Barbara Sutteer

Barbara Ann Sutteer (Booher) is a Native American retired National Park Service (NPS) employee. Sutteer worked for the Federal Aviation Administration and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Alaska for 17 years before being appointed the superintendent of Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, the first female and first Native American to serve in that position. Sutteer's work at Little Bighorn contributed to a more balanced presentation of the events that took place there, as well as increasing Indian representation in park employees, museum exhibits, and the stories told by park interpreters.

Early life and education Barbara Ann Sutteer was born circa 1941 and was raised on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation, Utah. Her mother was of northern Ute descent and her father was Cherokee. Her parents worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Sutteer attended the University of Utah, but had to drop out due to a loss of tribal benefits which had included federal aid for education. She finished her degree in commercial and graphic art at Alaska Pacific University.

Early career

Sutteer worked for the Federal Aviation Administration and then for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Alaska. She worked on the National Park Service's Alaska Task Force. Sutteer worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs for 17 years. Sutteer acted as a liaison between the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs as an allotment coordinator in 1986.

In March, 1989, Sutteer entered the executive management training program under Lorraine Mintzmyer, the park service regional directory in the Rocky Mountain region, in March 1989. Mintzmyer offered Sutteer the superintendent position at Little Bighorn "because of the skills she demonstrated". Sutteer became the second Native American woman superintendent in the National Park Service on July 16, 1989. (Ellen Lang, a Native Alaskan, was the first Native woman superintendent in the National Park Service.)