Members of the Omaha Tribe along with NICC administration and AmeriCorps volunteers inside of the NICC’s new earth lodge. Photo by Tyler Ayres

Kodi Urquidi, the carpentry instructor at Nebraska Indian Community College (NICC), has plans for his students that extend far beyond hanging sheetrock or framing pole barns. Although he’ll be teaching students that and more this fall at the NICC’s Macy and Santee campuses, his vision reaches past the walls of the classroom and encompasses the whole of the Omaha and Santee reservations.

Urquidi has instructed carpentry at the NICC for more than eight years. He started as an adjunct instructor at just 20 years of age, although by that time he had already accumulated professional experience working with drywall, plaster, concrete, and traditional carpentry. He was ready for a change of pace when he found a position at the NICC.

“I knew pretty soon after I started that this was the job for me,” Urquidi explained. “I fell in love with teaching the people of the Omaha and Santee tribes a skill that they can hold onto for a lifetime.” After his class, he said, the ball is in his students’ court.

Financial sovereignty is important for any community, Urquidi continued, but especially for Native American communities on reservations. “The ultimate goal, the real reason why I teach, is to equip my students with the skills to find good work or even start their own business.”

In addition to classes which focus on professionally applicable skills, Urquidi will also teach construction theory, the first portion of which will have students learning to construct traditional teepees. Students will also finish the construction of an earth lodge, a permanent structure traditional to the Omaha tribe. The earth lodge project was started by members of the NICC community earlier this year with help from AmeriCorps volunteers.

Equipping tribal members with employable skills is just a part of what motivates Urquidi to teach at the NICC. The second half of the equation has to do with the sustainability of the economic ecosystems on Native American reservations, which can’t benefit to the fullest extent from increased employment until production and supply chains start and end with Native populations. Ideally, Urquidi’s students will go on to invigorate their communities with entrepreneurship so that Native dollars aren’t funneled off-reservation but are instead reinvested back into the tribes. “We need to meet the needs of the people of both the Santee and Omaha Nations so that they can be self-sufficient,” Urquidi said. “The construction industry is one of the top industries in the economy today and is a great place to start moving toward real financial sovereignty.”