Reflecting the increasing Indian Bureau emphasis on encouraging the growth of industry around Indian reservations, Acting Secretary of the Interior Hatfield Chilson today announced the appointment of Noel Sargent, a longtime principal staff member of the National Association of Manufacturers, as consultant on the Bureau’s industrial development program and creation of a new branch of industrial development in the Bureau’s Washington office.
As direct representative of Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons, Mr. Sargent will establish contacts with the top management officers of industrial firms encouraging them to locate new plants in communities near the reservations and thus enlarge the opportunities for Indian employment. He will also develop contacts concerning these projects with local community leaders and local tribal groups.
Mr. Sargent is scheduled to leave August 19 for his first trip to tribal areas in Minnesota and North and South Dakota.
The new branch of industrial development is being established in the Bureau's Division of Tribal Programs and Relocation which has been renamed the Division of Economic Development to reflect its expanded functions. The head of the new branch has not yet been selected.
A native of Bellingham, Washington, and graduate of the University of Washington in 1915, Mr. Sargent now lives in Garden City, N. Y., and has been on the staff of the National Association of Manufacturers in a variety of top positions since 1920. During the national defense period prior to Pearl Harbor, he organized the NAM’s war production committee, which established the basis for subsequent cooperation between industry and many government agencies. Following Pearl Harbor, he organized the Association’s activities dealing with war contract termination and disposal of surplus government property.
In 1950 he assumed the duties of secretary of the United States Inter-American Council which is the United States section of a hemisphere organization with headquarters in Montevideo, Uruguay, devoted to promoting the principles of free enterprise. In November that same year he participated as a voting delegate in the Cleveland meeting at which the new National Council of Churches was formed (replacing the Federal Council of Churches and eight other inter-denominational agencies). Since then he has been primarily associated with several different departments and branches of the National Council. He holds an honorary LL. D. degree from Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, and is a trustee of Westminster Choir College, Princeton, N. J.
