Media Contact: Lovett 202/343-7445
For Immediate Release: July 5, 1982

Interior Assistant Secretary Ken Smith announced today new assignments for four Bureau of Indian Affairs area directors all of them members of the Federal Government's senior executive service.

The new appointments are as follows:

Sidney Mills, the Albuquerque area director, has been named director of the Bureau's Office of Trust Responsibilities in Washington, D. C.

Vincent Little, director of the Bureau's Portland, Oregon area office, replaces Mills in Albuquerque.

Stan Speaks, director of the Anadarko, Oklahoma area office, is the new director of the Portland office. Maurice w. (Bill) Babby, director of the area office at Sacramento, California, goes to Anadarko as director of that office.

Sidney L. Mills, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, was director of the Bureau's Albuquerque, New Mexico area office. He was appointed to that position in 1978, after serving for three years as the executive assistant to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington, D. C. A Navy veteran, Mills entered Federal service in 1973 in the Aberdeen area office where he served as the supply and contracting officer and as acting deputy director. He had previously been purchasing manager for the Great Western Sugar Company; merchandise control manager, Creative Merchandising, Inc.; and purchasing manager for Sundstrand Aviation, all in Denver, Colorado.

Vincent Little, a member of the Mohave Tribe, was director of the BIA's Portland area office, appointed to that position in March, 1977. He began work with BIA as a teacher at the Phoenix Indian School in 1957. He was an enrollment officer and tribal operations officer at the Western Washington Agency from 1963 to 1967. He then worked as assistant superintendent at the Hoopa agency in northern California. From 1970 to 1973 he was the education program administrator at Phoenix Indian School and then became the superintendent at the Northern Idaho agency. A U.S. Army veteran, Little graduated from the Arizona State University in 1957 and received a Master's degree there in 1961.

Stan Speaks, a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, was appointed area director at Anadarko, Oklahoma in 1975. He had previously been the acting superintendent of the Intermountain Indian School at Brigham City, Utah were he had also served for five years as the supervisory guidance counselor. He worked in Indian education programs with the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 1959 to 1975. He is a graduate of the Northeastern State college of Oklahoma, where he also earned a Master's in education.

Maurice W. Babby, Oglala Sioux, was named director of the Sacramento area office in August, 1981. He had been director of the BIA's office of administration in Washington, D. c. prior to going to Sacramento. Babby began his career in the Bureau at the Sacramento office. He was superintendent of the Fort Belknap agency in Montana 1967-70 and assistant area director at Billings. Montana 1970-79. A graduate of Sacramento State University, Babby earned a law degree from the LaSalle Extension University in 1969 and a Master's in Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma in 1977.