M’CHIGEENG—After a long career in politics locally and provincially, Glen Hare has been hired for the position of executive director of the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation (OCF).
“I’m excited to be taking over this position,” said Mr. Hare, who took on the position of OCF executive director as of Monday, August 26. “Yeah, it’s different, I spent 39 years in politics, but I am really looking forward to this.”
“I think it was a good decision to hire Glen,” said Aundeck Omni First Nation Chief Patsy Corbiere, who is a member of the OCF board. “He knows the language and has a lot of connections through the government and potential funders. Because of his experience he has many connections with government funders and has been involved with the OCF since its beginning, knows and speaks the language fluently, culture and traditions. He will be a very strong advocate for the OCF.”
“Glen is a knowledge keeper and will bring a lot of good things to the OCF,” said Chief Corbiere. “And I think this job was like a calling for him to come back to Manitoulin Island and take on this position.”
Morgan Hare, chief of M’Chigeeng First Nation is also chair of the OCF board and a brother to Glen Hare. “As chair of the board I had to declare a conflict of interest (while the process of hiring the new executive director took place). A number of candidates applied for the position and Glen was chosen after putting his name and resume forward and being interviewed for the position.”
The hiring committee included several Island First Nation chiefs, the executive director of the United Chiefs and Councils of Mnidoo Mnising and a staff person with the OCF. “As chair of the board after the election process had taken place it was brought to my attention Glen had been selected. He is definitely an excellent choice for the OCF. As we all know he has been in politics for about 40 years and he has been involved in the OCF since it was started.”
“Glen helped and worked with executive director Mary Lou Fox for many years while he was chief in M’Chigeeng,” said Chief Hare. “Glen has a solid understanding of the organization through his personal involvement and working as chief of M’Chigeeng.”
Chief Hare said that with Mr. Hare’s experience as Grand Council Chief, and in his other capacities, he has gained a lot of knowledge, experience and has built up relationships with many different government organizations.
“I can remember I was chief of M’Chigeeng and Mary Lou Fox was the executive director and when the sod was turned for the new building,” said Glen Hare. “I work for the six First Nation community shareholders.”
“I’ve already left a message for Gordon Waindubence for his help in getting together eagle feathers for an eagle staff here at the OCF, as it represents our language, culture and traditions. And we want to expand and promote our education, language and culture. That is the goal.”
Mr. Hare said currently the OCF, “We have bus tours ready to come here, and we need magnets and promotional materials to help bring them here. We will be meeting three different ministers face to face in the near future and I’m reaching out to them to come here to visit the OCF and to see what we have here and how we want to expand our services. I’m looking forward to the coming days.”
“Currently the funding we receive is from one source and it only gets us by in terms of yearly operations,” said Mr. Hare. “This means we can’t do anything exceptional in terms of events and activities to take place. We are limited with funding, just like everyone else these days. We need more assistance to promote and get people here.”
Mr. Hare said along with needing to get more activity groups and events into the OCF building the building itself needs some tender loving care as well. “There needs to be work done on the building itself. It is aging. We will have an engineer come in to look at it and what needs to be done.”
Morgan Hare said the OCF needs, “capital and infrastructure ideas. We need to see a facelift and retrofit of the building and expansion of the language and cultural aspects. There are six of us (chiefs) around the board table that oversee OCF. We all think Glen will do a fantastic job in working on promoting and developing the OCF and working with the chiefs in enhancing the building, programs, services and infrastructure. We are fortunate to have been able to hire a person of Glen’s calibre.”
