Shana Greenberg Barehand, originally from Los Angeles is Mono Indian and Chicana. She is currently the Treasurer and a founding board member the Society of American Indian Government Employees.

Shana works as the Senior Tribal Liaison for Washington state’s Department of Revenue (DOR) .  Prior to joining the DOR she was the Liaison to Tribal Governments and Senior Attorney, in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs in the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  The Office of Intergovernmental Affairs administers the Commission’s Indian Telecommunications Initiatives (ITI), a comprehensive FCC program designed to increase access to telecommunications services on tribal reservations and to promote understanding, cooperation and trust among the FCC and other government agencies, the telecommunications industry, and Native American tribes, Native American tribal organizations and Alaska Native communities. 

Prior to joining FCC, she was an enforcement attorney in the Toxics and Pesticides Enforcement Division, Office of Enforcement Compliance Assurances of the US Environmental Protection Agency in Washington DC.  At EPA she was also the collateral duty AI/AN SEPM, which was the motivation for forming  SAIGE.  

She has a BA in psychology with a minor in cultural anthropology from California State University at Long Beach and a JD from the Arizona State University School of Law's Indian Law Program.  She is a pre ICWA adoptee whose non-Indian adoptive parents kept her in touch with her American Indian heritage through involvement in the Los Angeles Indian education program and local Indian community, where she learned about and participated in the Indian community activities such as pow wows.  In college she held leadership roles with the American Indian Students Council, coordinated pow wows, and participated in other student government organizations. 

Shana entirely supported herself through college and law school.  She believes her life skills emanate from the various jobs she has held.   She has been a waitress, a bartender as well as worked for the Southern California Indian Center as a tutor for American Indian youth and the youth employment coordinator.  She has also worked in Indian Education as the career advisor and counselor for the Indian Education Program in the Long Beach School District. She continued her involvement in the local Indian community during law school, as well as focusing her studies on Indian law, tribal courts and governments, and environmental law.  While in law school, she served as the President of the National Native American Law Student’s Association (NNALSA), where she envisioned and implemented the first NNALSA Indian Law Moot Court Competition in 1991.

Shana is married to Jeffrey Barehand and has five children. They enjoy exposing them to a diverse array of experience such as volunteering for important causes, participating in cultural activities and taking them on outdoor adventures.

Shana.barehand@gmail.com
(202) 378-8346