After taking his software program firm public in 1997, Doug Burgum gathered just a few colleagues in his workplace and swore them to secrecy.
He needed to uphold the modesty and decorum central to his North Dakota birthright and his chimney-sweeper previous, however he was desirous to boast a couple of splashy new buy. Whereas others splurged on vehicles or boats, Mr. Burgum’s large reveal was a Bobcat front-end loader — a mud mover for his ranch close to Fargo.
“I bear in mind pondering, ‘Yeah, Doug, you’re not big-timing anybody with that one,’” Jeff Younger, the software program firm’s former operations chief, recalled with amusing.
Now the governor of North Dakota, Mr. Burgum’s long-held scruples over being seen as an attention-monger have hurled the longtime Republican out of political obscurity and into the limelight as one in all a handful of the main contenders in Donald J. Trump’s seek for a operating mate.
Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign has requested private info and different paperwork from a broad area of potential vice-presidential candidates, together with Mr. Burgum, each as a part of its vetting course of and as a media technique to construct suspense forward of a proper announcement deliberate for subsequent month on the Republican Nationwide Conference, in accordance with three individuals briefed on the method who insisted on anonymity to debate non-public conversations.
However Mr. Trump seems to have narrowed his focus to contenders with the power to run a disciplined marketing campaign, the individuals mentioned. Decreasing the potential for undesirable distractions has develop into more and more vital for a presidential candidate convicted final month on 34 felony expenses and nonetheless going through a number of different authorized issues.
Mr. Burgum has squarely positioned himself as a primary contender, spending months supporting Mr. Trump on the marketing campaign path and in courtroom, whereas risking his personal political capital again residence for a former president who prizes loyalty, calls for fealty and considers any try and intrude on his highlight a betrayal of each.
Mr. Burgum has develop into maybe the most secure possibility on Mr. Trump’s listing — and the largest wild card.
He’s largely untested on a nationwide stage and isn’t identified for thrilling applause traces on the stump. Mr. Burgum has little in the way in which of a public profile, even amongst Mr. Trump’s attentive political base, and isn’t an ideological warrior like others into consideration.
And but, his ambition in enterprise and politics has set him aside in North Dakota. He has spent thousands and thousands of his personal {dollars} on political pursuits, together with his underdog bid for governor in 2016 and his backing of an aggressive parade of Republican major challengers in opposition to state lawmakers in 2018. His short-lived, long-shot bid for the White Home final 12 months value him $14 million.
A spokesman for Mr. Burgum declined to remark. A Trump marketing campaign spokesman mentioned that solely the previous president knew whom he would decide for a operating mate.
On the age of 67, Mr. Burgum is nearer to a generational peer of the 77-year-old former president than a lot of the different Republicans below severe consideration. He endorsed Mr. Trump in 2016, however received each of his races for governor with out counting on assist from the previous president. His independence, each electorally and financially, has helped ease Mr. Trump, who retains shut monitor of the political money owed he’s owed, in accordance with two individuals aware of the previous president’s pondering.
Mr. Burgum possesses a Stanford diploma, a straightforward capability to speak sports activities and a thick head of hair, which he saved in a ponytail as a youthful man and is now an object of Mr. Trump ’s admiration. The previous president has privately instructed people who Mr. Burgum has the “central casting” look he favors in public figures.
In some methods, he may be straightforward to pigeonhole as a mild-mannered Midwesterner. He labored as a chimney sweep in faculty, sporting a black high hat and tails to evoke Dick Van Dyke’s character in “Mary Poppins.” When he oversaw the development of a brand new resort in downtown Fargo, he ensured it will be shorter than North Dakota’s tallest constructing — the state capitol in Bismarck — to keep away from ruffling feathers.
Mr. Trump has mentioned Mr. Burgum for a possible Cupboard publish, hypothesis that allies of different vice-presidential contenders have eagerly pushed in an try and diminish him as a doable operating mate. The end result has been a stream of rumors connecting Mr. Burgum to a number of companies, which his allies have privately nicknamed “Cupboard bingo.”
“Opportunist isn’t precisely the best phrase,” mentioned Ed Schafer, a former Republican governor of North Dakota. “However Doug Burgum is superb at figuring out alternatives.”
North Dakota Renown
Douglas James Burgum grew up in a tiny North Dakota city, however was born into an enormous piece of the state’s historical past.
His great-grandmother, Linda Slaughter, was among the many earliest settlers within the Dakota Territory. She opened the city’s first college, was an in depth buddy of Susan B. Anthony’s and, on the 1892 Populist Celebration conference in Omaha, grew to become the first American lady to vote in a nationwide conference for a presidential candidate.
