Cheryle is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe, born and raised on the Blackfeet reservation in Browning, Montana. She has been a career employee of the Federal government for 20 years, having worked with both the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). She currently serves as Director for the Office of Communications for Idaho BLM. Cheryle is a founding member and served on the Board of Directors of SAIGE for a two-year term of office. She currently is completing a two-year term as SAIGE's National Chair. She and her husband Brian have been married for 25 years and they have two beautiful daughters, Dannielle and Kerri. In her statement she says: "Over the past two years I have met some really wonderful people and think we have laid the foundation for a great organization to grow and thrive. It is my sincere hope that this organization serves as an effective national voice for Federal American Indian (AI) and Alaska Native (AN) employees for a long time. I believe our primary goal over the next couple years should be to build our organization by increasing partnership efforts and expanding our member services. Over the past year, we have doubled our membership and created three different college scholarship funds for members so that we can increase our professional ranks in Federal service. Recent OPM statistics show that AI/AN have the lowest average grade level among Federal employees and fewer Indian employees have college degrees. We can do something positive to improve these statistics and the lives of Native employees. I'd also like to continue our work to recruit more AI/AN into careers with the Federal government. SAIGE is partnering with a number of organizations to build and implement an effective recruitment and retention strategy to assist this effort. Our national training conference is a wonderful showcase event; in its fourth year in 2007, it provides professional and personal development, networking activities, and recruitment opportunities. All of these accomplishments can not be done by any one person; I hope that everyone in SAIGE will want to do their part to continue to make this organization a great one; the success of SAIGE depends on it."