The National Center for American Indian Economic Development named GW School of Business alumnus Quinton Uksi Carroll, MBA ’23, among its Native American 40 Under 40 Award recipients for 2024, recognizing him as an emerging national leader in the area of political advocacy.
The annual awards spotlight 40 individuals—from among the community of American Indians, Canadian First Nations, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians—whose initiative and dedication advance their communities. Carroll is executive director of the Native American Contractors Association based in Washington, DC.
“Recipients of the Native American 40 Under 40 awards are no longer just our future, they are leaders in their respective fields,” National Center for American Indian Economic Development President Chris James said in announcing the awards. “From the silver screen to the farm, 2024 awardees are deserving recipients who will continue to make Indian Country proud and our world a better place.”
Other award winners this year included actor Lily Gladstone, nominated for an Oscar for her role in the movie Killers of the Flower Moon; tribal government and business leaders; three attorneys; a journalist in Minneapolis, an assistant professor of educational leadership at Minnesota State University Moorhead; a program director at Conservation International; an advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy; and a senior program assistant at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The award seems a natural next step for Carroll, who grew up in Alaska against a backdrop of community activism.
His mother, Marie Qaqaun Adams Carroll, BA ’80, an alumna of the GW Graduate School of Education and Human Development, served as executive director of the Alaska Whaling Commission and long-time president and CEO of the Arctic Slope Native Association. In the latter role, she secured funding through Indian Health Services to construct a hospital in her Alaskan community of Utqiagvik more than a decade ago. Adams Carroll, an Iñupiaq Eskimo, was named to the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame in 2019.
“My mother is a trailblazer for my community,” said Carroll, who earned his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Hawaii. “The reason I wanted to go to GW was that my mother had graduated from there at a time when not many kids from our community were leaving for college.”
Carroll started his career in policy work in Alaska at Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. In 2018, he joined the Washington, DC staff of U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska. A year later, he enrolled in the graduate certificate program in business foundations at GW Business.
“I had been working in policy for a number of years. My main focus for returning to school was to sharpen up on my numbers,” Carroll said.
After completing the certificate, he enrolled in the MBA program. By that time, he was employed by the Congressional and Legislative Affairs unit in Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior. He continued to work full-time while pursuing the graduate degree.
After graduating from GW, Carroll was selected to head the Native American Contractors Association, which was created to advocate on behalf of tribally owned businesses, Native Hawaiian organizations and Alaska Native corporations. Federal contracts are the second biggest economic driver for native communities after gaming. In 2023, tribal enterprises won more than $23 billion in federal contracting awards, marking an eighth consecutive year of growth, according to an analysis by Tribal Business News.
Carroll said his job requires interaction with Congress “and a lot of running around the Hill.” The contractors association also hosts an annual event that features two days of presentations by government agencies and lawmakers, as well as a day of one-on-one meetings with congressmembers.
Carroll said that at GW he was “excited about the network I could build with students and young professionals from all over the world.” He noted that he now also has become part of the informal network made up of the roughly 600 past recipients of the Native American 40 Under 40 awards.