GARY BALLARD
CALIE Founding Webmaster Profile

TRIBAL PROFILES EXAMPLE

Webmaster note: THE BOSS called my bluff to use my non-Indian face and life experience to develop a concept and working format for our CALIE Tribal Profiles gallery — so here goes.

The goal of CALIE TRIBAL PROFILES is to showcase tribal leaders, elders, mentors, professionals and entrepreneurs with their brief life statements and best advice to Native American students in the belief our young people are in dire need of positive Indian role models.

The thrust of your page is about your sage advice to inspire young Native Americans. You benefit directly by having your information professionally published on the world's top California Indian Education Network and linking back to your tribal, business and favorite web sites.

Under this format, you simply provide the info, and we do the rest.

No more participation is needed on your end unless you want to update or add to it later.

HERE is a WORKSHEET to assist your effort.
All info is subject to review and approval by CALIE and may be edited. Participation is subject to the CALIE User Agreement.

This sample format is divided into FIVE BASIC AREAS:

HELLO, Indian students!

At 22 years, I left behind a "sure-thing, 50-year" welding career in Midwest factories with a government contract in hand for guaranteed Photography School Basic in the U.S. Navy. I reenlisted after being accepted into the Navy Photojournalism Program at Syracuse University in New York.

After eight years of active duty adventures, I was honorably discharged and established my own photography business: G. BALLARD Studio. Since then my relevant free-lance work history includes over 18 years working with several tribal governments in Southern California, including a tribal university. My full bio/resumé is HERE.

The work I am most proud of to date is founding and building from scratch THE KUMEYAAY INFORMATION VILLAGE Website, which received 38,000,000 hits in its first four years on the internet.

I will add I've easily spent over 2,000 hours of my personal time building KUMEYAAY.INFO — so I know a bit about sticking to what I start.

"Don't be a quitter...finish what you start."

My best advice to young people anywhere would be don't be a quitter.

I have completed (and documented) many highly-competitive training programs and they seem to always start out with seemingly impossible challenges to weed out the quitters, so it is important we learn early on to follow through and finish what we start (so quitting never becomes an option).

Finishing what we start proves we have the desire and motivation to succeed — that we can hang in there with the best of our peers and work together successfully as team players.

MOVIES: "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray.
Why? Because he got many chances to relive the most important day in his life until he got it right.
"Total Recall" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Why? Because of the fantastic action story line.

LINKS: WWW.KUMAYAAY.INFO
Why kumeyaay.INFO? It contains my best socially-significant photojournalism work.
Also MY TOP 10 NATIVE AMERICAN WEB SITES.

BOOKS: "Earth Pigments and Paint of the California Indians: Meaning and Technology" and "Survival Skills of Native California" both books by Paul D. Campbell.
Why? Click on the link and review the books for yourself...

HOW TO CONTACT GARY G. BALLARD
Tribal Affiliation: Non Indian
Business Phone: See Contact Link
Business Address: See Contact Link
Website(s): Click on Logos
Graphics: (Include any tribal and business logos.)
E-mail: (It is this webmaster's policy not to publish e-mail addresses because of spam issues, but we have several options available.)

Since you asked, sure!
I can think of several analogies I've learned during my life experience that I would like to share.

About this Picture.

THE HUMAN PSYCHE:

I spent 150 hours in a personal improvement class taught by a clinical psychologist PhD — that's eight years he spent in universities studying the human psyche. At the time he was completing four years as a hospital psychologist intern treating patients as a doctor.

During one of our classes, he compared the human spirit to a bonsai tree, and society (life experience) to the gardener who is tasked with caring for and shaping the tree.

He said if the seed drops in fertile soil, and it receives the proper amounts of light, water and nutrition the tree grows large to its full size and healthy on its own (but like without ever getting a haircut).

What society (and parents) do, he continued, is act like a gardener; watering, feeding and pruning the tree to contain and shape its growth.

The problems with society — like the gardener — is misguided pruning, under nurturing, over nurturing, including fire, flood and war, can damage the tree physically and spiritually.

The doctor was pretty firm in his belief the tree — like the human spirit — can survive horrible trauma and be healed back to health over time with proper gardening.

The human spirit, he continued — like the tree and the body — may always show the scar of a neglect, accident, spoiling or abuse, but nature has amazing abilities to heal the spirit and the body with proper care and nurturing.

My teacher seemed to associate a common spiritual life essence to both the tree and human in his gardening analogy which I have thought about many times over the years.

THE NATURAL ORDER:

Crab fishermen don't worry about filling up a pot with crabs — BECAUSE — as soon as a crab gets a leg over the top to break out from the group, the other crabs pull him back down.

It is hard to believe this crabby behavior happens amongst our families, our best friends, and small communities — BUT — open your eyes to what's going on if your friends are teasing you about improving your position.

This behavior is scripted and acted out in movie after movie and is a Hollywood staple for movie plots.

TROUBLE:

Stay out of trouble!

Getting into trouble takes your options away and leaves other people to decide what programs or jobs you are suited for (or if you spend your young life in prison with other troublemakers).

FOOT PRINTS:

It might seem pretty cool to post party pictures and bad language on blogs like MYSPACE and in e-mail and text messages, but they become your public record and can be easily found by investigators doing background checks on your personal history and character to attach onto that job application or college scholarship you are applying for....

+++++++