BIA Director Bryan Rice Announces Appointment of James Schock as Southern Plains Regional Director

WASHINGTON – Bureau of Indian Affairs Director Bryan Rice today announced his appointment of James Schock, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, as regional director of the BIA’s Southern Plains Regional Office in Anadarko, Okla.  The appointment will become effective on January 7, 2018.  The Southern Plains Regional Office oversees four agencies and one field office serving 24 federally recognized tribes in the states of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

“I’m very pleased that Jim Schock will be joining my BIA regional leadership team,” Rice said.  “His years of operating trust management programs coupled with his extensive experience in financial management administration will enhance our mission in carrying out the Interior Department’s trust responsibilities to the tribes within the Southern Plains Region.”

“Jim Schock is an excellent addition to the BIA’s cadre of regional directors,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs John Tahsuda.  “I deeply appreciate his service as Indian Affairs’ chief financial officer, where he worked to ensure the BIA received clean audit findings and maintained its financial management obligations, as well as his service in administering the Bureau’s trust services programs.”

“I want to thank Director Rice and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Tahsuda for this opportunity to directly serve the tribes in the Southern Plains Region,” Schock said.  “I’m looking forward to working with the regional office staff on improving how we currently deliver services to these tribal governments and their communities, as well as developing new ways to accomplish our mission.”

Prior to his current appointment, Schock had been serving as Indian Affairs’ chief financial officer, located in Reston, Va., since 2013.  The chief financial officer serves as the principal financial management advisor to the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs and other senior Indian Affairs officials.

Schock began his federal career over 30 years ago as a revenue agent with the Internal Revenue Service in 1986 at the agency’s St. Paul, Minn., location, a position he held until he moved to the Department of the Interior in 1999 where he joined the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) as a management analyst.  Since then, he gained broad experience in many of the financial programs that the Department is responsible for under its part of the federal trust relationship with the federally recognized tribes.

In November 2011, Schock joined the BIA at its Washington, D.C., headquarters as the associate deputy bureau director for the Office of Trust Services, which enhanced his experience in the trust responsibility through his management of the Bureau’s Realty and Title, Natural Resources, Forestry, and Water and Power programs.  He served in that capacity until November 2013.

Prior to working for the Office of Trust Services, Schock served from February 2011 to November 2011 as an OST fiduciary trust officer, and was posted at the Bureau’s Eastern Regional Office in Nashville, Tenn.  Prior to that appointment, he served as deputy director for OST’s Office of Trust Review and Audit in Albuquerque, N.M., from February 2004 to February 2011.  As such, he was responsible for reviewing the trust processing work of self-governance tribes.

From October 2002 to February 2004, Schock worked for the BIA’s Midwest Regional Office in Ft. Snelling, Minn. (now located in Bloomington, Minn.), where he served as regional finance officer for almost two years before going back to OST in Albuquerque.

Schock has been a certified public accountant since 1996.  He received an accounting degree in 1985 from Dickinson State University in North Dakota.