Dr. Lena Hammons is a mother of four, grandmother of 14 and great grandmother to seven as well as aunty/gramma to many.  She has worked with the Tulalip Tribes in various capacities for 33-years, most notably as the Tulalip Gaming Agency Director.  As the TGA Director and the Tribal Cannabis Director, she helped build the Tulalip Regulatory Programs since 1992.  She is currently employed as the Tribal Governments Internal Audit Manager.

She has an undergraduate degree in Social Sciences/Law, Societies and Justice from the University of Washington, and also earned a Master’s degree in 2013 from Seattle University in Public Administration. Ms. Hammons recently completed her PhD in Indigenous Studies at TeWhareWananga, Maori New Zealand, her focus is social justice in Indian Country.

Ms. Hammons is also admitted to the Tulalip Bar for over 25 years and appointed by the Board of Directors as a Tribal Court Magistrate since 2015.  She also belongs to a number of other Tribal and National committees and boards

Hobbies include harvesting and making traditional plant medicines/foods.  Would love to learn more about how these work, helping others with using natural healing in balance with western medicine.  I use these to help our community with various ailments along with nutrition values.  would love to gain knowledge and expertise to have a certificate for important healing properties.  My daughter works for Tulalip Tribes, and one of her projects is protecting our traditional plant medicines from over harvesting and pharmaceutical companies.