Tribal and business leaders celebrated the opening of Minnesota’s first Indigenous owned and operated science laboratory on Thursday, March 19. The Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate’s Aya Labs LLC conducts environmental and pharmaceutical testing, with a focus on the medical and cannabis industries.
“What you see is not just a laboratory — it is a declaration,” Aya Corporation’s interim CEO Michael Roberts told a crowd of approximately 50 people during the lab’s grand opening in Oakdale, a suburb of St. Paul. “It is the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate saying — out loud, with physical evidence — that we are builders. We are owners. And, we are back, Minnesota.”
Aya Labs is a 5,800 square foot laboratory staffed by nine scientists and accredited by the International Organization for Standardization. It’s owned by the Aya Corporation, a Section 17 federally chartered economic development corporation of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate. A tribally owned business is different from a business owned by a member of a tribe, and Congress created the tribal business structure when it passed the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. A Section 17 corporation is wholly owned by a tribe but separate and distinct from the tribal government. Section 17 corporations are not required to pay federal income taxes, even if they are operated off reservation…