Joseph Nayquonabe Jr.
Tate Carlson
WHEN JOSEPH NAYQUONABE JR. FIRST walked into our offices he was wearing a proper suit and I subconsciously deemed him too young for such garb. However, when you’re corporate vice president of marketing for Grand Casinos, it doesn’t matter that you’re only 27 and look five years younger; a suit it is.
Joseph’s suit was seemingly the only traditional aspect about him, though, and how could it not be? In 2002 he was a student at St. Cloud State University and a promotions intern at Grand Casinos and now, less than eight years later, he is head of the Grand Casino marketing effort, has been a speaker at Las Vegas gaming expos and was recently named St. Cloud State’s graduate of the decade—an honorary mantel Nayquonabe Jr. didn’t even know existed until he had attained it.
When asked how, why and what of his rapid ascension, Nayquonabe Jr.’s response is short, “I don’t really know. It was fast, man. It was really quick.”
Quick it was; predestined it wasn’t. “My original career path was lobbying. And I had this whole goal that I wanted to be a federal lobbyist for the Mille Lacs Band, and I was really interested in how government worked,” says Nayquonabe Jr., who spent time interning for lobbying firm Holland and Knight while taking classes at George Mason University. “And I liked it. I was engaged in lobbying, but it was just too much for me.
“I knew I wanted to work for the band; my family had always done that, so it was either government or casino, that’s what I was thinking,” he says of why he switched from lobbying to the casino industry. “I always try to follow in the footsteps of my dad, and he dedicated his whole life to the tribe, and I think I can do that too, but I can do it my way.”
And it’s doing things his way—and his generation’s way—that projected Nayquonabe Jr. to his current station so rapidly.
“We see it in the older generations, this top down thinking, and that’s not how we work,” he says attempting to describe the fundamentally different philosophy he brings to an otherwise traditional workplace. “In the inverted pyramid, I’m at the bottom, [my employees] are at the top, and I don’t make the decisions, they do. And people are so scared of that. It’s always like, ‘Well, do you have control of that decision?’ But if somebody owns a decision it becomes a better decision. You make that decision and if you need my help, I will help you. And I’ll let you know if you did well. Or, if you screwed it up, I’ll be on you. The idea of everything funneling up to one guy doesn’t make sense to me, and I don’t think it makes sense to people in my generation.”
Although Nayquonabe Jr.’s ascent has been swift, it doesn’t mean it’s been seamless. As he admits, “There was a lot of nervous people. Like, ‘This guy’s running our marketing? He’s just a kid.’”
Just a kid, maybe, but he’s an ambassador for the Grand Casino brand and, by extension, the tribe.
“When he walks the floor, everyone knows Joe,” says Sarah Barten, Grand Casino’s public relations specialist. “He’s like the face of Grand Casino.”
The face, also, of the Mille Lacs Band’s new generation.
JOSEPH NAYQUONABE JR.
Corporate Vice President of Marketing, Grand Casinos
Age: 27
Education: BS, St. Cloud State University; MBA in progress, Carlson
School of Management
First job: McDonald’s
Family: Wife, Christina; daughter, Bella (and one on the way this
month ... Congrats!)
