Appointment of Robert L. Bennett, a veteran of nearly 25 years' service with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as Area Director for the Bureau at Juneau, Alaska, was reported today by the Department of the Interior.
An Oneida Indian and native of Wisconsin, Bennett has been serving as Assistant Area Director at the Bureau's area office at Aberdeen, South Dakota, since 1958. At Juneau he succeeds James E. Hawkins who has been Area Director there for the past five years and who will be given another assignment in the Bureau.
Bennett first came with the Bureau in 1933 and has served at the Unitah and Ouray, Navajo, and Consolidated Ute Agencies, in the Washington office, and at Aberdeen.
Mr. Bennett is a 1931 graduate of Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas, and holds a law degree from Southeastern University, Washington, D. C. He was inducted into the Marine Corps in 1945 and later served three years with the Veterans' Administration.
The Alaska native population served by the Bureau of Indian Affairs comprises Eskimos, Aleuts, and Indians, who have long standing and unresolved problems of land ownership and use, health, education, and economic opportunity.
