Daniel D. McDonald, Director of Tribal Resources Development for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, died Saturday, April 16.
A Nez Perce/Flathead Indian, McDonald was one of four program directors in the Bureau. His office was responsible for assisting Indians through the development of business enterprises, credit and financing, and manpower training and placement programs. It also provided technical assistance to tribes in road construction and maintenance. He was appointed to this position in April, 1974.
Funeral services and interment were to be held at St. Ignatius Montana on the Flathead Reservation where McDonald grew up.
McDonald came to Washington, D.C. in 1970 as Director of Intergovernmental Relations with the National Council on Indian opportunity.
From 1963 to 1970 McDonald was an Industrial Development Specialist for BIA on the Navajo Reservation. He was instrumental in the development of many new industries on the reservation. These included the establishment of the General Dynamics plant at Fort Defiance, Arizona; the establishment of the Fed-Mart store, first supermarket on the reservation and the Window Rock Motor Inn, both at Window Rock, Arizona; and the expansion of the Fairchild Semi-conductor Division at Shiprock, New Mexico, into the largest single employer of Indians in the Nation.
A World War II Marina veteran, McDonald graduated from the University of Montana and later did graduate work at George Washington University. He began his career with the BIA as a relocation assistant on the Fort Belknap Reservation at Harlem, Montana.
McDonald was the 9th of 13 children. His brother, Wyman McDonald is Superintendent of the BIA agency at Fort Hall, Idaho.
McDonald is survived by his wife, the former Gloria Gardipe of the Flathead Reservation, and four children.
