MuralNet | About

About MuralNet

Our Vision & Mission

We envision a world where every Tribal community has access to broadband internet—supporting their education, health, and economic future on their own terms.

MuralNet works with Native communities to design, build and implement sustainable tribal networks.

Our Story

MuralNet was founded by Martin Casado and Brian Shih in 2017 to bring high-speed Internet to the homes of students on tribal lands and bridge the digital divide.

MuralNet has worked with dozens of Tribal nations since our first project helping to build a network in the Village of Supai at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

MuralNet partners with government agencies, Silicon Valley, middle-mile providers, ISPs, colleges and universities to provide Tribes with access to equipment and in-house network planning, labor, technical support, policy specialists and lawyers.

OUR Staff

Mariel Triggs

CEO

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Mariel Triggs is the hands-on CEO of MuralNet, coordinating deployments, partnerships, and educational efforts. She has taken part in every aspect of builds from applying for licenses and funding to staging and mounting equipment. As an engineer, educator, and researcher, she has pushed innovation in STEM classrooms and her work with online math curriculum proved how vital access to Internet resources is for learning content as well as changing mindsets. Because of this, Mariel strives to make the Internet accessible for all students. Mariel testified in front of Congress for the Subcommittee hearing on building a comprehensive approach to spectrum policy.

She has two engineering degrees from UC Berkeley and a Master’s in Education from Stanford.

Petra Wilson

Outreach Coordinator

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Petra Wilson, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, has been active in working with Native American youth for 15 years as an Indian Education and Urban Indian Education and community outreach advocate. Her experience spans community relations and engagements, public relations, as well as, collaborative program development with local education agencies. She serves at a national level, as the Board of Director for the National Johnson O'Malley Association (NJOMA) and the NJOMA Foundation, advocating for JOM youth. Furthering her work as an elected voice and liaison for the cultural and unique needs of Native American and Alaska Native students. She maintains participation in the grassroots movements for tribal control of education. Her work with MuralNet brings passion in outreach for internet equity, homework equity, and tribal ownership of their airwaves over their sovereign lands and the surrounding rural communities.

Crystal Hottowe

Network Funding Specialist

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Ms. Crystal Hottowe is a member of the Makah Tribe, located in Washington State. She has spent over ten years working in her tribe’s Community Planning and Economic Development Department as the Grants Writer, with a focus on federal and state grant proposals. Since 2013, she led the Makah Tech Team, which addressed the slow internet service on the Reservation through their own wireless network construction plan, providing broadband to government offices and the school campus within a year. By negotiating with major telecommunication firms, she was able to upgrade the internet infrastructure twice, bring cellular service to her community and is planning for the construction of towers for emergency services. Ms. Hottowe has served on the FCC Office of Native Affairs and Policy (ONAP) Native Nations Communications Task Force. She is the co-chair to the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indian’s (ATNI) Telecommunications & Technology Committee, a regional group of tribes that advocate for positive policy impact and is the ATNI representative on the Washington State Interoperability Executive Committee (WA SIEC). In 2019, Ms. Hottowe added two more board seats to the growing stack: in May she was appointed to the Clallam County Economic Development Corporation Board of Directors, and in May she was appointed as the ATNI Representative to the FirstNet Tribal Working Group (TWG), a team of tribal representatives from across the United States that advises FirstNet on policy regarding deployment strategies on tribal lands.

In addition to these duties, Ms. Hottowe also serves as a butler, maid, chauffeur, and coach for her busy teenage daughter, who the sun rises and sets upon in Ms. Hottowe’s eyes.

Leslie Hardwick

Data Director

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Leslie Hardwick is a member of the Blackfeet Nation. She has 15 years of experience in Telecom Billing and ISP Office Management, working with two tribal companies. Her previous experience includes managing and operating a full-power non-commercial FM radio station for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, creating digital audio and video content for a social media sharing site called Rezkast, managing an ANA grant for community-based access to technology, administering a tribal language ANA grant, and serving as the co-chair of a grassroots organization under the University of Idaho. She is completing her education in Business Leadership and Digital Marketing and will soon start her own business.

Her passion is serving people, applying her skills wherever they are needed. She loves spending time with her husband and children, being outdoors and riding ATVs, traveling and making many awesome memories with her loved ones. She and her husband share eight children and two grandsons who are the light of their lives.

OUR Board

Martin Casado

Board Member, Founder / CFO

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Martin Casado is involved in most aspects of Mural, focusing on funding, relationships, technology and deployments. Martin is an entrepreneur, investor and technologist. He was deeply involved in the development of software defined networking both as a researcher and later as a technologist when he co-founded Nicira Networks which was acquired by VMWare in 2012. He is currently a GP at Andreessen Horowitz. He grew up in Flagstaff Arizona, near Four Corners, and has a deep affinity for the region.

Martin earned his bachelors degree from Northern Arizona University and a masters and PhD in computer science from Stanford where he studied computer networking.

Dr. Chad S. Hamill

Board Member, Community Outreach Initiatives and Partnerships

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Chad S. Hamill, Ph.D. serves as Vice President for Native American Initiatives at Northern Arizona University, where he maintains a faculty position in the Department of Applied Indigenous Studies. Tasked with advancing NAU’s strategic goal to become the nation’s leading university serving Native Americans, Dr. Hamill established the Office of Native American Initiatives (ONAI) in 2016. With an emphasis on expanding educational opportunities for Native American students and their communities, ONAI has developed programs in the areas of tribal leadership, environmental stewardship, culturally-responsive K12 pedagogy, and Native mentorship. ONAI has cultivated partnerships with Indigenous programs and communities in the United States, Canada and Australia.

An ethnomusicologist, Dr. Hamill’s scholarship is focused on song traditions of the Interior Northwest US, including those carried by his Spokane ancestors. He has written extensively about Columbia Plateau songs and ceremony, exploring topics ranging from sovereignty to Indigenous ecological knowledge. He sits on the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and serves as Vice President and Treasurer of the Spokane Language House, a 501(c)(3) that contributes to the sustainability of the Spokane language.

Danielle Forward

Board Member, Head of Design

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Danielle Forward is Head of Design at MuralNet, guiding the team towards a community-focused, human-centered approach to solving gaps in the ecosystem for connectivity in Native American communities. After 10 years of working to pay her own way through college, she graduated as valedictorian with her BFA in Interaction Design from California College of the Arts and now works at Facebook as a Product Designer. As a Native American of Pomo heritage, she learned early on how structural inequity impacts livelihood and access to opportunity for marginalized groups, and dedicated her college thesis and life's work to economic empowerment for Native American communities through tech and design. She founded Natives Rising, a community that highlights Native American role models in tech, offers career guidance, networking, and mentorship connections between Native tech professionals and students.