Ms. Slaughter’s daughter, Jessamine, was the primary lady admitted to North Dakota State College, the place a dorm was named after her in 1962.
Jessamine Slaughter — Mr. Burgum’s grandmother — finally moved to Arthur, N.D., a small city that her father-in-law had helped settle. Her husband, Joseph A. Burgum, managed the native grain elevator that the household based in 1906. The household nonetheless runs the enterprise, which stays central to the native financial system.
Ms. Slaughter’s youngest son, Joseph B. Burgum, married Katherine Kilbourne, a faculty dean. The youngest of their three youngsters, Douglas, was sworn-in because the thirty third governor of North Dakota in December 2016.
As a scholar at North Dakota State, Mr. Burgum prevented declaring a serious and as an alternative requested mates for his or her most passionate academics and enrolled in these courses. When a steerage counselor knowledgeable him he had sufficient credit to graduate, the varsity awarded him a level in “college research.”
At Stanford Graduate Faculty of Enterprise, he performed intramural soccer and basketball and befriended Steve Ballmer, the long run Microsoft billionaire. Mr. Burgum earned his M.B.A. and left California for a job in Chicago at McKinsey & Firm, the worldwide consulting agency.
When a colleague confirmed off a brand new Apple II laptop that calculated in minutes the numbers Mr. Burgum had spent hours crunching by hand, he determined to shift careers and develop into a tech entrepreneur.
Considerably improbably, he moved again to Fargo to do it.
Beau Bateman, a farmer in North Dakota’s Crimson River Valley, roped and branded cattle with Mr. Burgum after they had been ranch fingers in faculty. He was not stunned Mr. Burgum returned residence.
“He’s only a patriot for us,” Mr. Bateman mentioned as he sat on the again gate of his Ford F-150, his cowboy boots kicking on the gravel highway.
Billion-Greenback Companies
Mr. Burgum was 26 when he fairly actually wager the household farm.
He mortgaged 160 acres of farmland inherited from his father to finance a $250,000 stake in Nice Plains Software program, a small Fargo-based start-up. With assist from extra household investments, he quickly took management of the corporate and put in himself as chief govt.
To draw expertise, he pulled lists of graduates from North Dakota colleges and launched his first junk mail marketing campaign, recruiting engineers to return residence and work at an organization the place he was selling a family-friendly tradition. He insisted on a entrance door for the brand new workplace constructing that might by no means lock and as an alternative open to an anteroom, so those that forgot their keys might step inside and wait to be let in whereas sheltered from bitter winter winds.
In 1997, the corporate grew to become the primary tech firm in North Dakota to go public.
4 years later, his outdated faculty buddy, Mr. Ballmer, got here calling.
Mr. Burgum offered the corporate in 2001 to Microsoft for a $1.1 billion, all-stock deal and joined as a high govt. He left after six years and invested in SuccessFactors, a human-relations software program firm, the place he was board chairman. SAP, the German software program large, purchased the enterprise for roughly $3.4 billion in 2010.
In 2012, Mr. Burgum invested in Atlassian, a cloud software program firm primarily based in Australia that went public in 2015 and is now valued at greater than $40 billion. He served as the corporate’s board chairman till 2016, when he stepped down earlier than he was sworn in as governor.
Mr. Burgum’s earlier profession as an entrepreneur could assist settle considerations from pro-business voters torn between Mr. Trump’s putative commerce insurance policies and President Biden’s allegiance to labor unions. Nevertheless it’s uncertain many even know him.
Requested throughout an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” final summer season if he would ever do enterprise with Mr. Trump, Mr. Burgum mentioned, “I don’t assume so.”
“I simply assume it’s vital,” Mr. Burgum mentioned, “that you simply’re judged by the corporate you retain.”
Mr. Burgum has since reversed that place, telling Fox Information final week that he now has a greater understanding of Mr. Trump after having “had an opportunity to journey with him — had an opportunity to see him, meet the true particular person.”
That type of political expediency is one thing of an artwork kind again in Arthur, N.D.
Shirley Nedrebo, 88, who lived throughout the road from Mr. Burgum when he was a boy and nonetheless resides there, owns a Trump marketing campaign hat, a memento from a 2018 rally in Fargo. One aspect of the pink cap is fixed with a Burgum marketing campaign pin. The opposite has a pin for Ben Carson, a former Cupboard secretary additionally into consideration as a operating mate.
She spoke extremely of Mr. Burgum and his household, however hedged when requested whom Mr. Trump ought to select.
“Trump,” she added, “will decide the best particular person.”
