Manufacturing pens and pride
In the shadow of the Rocky Mountains on the rolling terrain of Browning, Mont., sits a squat, 40,000-sq.-ft. powder-blue building that houses a most unusual factory. The clattering machines that each day churn out 600,000 pens, pencils and markers are ordinary enough, but the work force is special. The warehouse manager, for example, is Donald Little Bull, and the second-shift supervisor is Le-Roy Bullshoe. The chief executive is Chief Earl Old Person, 52, head of the Blackfeet tribe and chairman of the Blackfeet Indian Writing Co.
For millions of Americans,...