Deb Haaland

Former United States Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland

2025 Award Recipient

Deb Haaland made history as the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary. She is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and a 35th-generation New Mexican.

Haaland grew up in a military family. Her father was a 30-year combat Marine who received the Silver Star Medal for saving six lives in Vietnam, and her mother, a Navy veteran, served as a federal employee with the Bureau of Indian Affairs for 25 years.

As a military child, Haaland attended 13 public schools before graduating from Highland High School in Albuquerque. As a single mother, she volunteered at her child’s preschool to help afford early childhood education. Like many parents, she relied on food stamps at times, lived paycheck to paycheck, and worked to put herself through college.

At age 28, Haaland enrolled at the University of New Mexico, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in English. She later earned her J.D. from the UNM School of Law.

She has worked as a small business owner—producing and canning Pueblo Salsa—and served as a tribal administrator at San Felipe Pueblo. She was the first woman elected to the Laguna Development Corporation Board of Directors, which oversees one of New Mexico’s largest tribal gaming enterprises. In that role, she successfully advocated for policies promoting environmentally responsible business practices.

Throughout her career in public service, Secretary Haaland has broken barriers and created pathways for future generations. After running for New Mexico Lieutenant Governor in 2014, she became the first Native American woman elected to lead a state political party. In 2019, she became one of the first Native American women to serve in the U.S. Congress, where she championed environmental justice, climate action, the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, and family-centered policies.

In 2021, she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Secretary of the Interior, becoming the first Native American cabinet secretary in American history and served in that role until January, 2025.

Former Secretary Haaland will be presented with the award at a ceremony held at the Lied Center for Performing Arts in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Indigenous Peoples Day, Monday, October 13, 2025. She will receive a statuette of Chief Standing Bear created by renowned artist Benjamin Victor, the sculptor of the iconic Statuary Hall Chief Standing Bear sculpture.