Long before ‘green’ became a hot topic in business, Ongweoweh Corp. was finding new ways to track and recycle shipping pallets. The Ithaca, N.Y. based packaging management company instituted recycling efforts well over a decade ago, partially to save money in the face of rising lumber costs and also because environmental stewardship reflects Native American cultural values.

Ongweoweh, which is privately held and family owned, manages pallet supply for national corporations such as IBM, Coca-Cola, Eastman Kodak, Cargill, Johnson Controls and, most recently, Lowe’s. While fellow New York-based company IBM was Ongweoweh’s first customer, their client list has grown significantly over the last fifteen years as they have established a solid reputation as a leader in the packaging industry. In fact, Ongweoweh, whose name means “original people” in the Cayuga Indian tribal language, is among the top 50 minority-owned businesses and the 5th largest Native American owned company in the United States.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Ongweoweh began in 1978 by Frank Bonamie, the former Chief of the Cayuga Indian Nation of NY. The Cayuga are one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) people consist of the Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, Mohawk and Tuscarora Nations and were the original inhabitants on NY State. Bonamie and his early staff began to build wooden pallets in the back of a barn for the packaging needs of IBM. As the business grew, Bonamie and his son, Dan moved the business from their family barn to a full fledged pallet manufacturing mill in Rochester, NY. The company grew to include three pallet manufacturing operations in addition to the Ithaca based office. Over time, two mills were sold and one burned down. The company now has two packaging sorting and repair operations, one in Atlanta and one in Rochester NY.

In time, Ongweoweh shifted the business model from physically making the pallets to providing national management services to large corporations. As a result, the company’s client list grew to include many Fortune 500 companies. Today, Ongweoweh manages over 400 pallet manufacturers and pallet recyclers nationwide on behalf of their customers. Ongweoweh clients outsource pallet procurement responsibilities to Ongweoweh. This helps large companies consolidate vendors and reduce cost. Ongweoweh procures pallets and other packaging materials for their customers, leveraging their immense spending power in the pallet industry. They police specifications, provide design expertise and conduct regular RFP’s for their Clients.

NATIVETRAX—LOGISTICS AND RETRIEVAL

As one can expect, lumber is the biggest cost driver in the pallet business. As timber resources dwindled and sawmills closed, Ongweoweh began to focus on recovering and reusing the pallets. Ongweoweh created NativeTrax as part of a full-circle approach to asset management in 1999. The original inspiration for the program came from Eastman Kodak, who sought the expertise of Ongweoweh to turn their vision of retrieving packaging from distributors into reality. ”We realized two things in the process: it saved Eastman Kodak money and we can do it cost effectively ourselves,” says Randy Brown, President of Ongweoweh.

Through reuse, the company can repair and maintain a given set of pallets, making them more structurally sound regardless of the materials used. Both Ongweoweh and their clients embrace the pallet reuse due to the cost savings involved. “If companies are successful in these types of programs it comes from the top down. It’s all about culture,” said Brown. “You have to change how you do business.”

“One of the themes of Native American culture is being a caretaker for the environment,” say Tsiorasa Barreiro, Vice President of Supply Chain Diversity. “The vision that Frank and Randy Brown had about reuse and closing the loop brings everything full circle.”

Though tracking began as an Excel spreadsheet, then as a ColdFusion database, NativeTrax has become a web-based program to track pallet supply and recovery to keep the pallets out of the landfill and improve the client and company’s bottom line. NativeTrax is now fully customizable to any client and tracks any item in real time. The program not only helps them save money, it saves resources due to the higher recovery rate of pallets. Ongweoweh is updating the software now and will launch a revised version in June 2011.

GIVING BACK TO THE NATIVE COMMUNITY

Ongweoweh is committed to the education and advancement of the Native American community and works with Cornell University on initiatives to keep Native American students in school. While living in Ithaca in the late 1970s, Bonamie and others pressed Cornell University to be more inclusive in their admission policies for Native American students at a time when there were fewer than five Native American students at the land grant university. In 1983, the American Indian program was established at Cornell.

In the 1990s, Ongweoweh established the Frank and June Bonamie Scholarship Endowment to go to two Native American students annually. The exact amount of the scholarship is based on a percentage of the company’s annual profits. Additionally, the money the company contributes is matched by an anonymous donor. The students who receive the scholarships often intern with Ongweoweh Corp. through a work-study program.

“Frank’s always stressed the importance of education for Native peoples and Native communities; that it’s the conduit from which prosperity and development will come,” says Barreiro. Bonamie is on the Board of Trustees for Cornell University and is an active supporter and donor to the American Indian Program. Additionally, he has purchased computers for the Akwe:kon house, a Cornell residence hall dedicated to American Indian heritage, to providing funds for the annual PowWow. As a result, Cornell has one of the strongest Native American programs in the country. “We’re very proud of our support over the years and it starts with Frank,” says Barreiro.

Clients are impressed by Ongweoweh’s involvement in the community as well. Cargill, the international agriculture and industrial producer, chose to partner with Ongweoweh partially because of their community involvement.

FUTURE GROWTH

Ongweoweh’s commitment to pallet reuse was noted by Lowe’s, who contracted the company to broker the packaging suppliers for Lowe’s stores and distribution centers nationwide. As a result, Ongweoweh has increased their staff by 30 percent over the last nine months to meet the needs of the contract. Additionally, business grew 20 percent in 2009, making it their best year ever.

Ongweoweh will continue on the path of environmental sustainability. According to Brown, it’s where the industry is going. They plan to continue to improve their software and processes, including a full revision of their NativeTrax web software. According to Brown, they plan to incorporate Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) into the software as a way to improve efficiency on asset tracking.

Finally, the company plans to continue to improve their relationships with their clients. The company touts a 90 percent client retention rate as a result of their exemplary attention to the needs of their clients. Through further analysis of their assets, Ongweoweh hopes to further improve the efficiency of their pallet recovery process.