SALEM — Shana McConville Radford of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation will join Gov. Tina Kotek’s administration as Oregon’s first tribal affairs director.
McConville Radford, 39, had since May 2022 served as deputy director of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.
“The tribal affairs director role is an unprecedented role in the Governor’s office,” said Kotek spokesperson Anca Matica in an email. “The governor’s top priority for the tribal affairs director is to foster positive relationships with Oregon’s tribal nations through meaningful and transparent consultation.”
McConville Radford’s salary will be $10,023 per month as a director, which differs from an adviser in “classification and internal structure,” according to Matica.
In a news release last Thursday announcing the appointment, Kotek said she chose McConville Radford for her “extensive experience in tribal matters, policies and government-to-government relations.”
McConville Radford said in the same release she’d work to foster collaboration and cooperation between the sovereign governments of the nine Oregon-based tribes and the federal and state government.
Before becoming deputy director of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, McConville Radford worked with a number of state leaders, federal agencies and tribal governments. In 2010, she was a Mark O. Hatfield Congressional Fellow, serving as tribal legislative liaison and advisor to Oregon’s U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat. She was a former superintendent of the Flathead Agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Montana, working closely with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. She also spent several years as health and human services tribal liaison for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.
