Bio Sketch of Charles E. Trimble

Born in 1935, Charles E. Trimble was raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, and is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Nation.  He received his elementary and high school education at the Holy Rosary Mission Indian School in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and received a B.F.A. degree from the University of South Dakota. Following service in the U.S. Army, he did further studies in journalism at the University of Colorado.

He worked for several years in the aerospace industry with General Dynamics Corporation in its Astronautics and Electronics divisions, and with Ball Brothers Research Corporation in solar research.

Getting into Native American rights activity, he served on the staff of the Mayor’s Commission on Community Relations for the City and County of Denver, and edited the Indian Times news- paper for the White Buffalo Council of American Indians in Denver.  In 1969 he was principal founder of the American Indian Press Association, and served as the organization's executive director until 1972, when he was elected Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians. He served there until 1978.

In international indigenous rights, he represented U.S. Indian tribes at the charter conference of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples in Copenhagen. In 1983 he served as an U.S. delegate at the UN Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in Geneva. In 1985 he was a US delegate to the Human Right Experts meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Accord) in Ottawa, Canada.

Trimble served on the Board of Directors of the American Indian National Bank in Washington, DC, from 1975 to 1986. He served as president of ARROW, Inc., and on the Board of the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development.

In 1979 he founded Charles Trimble Company, Inc., which was dedicated to promoting and fostering economic development on Indian Reservations. He also founded Red Willow Institute, which was created to provide technical and management assistance to American Indian non-profit organizations.

Trimble holds a deep interest in the history of the west, and served nine years on the Board of the Nebraska State Historical Society, three years as President.

In 2000, Creighton University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Cultural Sciences degree for his work over the years in human rights. In 2002, he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Wayne State College in Nebraska, and in December 2008, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by his alma mater, the University of South Dakota.

Trimble is retired and lives in Omaha with his wife, Anne.  They have one daughter, Katherine (Kaiti). He may be reached at cchuktrim@aol.com