Located near the Lake Michigan coast, Little River Casino Resort originally opened in 1999 and today includes 1,350 slot machines, 26 table games and the retail River Rock Sportsbook. “That’s a key ingredient for us - bringing in seven grandfather teachings and other teachings like the medicine wheel and advancing people through this development program,” Stone said. The program builds on Little River’s leadership and company culture, which uses tribal culture as its foundation. “In that second year of the program, we’re actually going to focus them on a major that aligns with what their knowledge, skills and abilities are.” “Once we do that, they’ll roll into a second year of the program where they’re going to spend a full year of the program in that area,” he said. In the Seven Directions Program, candidates will spend the first year taking general education courses via distance learning at Little River, while spending about three months each in four different departments within the organization “trying to identify knowledge, skills, abilities and fit in those areas,” Stone said. The casino, an enterprise of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, started looking about a year ago for a partner to advance the leadership development program even further, ultimately selecting Muskegon Community College. “One thing that we noticed related to succession is we had some gaps and we had some leadership culture things that we needed to work on,” Israel told Tribal Business News.

Israel Stone, organizational development director at the casino, said the new program builds off a five-year old internal effort Little River developed to advance frontline candidates toward a leadership or supervisory position within the organization. The new two-year program, which launches in January 2021, will provide an immersive educational experience for Little River Casino employees to find their best fit within the organization while also earning an associate degree to advance their skills in that area. The Little River Casino Resort has forged a new partnership with Muskegon Community College to create a new management development program tailored to the needs of casino operations and infused with tribal culture and history.

Little river casino resort HR