For Spanish On our last trip to Puerto Peñasco, we stopped at the Hickiwan Trails convenience store and RV park. It's on Ajo Highway, just east of Why. We had a long and fascinating talk with Sue Tout, the general manager for the Hickiwan Development Authority of the Tohono O'odham nation. She is in charge of this facility, as well as another small store at Vaya Chin, some 25 miles northeast of here. The convenience store building also houses the Golden Ha:San Casino. The name Ha:San means "cactus" in O'odham.
Sue's job doesn't end with the two facilities mentioned. She has a number of additional projects in the planning or inquiry stages, including a landfill, a tobacco store, hiking trails, and a motel, all designed to benefit the nation and serve the public.
The casino is not yet open, but should be sometime in the fall. When it opens, the casino will have 86 slot machines. The convenience store opened July 3, 1997, and the RV park is scheduled to open August 15.
Outside the store are the gas pumps, which sell Shell gasoline at competitive prices. Upon entering the store, one can see why Sue calls it "the Cadillac of convenience stores." The floor is covered with gray granite tile; the counter and built-in cupboards are sparkling clean and streamlined. The shelves and counters are placed far enough apart to contribute to a feeling of spaciousness. A small seating area at the front is located in a bay of three picture windows and furnished with tables and chairs. The back wall is painted in purple, and the purple is repeated in the chair seats. The employees all wear purple T-shirts with the business name stenciled on them.
In the restrooms the same tile floors are in evidence, and the same purple trim is on the walls in the women's room; the men's room has a turquoise color scheme. There are 3 or 4 booths, one of them designed for handicapped persons, and several sinks set into a long counter. The whole place is spotlessly clean.
Sue took us out to show us the RV park. The setting was beautiful. The desert stretched away to the mountains, which were highlighted by the shadows of clouds. Birds soared overhead against the blue sky. It was very peaceful and quiet.
The 95 spaces are equipped with full hookups, concrete pads, and mesquite landscaping. Although the trees are small now, they will grow fast and should soon be providing shade. The utility building is constructed of the same rough-textured brown blocks as the convenience store, and the bathrooms inside are decorated with the same tiled floors, gray countertops, and turquoise and purple trim. There's a handicapped toilet and handicapped shower stall in each of the bathrooms. The laundry room has space for 6 washers and 6 dryers.
The convenience store is open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. There are a total of 14 employees at the two stores, all members of the Tohono O'odham nation. Sue is the only white district manager that the nation has. There are 11 districts altogether. We asked if she knew the O'odham word for white person. She didn't but she asked one of the employees, who pronounced it something like mer-d-gan oks, although when asked to write it down she spelled it mil:gan oks (white woman). Apparently the O'odham language has not been written until comparatively recently, although it has a long oral tradition.
We asked Sue what her background was and how she came to get this position. She comes from back east, Pennsylvania, although she and her husband lived in Arizona from 1979 to 1986. Her primary experience was in real estate property management, but she has also been a buyer for jewelry and millinery (hats) and operations manager for Builders Square (a chain something like Home Depot). Since she and her husband were both having some trouble with arthritis, they were thinking of coming back to Arizona in a few years. But then something happened that speeded up their plans. A friend of theirs in Tempe, an investor in rental properties, called and said he had a chance to buy a 54-unit apartment complex, and he wanted Sue to come and manage it for him because it had some problems he knew she could solve. He said he wouldn't buy it, however, unless she would agree to manage it for 6 months. She did, and they came. "It was no problem," she said, "only 54 units, so it was easy to straighten out."
The apartment complex was in good shape in 6 months, and so Sue began looking around for another job. The ad she saw in the paper asked for someone to manage a convenience store, gas station, and RV park; to work on future development; and to have small-town experience. "What do you suppose that means?" she asked her husband, "small-town experience?" But she was curious and answered the ad. At the time she didn't even know where Ajo was, but they came down and checked it out. After several interviews and exchanges of letters, the district hired her, and she moved to Ajo. She spends long hours, many of them on the road, but she loves her job. She has to go back and forth to Phoenix a lot; in 2 months she has driven 11,500 miles.
One of the things Sue has done is to strengthen the small store at Vaya Chin. She was able to introduce deliveries of bread and dairy products, and now they are making sandwiches, which are selling well. Another thing she has done is to institute training programs for the employees in business practices and customer service. One of her first employees has learned so fast and performed so well that he was just promoted to the management training program.
Sue radiates energy, efficiency, and enthusiasm. We could see exactly why she was hired. There is so much opportunity here for development, and Sue, being a "can-do" person, is gradually getting things done and starting new projects. She sees her job as searching for information and then finding people who can do what needs to be done. The end result will be to bring in money and create jobs for the Tohono O'odham nation.
