BEMIDJI — A Red Lake tribal member has opened a new restaurant in Bemidji with the help of a state loan program targeting American Indian entrepreneurs.

With a high rate of high school dropouts and unemployed on the Red Lake reservation, Marv Hanson said he hopes to be a role model for American Indians who want to start their own business.

Hanson started The Marvelous Fish House and Market in Bemidji with a $177,000 loan from the Minnesota Indian Business Loan Program, which provides start-up funding for up to 75 percent of a business project.

The Indian Business Loan program has been used 16 times in the past decade. American Indian Chamber of Commerce chairman Jon Otto says the funding may be underutilized because few people know about it.