Golf course builder wants to give something back

LONGWOOD, Fla. ? Growing up on the Potawatomi reservation in Kansas, Cecil Walker got lucky.

“Somebody gave me a chance a long time ago on the rez,” said Walker, an enrolled member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. “He taught me how to survey, and I ended up where I am today.”

Where he is today is in southern Florida, standing at the helm of two very successful businesses. Walker is both president of CW Construction, Inc. and owner of Professional Club Solutions, Inc. PCS, which Walker acquired in the fall of 2001, is a company that builds and manages golf courses throughout the country. Many of these courses are Native-owned, usually as part of a casino/resort complex.

“I saw in 1996 that there was a push for a Native American PGA tournament,” Walker told ICT, explaining his motivation for entering the golf business. “Apparently it died, but why can’t we bring back the Native American tournaments?” Walker believes that Indian country has always been interested in golf, but simply never had enough facilities. “You’ve got to remember that where I grew up, the prejudice was such that we couldn’t play on the golf course. So in this day and age, I’d like to make it available for everyone, and it makes a great amenity for casinos.

“Besides, people that play golf gamble more,” he laughed.

According to its web site, PCS has constructed golf courses at the Gila River and Potawatomi Casinos. The company has also laid out courses for the Montana Blackfeet Indian Nation, the Montana Fort Peck Indian Nation, the Idaho Fort Hall Indian Nation, the Nevada North Las Vegas Paiute, the Washington Quinault Indian Nation, and the Arizona White Mountain Apache. PCS has built several non-Indian country clubs and resorts as well.

PCS recently completed construction of an 18-hole course in Marksville, La., which remains under the company’s management, for the Tunica-Biloxi Nation. Walker’s company’s current project is a golf course and villas for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, N.C.

The golf course business, however, came into play as an offshoot of Walker’s primary business, general construction. Over the past 11 years, Longwood, Florida-based CW Construction has worked on a wide variety of projects for a diverse client list.

“The very first contract we ever got was to manage the rebuild of Dade County schools after Hurricane Andrew in 1992,” Walker said proudly. “We did 188 schools, $27 million dollars worth of business, in 19 days. Put new roofs on them and cleaned them up. We ended up working with that school system for about 4 _ years.”

Over the years, as the company’s reputation grew, so did the list of its accomplishments.

“We’ve worked on several casinos nationwide,” he continued. “We’ve had clients like Disney and Universal, so we’ve done resorts and theme parks.”

The company has worked at airports in Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando and Houston, and has put up such other buildings as elementary schools, college classrooms, hotels, restaurants, grocery and department stores, and full shopping centers. “Our construction management division has managed over $800 million worth of construction work over the last 11 years with no litigation and no injuries,” Walker said.

About five years ago, Walker established a general construction division, whose stated goal was to take on jobs within 200 miles of home. Since then, the division has completed some $35 to $40 million worth of work. CW Construction also has a metal-building franchise, which constructs things like warehouses, hangars and small storage facilities. About 35-40 percent of the company’s approximately 35 employees is native.

“I try to keep six or seven different types of construction going so that when you take a hit, like Sept. 11, it doesn’t kill the whole company,” Walker said. “We lost $30 million worth of work after that, because the contracts weren’t issued. But we’re still here, kickin’. A lot of companies can’t say that.”

Although Walker will gladly accept any work that comes his way, he will go out of his way to work with tribes and with Indian entrepreneurs. “Our real push is to work with Indians,” he said. “Our construction management division has worked with several tribes. We’ve worked on several casinos. Some of the tribes we’ve worked with, we’ve never charged because all they needed was a little assistance or help.”

Walker finds it frustrating that Indian entrepreneurs seem to receive minimal consideration when it comes to business assistance from the government. “We’re not considered a minority, like blacks, Hispanics and women,” he said. “The fact of the matter is that we don’t even come under any of the minority guidelines. We come under the Department of the Interior as a natural resource. There’s really nothing to protect us.”

With a service to provide, businessmen like Walker will struggle if their customers, for whatever reason, cannot fund new projects. One way around this dilemma is to try to bring funding to potential clients. Walker is certified to participate in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 8(a) lending program. This program strives to “foster business ownership by individuals who are both socially and economically disadvantaged and to promote the competitive viability of such firms by providing business development assistance,” said the definition in a recent GAO report.

He has also attempted to get involved in BIA lending, “But I can’t find a bank down here that will do a BIA loan. They tell us there’s a lot of Indian business here, but we haven’t been able to tap it,” he explained. “We’ve been able to set up a program working with the BIA and tribes to help finance our golf courses. There’s no reason a tribe should let an outside investor come in and take a piece of their action. Eventually we’re going to find a bank down here that will deal with us.”

Whether assisting Indian businesses in accessing working capital or helping a kid with his golf swing, Walker just wants to return a long-ago favor.

“The golf side for me is like giving back,” said Walker. “We’re going to make some money on it, but there’s a lot more that’s going to come of it in what the kids get. I think that’s important ? if we don’t spend that time [with the kids] what are they going to do? I look at myself, I’d probably still be back on the rez; not that that’s a bad thing, but look at how many mouths we’re feeding now. And how many Indian businesses are there really out there today? There’s not too many of us.

“So consequently, we try to give seminars for the Indian kids at our golf courses,” Walker concluded. “You never know, maybe we’ll have an ‘Eagle’ Woods.”