SPOKO Fuel generates minority business award

By RYAN LANCASTER

Staff Reporter

Spokane Tribe Enterprises, which operates SPOKO Fuel just West of Airway Heights, recently received the Rising Star Award in the 2009 University of Washington Minority Business of the Year Awards.

The award is given annually to a minority-owned company with at least $2 million in revenue that has experienced the highest percentage of revenue growth in Washington state between 2006 and 2008.

Spokane Tribe of Indians public relations director Jamie Sijohn said SPOKO Fuel is now the second leading fuel seller in the state and has been a huge part of the tribe's business success. The fueling station/convenience store chain opened in 2006 and there are now four locations around the Inland Northwest.

In the past three years the company's revenue has increased by 762 percent, due in large part to fuel and tobacco sales according to tribal councilman Mike Spencer.

The tribe is now working on plans to develop 145 acres adjacent to the Airway Heights SPOKO Fuel location into a casino complex with a 200-bed hotel and concert hall. Spokane Tribe Enterprises is in negotiations with federal and state authorities for permission to build the off-reservation casino and is completing an environmental impact statement. Sijohn said a public hearing will likely take place sometime in February.

On Monday, Dec. 14, Spencer and Sijohn met with staff at SPOKO Fuel to present the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation with a check for $1,464. In October SPOKO Fuel staff sold hundreds of pink paper ribbons to raise money for breast cancer research. Employee Mark Walden won a competition to see who could sell the most ribbons, bringing in about $800, more than half of the total amount collected. “We were running out of room on the walls,” one staff member said.

Ryan Lancaster can be reached at [email protected].