About Us
Cota Holdings is a small boutique consulting firm with considerable background and expertise in the field of Indian energy and economic development. Cota Holdings also recently spun-off a not-for-profit organization called Flower Hill that is working with Tribes, foundations and Tribal organizations around issues of environmental protection and natural resource stewardship. Cota Holdings and Flower Hill work with Tribes and Inter-Tribal organizations throughout the western United States. Cota Holdings has also laid groundwork among the major western Inter-Tribal groups to re-constitute a national Tribal energy organization that can pick-up where CERT (Council of Energy Resource Tribes) left off.
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Staff
Roger Fragua
Roger Fragua (Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico) has dedicated his professional career to the advancement and development of American Indian communities. Roger is currently the President of Cota Holdings, LLC, whose mission is to support Tribal community and economic development in the energy and telecommunication sectors. Cota is currently engaged with several Tribal development projects as well as supporting energy companies’ efforts within Indian Country.
Roger served the Tribes as the Deputy Director of the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT), based in Denver, Colorado. Under the direction of the elected leadership of the 47 federally recognized Tribes and four Canadian First Nations, CERT has dramatically restructured the federal-Indian relationship with respect to minerals, mining, taxation, and Tribal jurisdiction over environmental regulations on Indian lands.
Prior to joining CERT, Roger worked as a manager for Enron Corporation in Houston, Texas where he was instrumental in creating innovative business concepts and promoting partnerships between Tribes and Enron. Enron, the most innovative Fortune 500 Corporation in the U.S. over the last several years, developed a genuine interest in seeking partnerships with Tribes in many areas of energy development, not limited to but to include; gas, electricity, wind and water.
Roger has also worked with the Western Governors’ Association and the National Tribal Environmental Council on State and Tribal relations as it relates to environmental issues. The basis for Roger’s commitment to Indian Country is steeped in his long tenured background as the Tribal Administrator for his own Pueblo. Roger served as the Tribal political and business resource of the Pueblo of Jemez for several years.
Roger is married to Clarice of San Felipe Pueblo, New Mexico and has three sons and one daughter.
Darien Cabral
Darien’s economic development career spans over 30 years in New Mexico. He was Director of a Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in northern New Mexico for ten years; He directed the New Mexico Business Resource Center; He served as Director of Coffee Kids, a development organization working in Latin America; and ran the IACA, the primary international trade organization in the $2 billion Indian art sector. He was a senior partner in a commercial financing firm and served as a commercial lender at a New Mexico bank. Cabral has raised millions of dollars of private equity and debt capital for many New Mexico enterprises, as well as millions of dollars of grant funding for economic development initiatives.
In 2010, he joined Cota Holdings, an Indian owned firm, where he was responsible for producing energy plans and economic development plans and helping to coordinate workshops for Tribes and Tribal enterprises throughout the U.S. for over six years.
He recently served as Executive Director of the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities, a consortium of local governments directed by elected officials of the communities that are proximate to Los Alamos National Laboratory. He also served as Development Director for Northern Pueblos Housing Authority where he was responsible for developing a 1MW utility-scale solar array, including securing a $1M DOE grant and $1.7M in private tax equity capital. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management – one of the top ranked business schools. He studied business in Japan on a fellowship program and served as a development consultant in the former Soviet Union with the Soros Foundation. Cabral lived and worked in Spain for two years and also worked in Mexico. He is fluent in Spanish.
Atherton Phleger
Atherton Phleger is a researcher and technical writer with expertise in tribal capacity building projects, community engagement, and regulatory development. Atherton currently works for Cota Holdings and Flower Hill Institute, where some typical projects include creating culturally responsive science curriculum, using collaborative approaches to design tribal hydraulic fracturing regulations, and writing federal grant applications.
Atherton graduated as Valedictorian of the English department at the University of Colorado. As a writer, his work has earned him a Thompson Western Writing Award, a Curtis Michael Gimeno Scholarship, and a Robert Manford Tobin, Jr. Scholarship.
His past experience includes working with tribal members to create environmental monitoring kits for local schools, designing filmmaking workshops for tribal members, and leading youth leadership initiatives.