Alvin Warren, Secretary of Indian Affairs

Alvin Warren is the Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department. He was appointed by Governor Bill Richardson on January 11, 2008.

Prior to this, he was elected to serve two consecutive terms as lieutenant governor of Santa Clara Pueblo, a federally-recognized tribe in northern New Mexico. Secretary Warren has served a total of eight terms in Santa Clara’s government as lieutenant governor, tribal interpreter, tribal treasurer, and tribal councilmember. Previously, Secretary Warren worked for sixteen years to assist his tribe and other indigenous peoples with mapping, protecting and reacquiring their traditional lands. From 2004 through 2005 he was the national director of the Trust for Public Land’s “Tribal Lands Program.” He has also been an associate director of the Indigenous Communities Mapping Initiative, director of the Santa Clara Pueblo Land Claims / Rights Protection Program, and a consultant. In these capacities he was fortunate to assist Santa Clara Pueblo with reacquiring title or additional rights to over 16,000 acres of its ancestral lands. He was also the conference coordinator for the first International Forum on Indigenous Mapping held from March 11-14, 2004 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Secretary Warren previously served as the chairman of the New Mexico Indian Affairs Commission, having been appointed by Governor Bill Richardson to this position in August, 2007 after serving a year as a Commissioner. He is also the founding chairperson of the Santa Clara Pueblo Governor’s Task Force on Youth and Families and a former vice-chairman and member of the Santa Clara Day School Board of Education. He has served on Santa Clara committees responsible for mortgage lending, land claims, water rights and Tewa language preservation. In 2007, he was appointed by the Santa Clara Tribal Council as the Pueblo’s representative to the All Indian Pueblo Council’s Pueblo Health Committee. In 2001 the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture appointed Secretary Warren to the first Technical Advisory Panel for the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program. Secretary Warren also serves on the Board of Directors of the Earth Circle Foundation. Previously he has been a member of the Board of Directors for the Chamiza Foundation, a member of the New Mexico Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee as well as chairman of The Trust for Public Land’s “Tribal Lands Advisory Council” and a member of its “Center for Land and People Advisory Council.”

Secretary Warren has been an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Mellon Mays undergraduate fellow and a Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership fellow. He is currently a colleague with the New Mexico Strategic Leadership Institute. Secretary Warren graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in History with High Honors and Certification in Native American Studies. He is an enrolled member of Santa Clara Pueblo, was born and raised in northern New Mexico and lives in Santa Clara with his wife and three children.