Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest J. Gerard today announced the appointment of James L. Sansaver as Special Assistant in the area of trust services.
Sansaver, a member of the Assiniboine-Sioux Tribes of the Ft. Peck Reservation, will work on the Assistant Secretary's immediate staff in matters involving natural resource programs and the strengthening of tribal governments.
An attorney from Wolf Point. Montana, Sansaver was admitted to the Montana Bar in 1961, practiced general law in his hometown form 1961 to 1969, and served as Montana County Attorney for two terms from 1961 to 1962.
Sansaver served in the BIA Billings Area Office as Chief, Division of Rights Protection, 1974 to 1976, and Chief, Division of Resource Development 1976 to present. He has also served in the BIA as a water rights liaison officer and tribal relations specialists an attorney in the Office of the Commissioner, Washington, D.C.
Gerard said that Sansaver's experience and education would provide "expertise urgently needed in dealing with the multi-faceted situations which involve the Indian tribes' natural resources, the Nation's energy needs and the knowledge of tribal government as it relates to resource development."
Educated at the University of Montana, Sansaver earned his B.A. in history and political science in 1957, L.D.D. in 1961 and J.D. in 1970. From 1976 to 1977. he was U.S. C.S.C. Fellow in the Woodrow Wilson School of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia.
Sansaver, a member of the American Indian Bar Association, has served as legal rights consultant to the National Tribal Chairmen's Association (1971-1974), Montana International Policy Board, and the Native American Natural Resource Development Federation of the Northern Great Plains Tribes (1974-1976).
Sansaver, who is married and has three children, included in the 1978-79 Who's who in America series on Who's who in the West (16 Edition).
