growth arm of the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi, can be focusing on an aggressive progress price. The agency is aiming for $275 million in income by the tip of its subsequent five-year strategic plan in 2028 and $1 billion in income by 2040.

Waséyabek ended final 12 months with $151 million in income and 402 staff, making it West Michigan’s largest minority-owned enterprise, based on Crain’s analysis. As of August, Waséyabek now has 660 staff throughout 34 enterprise entities and anticipates ending the 12 months with $174 million in income.

Deidra Mitchell, president and CEO of Waséyabek, stated the agency has its progress plan “all mapped out” via a method that features acquisitions and investments within the firms it already owns within the areas of protection, life sciences/medical manufacturing and actual property. 

Mitchell stated the agency made its final massive actual property funding till 2028 when it acquired Great Lakes Warehousing in a deal that additionally added 156 acres of undeveloped land in Holland to Waséyabek’s portfolio. The agency is now contemplating choices for creating the property as a part of its five-year plan.

Though it doesn’t but have a brand new acquisition deliberate, Waséyabek’s subsequent deal would ideally complement present portfolio firms in life sciences and protection, aligning with its objective to make the world a safer and more healthy place, Mitchell stated.

“If we could find a company to invest in that offers services and products in both the defense industry and the medical and life science industry, that would be great,” she stated. “Something that seems like it would fit that would be a manufacturing company that serves both of those industries.”

Mitchell additionally stated Waséyabek joined Michigan Capital Network’s new defense-related enterprise capital fund as a passive investor to get a primary take a look at new funding alternatives with out having to do its personal evaluation of rising markets.

“If there are emerging companies (from that fund), then we could partner with them via our existing companies to offer expanded services to the federal government, and/or we could get kind of a first look and some knowledge about these companies that will be in the fund (to see if) there are opportunities to invest in them or perhaps acquire them down the road,” she stated.

Gun Lake Investments, the funding arm of the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi, or Gun Lake Tribe, can be poised to generate huge progress for the tribe and West Michigan’s financial system within the coming years. 

In addition to a portfolio of actual property, retail and manufacturing firms, the agency is main a sweeping mixed-use redevelopment of almost 2,000 acres alongside U.S. 131 in Wayland and Wayland Township, close to Gun Lake Casino. The challenge, which can unfold over the following a number of a long time, is predicted to incorporate inexpensive housing, industrial area and light-weight industrial.

Diversification pattern

The efforts Michigan tribes are making to diversify their revenues suits inside a broader sample of tribes throughout Indian Country striving to construct wealth and self-sufficiency exterior gaming. 

A 2025 analysis by the Center for Indian Country Development discovered tribal enterprise holdings now span all main sectors, with tribes proudly owning almost 3 times as many companies exterior leisure and hospitality (4,100) as inside it (1,459). Some of the highest industries embody schooling and well being providers, skilled and enterprise providers, and commerce, transportation and utilities.

Eric Henson, an adjunct lecturer in public coverage on the Harvard Kennedy School and a analysis fellow/affiliate with the Harvard Project on Indigenous Governance and Development, stated it’s essential for tribes to proceed rising their financial output, since tribes assist themselves and their members based mostly on enterprise growth somewhat than by taxation.

Gaming and hospitality revenues have been the most important and most dependable earnings stream throughout sectors, however the pandemic took an enormous chunk out of these revenues, he stated.

Although tribal gaming revenues have now recovered, reaching a report excessive of $43.9 billion in 2024, a $2 billion (4.6%) improve over 2023, per the National Indian Gaming Commission, Henson famous the pandemic illustrates that continued diversification is crucial.

“One thing that the tribes kind of saw with COVID is a number of tribes figured that they were diversifying into adjacent industries, like, if they had a casino that was doing OK, they built a hotel next door to it, and then they built a golf course next to that,” he stated. “But all those adjacent tourism industries were equally subjected to the same kind of market shock (during the pandemic).”

Henson pointed to success tales just like the joint venture between the Cherokee Nation and Oklahoma State University to develop the OSU Center for Osteopathic Medicine as one instance of the methods tribes may make investments a few of their sources into high-growth areas to diversify their revenues. The medical college opened in 2020 and is offering profession pathways for Indigenous college students whereas additionally serving to to handle the nation’s physician scarcity.

“The health care system in the United States is like a sixth of the total U.S. economy,” Henson stated. “A good health care system can be a set of profitable enterprises, and as the American population ages … I don’t see any way that the health care system is likely to get smaller as the baby boomers continue to get into their late 70s and into their 80s.”

