Joseph Austin is a citizen of the Navajo Nation. He is the owner and managing attorney of The Law Office of Joseph Austin, Esq., a duly registered law office on the Navajo Nation.

He holds the following degrees:

1. Bachelor of Science (BS) in Business Administration and Management from the University of Arizona, Eller College of Management;
2. Law Degree (JD) from the University of Arizona, College of Law along with a certificate in Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy;
3. Master of Laws (LLM) in International Economic Law & Policy with a focus in International Trade; and
4. Currently writing a dissertation on Navajo Courts and Navajo Common Law to obtain his Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD).

He serves as an Associate Justice for the following courts:

1. Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Court of Appeals;
2. Supreme Court of the Ft. McDowell Yavapai Nation; and
3. Court of Appeals for the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana.

In addition to practicing law, he co-founded and serves as the CEO of The ACES School, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which focuses on educating Native Nations and people on topics relating to tribal economic development, international trade and business, business/corporate law, and federal Indian law. Mr. Austin splits his time between his two residences on the Navajo Nation and Tucson, AZ with his wife Sara and their fur baby Sodazen. His tenacious and staunch advocacy of indigenous sovereignty earned him the nickname “The Wolf of Indian Country.”

As a leader of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana for nearly three decades and tribal chairman from 1973 to 1985, Ernest Sickey was a trailblazer in the evolution of Indian affairs in the southeastern United States. He is best known for leading his own tribal community from legal obscurity to becoming the first tribe recognized by the state of Louisiana in 1972. Sickey also played an instrumental role in securing government-to-government status for the Coushatta tribe, laying the foundation for multiple economic ventures that have since placed the Coushatta among Louisiana’s top employers.

Sickey served as an advisor to the Coushatta Tribal Council and to other tribal governments in addressing economic and social development. Sickey lobbied the Louisiana legislature to create an Office of Indian Affairs, for which he served as its first executive director, and was among the founders of the Louisiana Inter-Tribal Council and Institute for Indian Development.

Chad Johnson is the President and CEO of The Akana Group, Inc., a Native American-owned business focused on building strategic partnerships with the federal government and Native Nations. Akana supplies equipment to over 300 Native Nations and is the only Native-owned company to partner with John Deere. Recently, Mr. Johnson and his team incorporated Akana in Australia and negotiated joint venture agreements with Australia and indigenous Australian companies for the sale of equipment, becoming the first Native-owned company to ever do so. Mr. Johnson has a long history of dealing with global logistics, trade compliance, and government contracting. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in business administration, a Masters Degree in International Economics, a Masters of Business Administration, a Juris Doctor, and a Master of Legal Studies.

Emily Tyson-Jorgenson is of Abenaki, French Canadian, and Irish ancestry. She is grateful for and honors all her ancestors. Emily moved from the east coast to Arizona to pursue her undergraduate studies at the University of Arizona, where she majored in Anthropology and minored in American Indian Studies. She then attended law school at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. While in law school, she completed internships with DNA – People’s Legal Services on the Navajo Nation and the United States Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona. After graduating in 2015 with her Juris Doctorate and Certificate in Indigenous People’s Law and Policy, Emily’s legal career path took her to the practice of criminal law. She worked as a trial prosecutor at the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Santa Fe, New Mexico and then focused on criminal appeals in the Offices of the Attorney General for the states of New Mexico and Arizona. Recently, Emily has been practicing insurance defense at Lorber, Greenfield & Olsen, LLP. Emily is licensed to practice law in both Arizona and New Mexico.

Wendy Riker Purnell worked with Austin, Crepelle, and Ernest Sickey before they founded the ACES School. Prior to joining ACES, she helped build the Renewing Indigenous Economies Project at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University to remove barriers to self-governance and entrepreneurship for Native nations in the former British colonies and beyond.

Wendy co-founded IndigenousEcon.org, dedicated to meaningful sovereignty for Indigenous nations. Working with the Tulo Centre for Indigenous Economics, she helped launch the inaugural First Nations Leading the Way conference. In a minor, supporting, behind-the-scenes role, she helped bring a Hawaiian origin story to life with the film Stones, which premiered as part of the Sundance Film Festival’s inaugural Indigenous Shorts program in 2011. In recent years, she has helped coordinate Montana State University Library’s Tribal College Librarians Institute.

Wendy has always worked to advance ideas and the principles of sound governance. In Central Europe, she focused on media literacy and the re-emergence of civil society post totalitarianism. In Central America, she worked on rights-based biodiversity conservation and economic development efforts with Paso Pacífico. In the US, Wendy has worked at the intersection of academia, education, and public policy with students and scholars at the Institute for Humane Studies, the Cato Institute, and the Property and Environment Research Center.