Robert Harper is the nation’s leading expert practitioner in conflict resolution with tribes. He specializes in reducing legal and regulatory risk through negotiated agreements and partnerships with tribes. He is the Founder and Executive Director of Seventh Sovereign, America’s top provider of tribal engagement, negotiation, and professional training services. His team works on the most challenging tribal consultation issues throughout the United States. They help clients transform engagement, accelerate negotiations, and reduce risk.
Robert has over twenty-five years of government and tribal affairs experience on land, natural resources, right-of-way, energy, environmental, and infrastructure issues. He has a broad depth of experience advising, negotiating, and mediating agreements with state and federal agencies, project proponents, and tribal governments. He worked with executives, major project managers, tribal leadership, and elected or appointed leadership at the state and federal level. His experience includes negotiations with multiple Secretaries of the U.S. Department of Interior, DOI Solicitors, FERC, BOR, BIA, BLM, USFWS, NPS, USDA, FHWA, FAA, USFS, as well as other federal and state land, natural resource, utility, and transportation agencies throughout the western U.S. He has served as an advisor to many leading proponent, right-of-way, power transmission, and telecommunications entities, including AASHTO and RAC, ASCE, Western Power Pool, Southwest Power Pool, IRWA, AAPL, and WESTA/WESTEC.
Robert has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at multiple colleges and universities. He has authored numerous peer reviewed articles in the areas of alternative dispute resolution, negotiation, infrastructure development, TEK integration, and project risk management. His recent conference presentations emphasize innovative tribal engagement methods to reduce risk, accelerate long-term partnerships, and avoid costly litigation.
Robert has a BA in Political Science from Hampden-Sydney College; an MA in Communication Studies and MA in Geography from the University of Montana, and a JD from the University of Montana School of Law. He has a graduate certificate in Natural Resources Conflict Resolution from the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and a graduate legal certificate in Federal Indian Law from the Margery Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic. He is a past recipient of the John Marshall legal writing award for his work on property rights and public interest law. He is certified as a Large-Scale Infrastructure Project Manager from the Frank Moolin Jr. Foundation’s invitational certificate program. He has advanced certifications in mediation and negotiation from the Center for Collaborative Solutions and the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
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