Obstacles to progress

Mno-Bmadsen’s Martinez stated his optimism that the agency will hit its progress targets in the course of the subsequent 5 years is tempered by a couple of completely different obstacles, together with entry to funding capital, unstable commerce insurance policies on the federal stage underneath the Trump administration and continued excessive rates of interest.

“We’re relying somewhat now on growing the federal market, which we had been in for a while, starting in 2023,” he stated. “We spent a lot of money to build our federal group, and now we’re starting to land those big contracts, but geopolitical changes can affect that. We saw the change in the administration and there were just a lot of things that changed all of a sudden. … Everything is back on track now, but those are things that are beyond our control.”

Henson stated the present “wildly gyrating tariff regime” in Washington solely serves to underscore the purpose — tribes have to be on a “sustainable development path.”

“Take 8(a) defense contracting, which was a place many tribes have been going lately to diversify. Well, the feds in the last seven months have upended nearly every funding opportunity, and it’s just so chaotic out there, even with something like that that seemed pretty stable,” he stated.

He stated fortunately, tribal financial growth entities in Michigan appear to be heading in the right direction when it comes to clever governance and robust management.

“They’ve got these different pillars upon which they’re building their diversified portfolio, and it seems to be working,” he stated. “So it’s just thinking about, are you going to focus locally and geographically? Do you want to focus on particular industries? Do you want a wide-ranging geographic footprint? And if so, what does that look like? … You need to define your own success.”

Growing native, state economies

Jennifer Owens, president of Lakeshore Advantage, the financial growth group for Ottawa and Allegan counties, stated Waséyabek and Gun Lake Investments have each been key companions in rising the area’s financial system over the previous decade-plus. 

She expects that progress to proceed as GLI and Waséyabek develop plans so as to add gentle industrial actual property stock inside the two-county space as a part of GLI’s 1,800-acre U.S. 131 hall redevelopment and Waséyabek’s plan to develop the 156 acres it acquired in Holland in February.

“Both of the non-gaming arms have now acquired or own significant amounts of land and are working with our team on what are some of the hardest-to-find buildings or property developments that they can construct and potentially lease back to expanding businesses in the area,” Owens stated. 

She famous such partnerships are important at a time when industrial area is at a premium. Along the West Michigan lakeshore, the economic market emptiness price was at 3.6% within the second quarter of this 12 months, based on the latest industrial market report from NAI Wisinski of West Michigan.

“I think we’re just scratching the surface of our partnership, and I expect much more positive economic impact in the next five to 10 years as a result of those land acquisitions and some of the initial planning that’s going on,” Owens stated.

The non-gaming arms’ buy-and-hold methods are additionally serving to to maintain companies and expertise within the space. Waséyabek has acquired and invested in a number of firms within the two-county space, together with Zip Xpress, Green Transportation, Great Lakes Warehousing and Safari Circuits. Through these acquisitions, Waséyabek has helped retain and add jobs whereas additionally upgrading amenities and know-how, Owens stated. 

For occasion, when Waséyabek acquired Otsego-based Safari Circuits in 2022, an electronics producer that serves federal, automotive and medical markets, the corporate was going via “challenging financial times” and lacked the sources to put money into progress, Owens stated.

“Now having the tribe (as) owner, they do have access to resources to be able to invest in technology, equipment (and) train their staff as well, so they can compete and win business in the future.”

The tribes’ financial affect expands past simply West Michigan, state officers say.

Bradley Heffner, affiliate basic counsel and tribal liaison for the Michigan Economic Development Corp., stated tribes’ financial significance in Michigan “can’t be stated strongly enough.”

“In many instances, the tribal businesses are some of the largest employers in their communities, as well as in some of the more rural areas, especially in the Upper Peninsula,” he stated. “The tribes are providing services for non-tribal citizens, such as health care and different employment opportunities, that aren’t available in many of those communities.”

Tribes are additionally rising firms which can be changing into main suppliers to non-tribally owned companies, which then helps these firms’ backside traces and workforces as properly, Heffner stated.

“They’re expanding their culture, their sovereignty, their generational welfare for their own citizens, but they’re also having an impact on non-tribal citizens of Michigan,” he stated. “When tribal nations create business opportunities and employment opportunities, it’s not just for their own tribal citizens, it’s for the visitors, the consumers (and) the citizens of Michigan.”

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