Ross Swimmer

Swimmer attended the University of Oklahoma,[2] where he received both his Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor degrees.[4] While there, he was a member of Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity.

He is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and served as Principal Chief[4] from 1975–1985, when he resigned to accept the position of Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a bureau within the U.S. Department of the Interior. Wilma Mankiller, Deputy Chief of the Cherokee Nation succeeded Swimmer as Chief of the Cherokees.

Swimmer served as president of the Cherokee Group, L.L.C., from 1995 until 2001. The Group is a consulting firm that represents Indian clients engaged in government issues at the state and federal level, and supports the development of businesses on Indian lands. He was also Of Counsel to the Tulsa, Oklahoma, based law firm of Hall Estill, where his wife Margaret is a Partner.

Working with the Rensselaerville Institute in New York, Swimmer created a self-help program for rural community development.The Institute was responsible for teaching the skills needed for a self help program. To execute the program in the small, rural town of Bell, Oklahoma, he called on his Deputy Principal Chief, Wilma Mankiller to receive the training and begin working with the community to construct a 16 mile water line that would provide water to the community for the first time. Mankiller went on to become Principal Chief when Swimmer accepted the cabinet position of Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs under President Reagan in 1985. Much of his work was with oversight of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and included water rights for tribes in the West and a new concept of tribal self government that allowed tribes to assume responsibility for operation of programs offered by the federal government.

Mankiller went on to serve for 10 years during a time when the Cherokee Nation entered into the gaming business and became quite successful at generating employment for Indian people and establishing new health care facilities in Eastern Oklahoma. She also became the first woman to be have the distinction of being on the quarter coinage that was issued in 2022.T[2]

On November 26, 2001, he was appointed by the Bush Administration to be the Director of the Office of Indian Trust Transition, which is a Department of Interior office that is attempting to bring the Indian Trust accounting process up to minimum court-ordered standards (Cobell v. Kempthorne).In 2003, he was appointed to a cabinet position requiring senate confirmation as Special Trustee for American Indians. The primary work of the Trustee was to do an accounting of the past 100 years of BIA record keeping of income that had been collected by the BIA for Indian people who owned "Trust" land as a result of the allotment acts of the late 1800's that awarded parcels of reservation land to individuals but held most of the land in trust for their benefit instead of awarding fee title to the property. The project was successful in creating an accounting system that allowed Indian land holders information on income from their land for grazing rights, oil and gas production, coal production and leases. The case was ended with the appellate court ordering the accounting to be completed as much as possible and no money awarded. In the following Obama Administration, Congress was asked to appropriate money to pay attorneys $100 million for their work on the lawsuit and to pay each Indian with an account a certain sum depending on the value and then to purchase fractional interests of land, sometimes as small as 1/1000 of an interest in a parcel of land that caused an enormous expense for accounting, probating, etc.

On Swimmers return to Oklahoma in 2009, he was elected director of The First National Bank and Trust of Shawnee, OK. a tribally owned bank of the Potawatomi Tribe of Oklahoma. He also was certified as a registered investment advisor by the S.E.C and joined the firm of Pinnacle Advisors and Native American Fund Advisors LLC.

Margaret Swimmer, wife of Ross for 52 years died of cancer in 2019. She had been a partner of Hall, Estill law firm in Tulsa where Ross served "of counsel" for several years after returning to Tulsa in 1989. They had two sons, Michael and Joseph. Michael died in 2000 as a result of cancer. Joe lives in Washington D.C. and serves as the Director of the Episcopal Church Network. He is married to Tarak Patel.

Swimmer serves on the board of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, President of the Tulsa Garden Center that manages a large park, Woodward Park in central Tulsa under contract the City of Tulsa, board of the Saint Simeons Foundation that supports Saint Simeons senior living center, Trustee Emeritus of the University of Tulsa and the National Archives Foundation, Washington, D.C. He also serves on the Investment Committee for the Botanic Garden of Tulsa, and the Investment Committee for Trinity Episcopal Church where he has held positions on the Vestry and Senior Warden of Trinity Church.