Raised on a reservation, Brian Cladoosby was exposed to drugs and alcohol at a young age.

It nearly destroyed him.

But he found salvation and a purpose in life.

Today, Cladoosby is a husband, a proud father of two daughters, a doting grandfather and a spiritual and political leader of his people – all 566 federally recognized tribes sprinkled throughout the country.

“And they chose me,” Brian Cladoosby, a Native American of the Swinomish Tribe, told a congregation assembled Sunday at the Pentecostal Church on the Muckleshoot Reservation. “(But) I am only here because of the grace of God.”

Cladoosby, the Swinomish Tribal chair and president of the National Congress of American Indians, was a guest speaker at the Arise, Shine Native Men & Women’s Conference – a three-day event that included speeches from tribal leaders, testimonials, workshops, prayer, vendors, native craft demonstrations and music.

Sunday’s sermon belonged to Cladoosby, a humble, good-natured man who donned traditional garb of his tribe, a gift for being recently reelected to serve the tribes throughout the United States for a second term.

Cladoosby grew up “dirt poor” on a reservation in the La Conner area. He grew up a troubled, misguided child of alcoholic parents in a family and school environment fraught by drugs and alcohol abuse.

But he eventually escaped the troubles, married a Christian woman, Nina, and raised a family. The couple has been married for 37 years.

“Nothing is impossible. You can overcame a mountain of grief and problems … those things that we do in our life that causes us to separate from the Lord,” Cladoosby told the gathering.

As the highest elected tribal leader in the nation, Cladoosby continues to work for Native Americans. That means strengthening tribal education, health care, mental health and family support systems, protecting treaty rights, tribal lands and natural resources, and ensuring that elected officials at all levels have an understanding of the challenges facing Indian youth.

Cladoosby works tirelessly to meet the needs of today’s children and for those generations to come.

“It will take education … education is going to destroy drug and alcohol abuse, destroy poverty, welfare dependence, food stamp dependence, no courts, no jails, no prisons … ,” he said.

Cladoosby emphasized that education and health care are important ingredients to the future well being of Native Americans. He vows to “fight every day” for such rights.

As an avid fisherman, Cladoosby has a strong connection to the salmon from which Coast Salish tribes draw their livelihood.

When President Obama held the first government-to-government meeting of his presidency in 2010, Cladoosby was selected as one of 12 tribal leaders to attend.

Today he continues to carry the torch of his people at key leadership meetings in Washington, D.C.

“We have many accomplishments behind us … and we have a good deal of work in front of us,” Cladoosby said.

The conference at Muckleshoot also featured guest speaker Hattie Kauffman, a former CBS and ABC news correspondent who began her career at KING-5. Kauffman, a member of the Nez Perce Tribe, worked for more than two decades as a correspondent for major network news. She was the first Native American to file a report on a national news broadcast.

Other special guests included: former state Sen. Claudia Kauffman, who introduced her sister, Hattie; Chief Maureen Chapman (Sto:lo Nation from Canada); and Ella R. Wilson, senior prosecuting attorney for the Navajo Nation.

Jerry Chapman, of Sto:lo Nation and drum speaker for the nations, provided music.

Pentecostal Church and Firestarters hosted the event in honor of the Muckleshoot Tribe.