Pdge 6
June 8, 2006
Spilyay Tymoo, Warm Springs, Oregon
Ventures pleased with thriving subsidiary
K ib a k T ile in
R ed m o n d sh ow s
im p re ssiv e g r o w th
B y M a ren C ohn
Warm Springs Ventures
W hen
Susanne
K ibak
Redfield happened to meet the
chief executive officer o f Warm
Springs Ventures back in 2002,
little did she realize what it
would mean for the tile painting
business she’d started in her
kitchen 21 years earlier.
Ventures was looking for
promising investment opportu
nities for the reservation’s eco
nomic development corpora
tion. And Kibak Tile needed a
capital infusion.
Step by step, the chance
meeting o f the two principals led
to a happy result: Ventures pur
chased a majority interest in
Kibak Tile in October, 2002.
Since then, despite some
struggles, the Ventures-Kibak
partnership has begun to reward
both parties.
Kibak Tile occupies a large,
open space in the middle o f an
old landmark building on Indus
trial Way in Redmond. Serving
as a munitions depot in WWI,
the structure has since under
gone several incarnations, and
presently houses a welder and
cabinet maker along with Kibak.
The physical space resembles
a mechanic’s shop more than an
art studio. Work tables run full
length down the middle o f the
room, supporting stacks o f tiles
that wait to be painted, while
other tiles in various stages o f
completion lie around individu
ally or in racks. Circles o f lamp
light dot the areas where the
painters sit.
Elsewhere in the room, tiles
are piled everywhere: boxes of
blanks at one end, completed
orders ready for packing at the
other, with packed boxes await
ing shipment squeezed in every
where else. Kilns line an entire
wall, fronted by large tables
where batches o f painted tiles
accumulate before and after fir
ing. Wooden shelves sagging
under the weight o f hundreds
o f plastic glaze bottles stand
across from them on the far
side. At one end o f the room,
two glass-paned offices look out
upon the artfully chaotic scene.
The room exudes the feeling
o f healthy activity. Four years
ago, though it held fewer work
ers, it looked much the same.
At that time, Kibak employed
eight p erson s, including
Redfield, the founder, designer,
and CEO, and general manager
Rebecca Wood. With a boom
and bust history, the company
had employed more people in
the past, but after 9/11 sales
dropped sharply.
“We took a nosedive after
September 11,” Wood says. “We
had a big contract with Disney
for a hotel, but they canceled it.
They had part o f the project
built and they actually tore it
down. N obody knew what
would happen, nobody wanted
to go ahead with plans to build
hotels, and that was a big part
o f our business. We lost a lot
o f work and our revenues fell.
It was too bad, because we’d
been doing okay before that.”
V e n tu re s in te re st
In the midst o f its slump,
Kibak was an ideal candidate for
Warm Springs Ventures’ inter
est. It was a local company with
solid distributor relationships all
over the U.S. Kibak had signifi
cant potential to stabilize and
grow, and it needed just the kind
o f infrastructure assistance Ven
tures could provide.
Also attractive to Ventures’
leadership was the possibility o f
eventually bringing Kibak onto
the reservation, where the com
pany might thrive as a Tribal
enterprise.
“We had the idea o f initiat
ing a ‘Three Tribes Tile’ prod
uct line,” a form er Ventures
board m em ber recalls. “We
could market it in other Native
American communities for use
in hotels or casinos, and sell to
outsiders as well.”
Ventures’ financial invest
ment enabled Kibak to purchase
new kilns, while its business and
administrative staff began to
provide various kinds o f inter
nal assistance. Since the restruc
turing o f Warm Springs Ven
tures began last summer, the
relationship between the two
companies has become even
closer. Ventures’ support has
meant that Redfield and Wood
could devote themselves to ex
panding K ibak’s product and
building up a larger customer
base.
“Working with the tribes and
the people at Ventures has been
great for us. It’s incredible to
work with J e f f and Sandra,”
Redfield says, referring to Ven
tures CFO J e f f Anspach and
Administrative Officer Sandra
Danzuka.
“They analyze our sales,
watch our numbers - they help
us see where we really stand.
Thanks to their support we feel
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Tile at Redmond Kibak Tile.
much more stable and confi
dent.”
Redfield’s sense o f stability
and confidence is not merely a
feeling: the numbers back her
up. Kibak has grown steadily in
every year since Ventures came
on the scene.
The company now employs
23 people and counting, and for
the past year has maintained
three times the number o f open
orders as in the past. “Where we
used to be working to fill 30 to
35 orders,” Wood says, “now we
have 130 going at a time.”
From sales o f $278,000 in
2002, down from $374,000 the
previous year, Kibak reached
$697,500 in 2005 and may hit
the million-dollar mark this year.
“We’re so far ahead this year
o f where we were at the same
time last year,” Wood says, “that
we’ll be very close. I f we don’t
quite get there it should happen
in the near future.”
With its location in Redmond,
Kibak has not been able to hire
tribal m em bers, but current
projects do include working
more closely with the tribes.
“We’re working with Lillian
Pitt to develop an artist line o f
gift tiles,” Redfield says. “We
plan to sell them out o f muse
ums, in airports, gift shops, that
kind o f thing.”
As for the Three Tribes Tile
line and getting Kibak onto the
reservation? That remains a vi
sion for the future.
“Our company and Ventures
would like to carry that out
someday,” Redfield says, “but
we’re just not there yet. We have
to fulfill the potential o f our
present location. We need to get
up to capacity here and stabi
lize the business.”
In the meantime, according
to Anspach and others, Kibak
is a thriving company that the
tribes can be proud o f own
ing.
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(AP) — After a divorce more than 20 years ago left Penny
Painter without financial support, she struggled to make ends
meet as a receptionist. Until one sunny day when she looked
out o f the office window and decided she’d rather be work
ing “out there.”
She filed her two week’s notice and picked up the tools
she inherited from her grandfather. “I decided to go into
construction because I could feasibly see myself taking care
o f my daughters and actually owning a home,” said Painter,
a Portland resident o f Klamath Modoc heritage.
“That’s something single parents don’t look forward at,
and I have a Flarley as o f June o f ’05 — that was my
ultimate goal.”
To the 18-year carpentry veteran and single mother of
three girls, a Harley she recently bought has come to sym
bolize time well-spent in the construction trades. After 23
years in the field, the 49-year old grandmother understands
the promise o f the trades.
She recently ended her career as a general contractor
and now works to recruit more American Indian men and
women to the trades as a work force development specialist
with Cooper Zietz Engineering in Portland.
In 2005, Painter began work on a grant administered
through the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Ameri
can Indian employment outreach initiative. The grant,
awarded to Cooper Zietz in 2004, is an attempt by O D O T
to increase the number o f American Indians working on
state highway and bridge projects.
Through joint recruiting efforts with Oregon tribes, em
ployers and state pre-apprenticeship programs, Painter has
been wildly successful at increasing the total number o f
Indian workers enrolled in construction apprenticeship pro
grams, with American Indian enrollment across all trades
increasing 115 percent in two years, according to Painter’s
grant analysis.
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