Chairman John “Rocky” Barrett

Personal

John “Rocky” Barrett is a native of Shawnee, Oklahoma and a graduate of Shawnee High School in 1962. He did his undergraduate study at Princeton University, the University of Oklahoma, and Oklahoma City University. He earned a Batchelors of Science degree in business at Oklahoma City University, attended the Graduate School of Business at OCU, and was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Commercial Sciences from St. Gregory’s University.

The son of Jack and Annetta (Peltier) Barrett, he grew up in the two worlds of oil field on his father’s side and Potawatomi Indian on his mother’s. His maternal grandparents were Oliver and Ozetta (Bourassa) Peltier. Oliver served on the Tribal Business Committee in the 1940’s and was the Bureau of Indian Affairs Federal Marshall at the Shawnee Indian Agency. Both Oliver and Ozetta’s fathers were elected tribal officials, as were their grandfathers back to the 1860’s on the Kansas Reservation. Two of Rocky’s uncles served as Tribal Chairman, Raymond and Gerald Peltier, and one as Secretary-Treasurer, Kenneth Peltier.

Rocky was elected as Tribal Chairman in 1985. He has served the tribe as an elected official for over 27 years, beginning with his first position as Vice Chairman in 1971. He is also president of Barrett Drilling Company, an independent oil and gas production and land development company, and Barrett Land and Cattle Company, a registered Angus cattle ranch.

He is an active member of Emmanuel Episcopal Church and is a licensed lay reader in the Episcopal Church. He has enjoyably served the community as a volunteer for various clubs and organizations, including the Lions Club, Shawnee Quarterback Club coach and umpire, Shawnee Little Theater, Mayor’s Advisory Board, Pottawatomie County Historical Society Board of Directors, and as a Boy Scouts of American Troop Leader. Mr. Barrett is the father of two sons, Josh and Jack, and the proud grandfather to three grandchildren, Emmaline, Jackson, and Kate. He likes to play golf, hunt and fish, and is an enthusiastic cook, aspiring musician, and avid sports fan. With a passion for Potawatomi history, he is working on a book about the Tribe.

Chairman Barrett has received national acclaim as a tribal leader, public speaker and Native American advocate. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of First National Bank of Shawnee, on the Board of Directors of St. Gregory’s University, the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission, the national Tribal Self Governance Advisory Committee, and the Native Nations Institute International Advisory Board.

He participated in the United Nations Working Group On Indigenous Populations (WGIP) of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland which resulted in the Declaration On Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2007, one of five elected tribal officials from the United States to do so. He also was a guest participant in the International Council of Indigenous Kings hosted by the Mahareshi Foundation in Vlodrop, Holland.

He has served as a director of the Omniplex Air and Space Museum in Oklahoma City, a delegate to the National Congress of American Indians, National Tribal Chairmen’s Association, the Oklahoma City Area Indian Health Advisory Board, and as an officer in the United Tribes of Western Oklahoma and Kansas. He was a founder of the National Indian Action Contractor’s Association.

Business

Rocky started in the family business at age 15, working summers, holidays, and many weekends as a roughneck on oil well drilling rigs. After graduation from college he became a plywood salesman for United States Plywood Corporation and then was promoted to Architectural Service Representative, writing commercial building product specifications for architects. When the opportunity to superintend a 360 unit apartment project came along, he left sales to enter the housing construction business, eventually building over 500 housing units and several commercial and industrial projects.

Elected as Tribal Vice-Chairman in 1972 after appointment to a vacancy in 1971, Rocky served one term in office and was offered the opportunity to run the intertribal organization for the five tribes in the Shawnee Agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Barrett founded a vocational training program for adult Indians in the building trades, CTSA, which became a successful construction company, building several projects for the Iowa, Kickapoo, Sac and Fox, Absentee Shawnee, and Citizen Potawatomi tribes, including four of their first tribal headquarters buildings.

Returning to the oil well drilling business with the boom of 1978, he became a driller and toolpusher, earning certification in Red Adair’s first Wild Well Control School at the University of Oklahoma to fight oil well blowouts. He was a driller on Unit Drilling Company’s first well over 21,000 feet in 1980 and stayed in the drilling business until the bust of 1982. In 1982 he became the Tribal Administrator for the Citizen Band Potawatomi Indian Tribe, running the daily operations. He ran for Tribal Chairman and was elected in 1985.

Since the Citizen Potawatomi Nation did not then pay its elected officials, in 1986 the newest refinery in the United States went up for sale in the Federal Bankruptcy Court and presented a personal opportunity to good to pass up. Serving as Tribal Chairman and as the owner of Barrett Refining Corporation from 1986 to 1996, Rocky operated two oil refineries in Oklahoma and Mississippi, producing over $500,000,000 in military aircraft fuels and another $300,000,000 in other petroleum products, becoming the largest minority-owned oil refining company in the United States in 1993.

Tribal

With the rapid growth of tribal operations, Chairman Barrett began full-time service as a salaried elected official in 1996. As the chief elected official of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, he is empowered under the Tribal Constitution to manage the day to day business and governmental affairs of the Nation and see that the laws of the Nation are faithfully enforced. He also chairs a sixteen member Tribal Legislature that enacts the resolutions and ordinances under which the tribe is governed, including appropriation of all monies which the government is empowered to spend.

As author of the Constitutional Revision of 1985 which allowed absentee voting for all adult members of the tribe, Barrett started the Regional Council Meetings and appointed Regional Council Representatives to provide renewed contact with the population outside of Oklahoma. This led to the present Tribal Legislature created in the 2007 Constitution and statutes. These governmental reforms have led to the Nation’s extended period of stability and progress.