After taking his software program firm public in 1997, Doug Burgum gathered a number of colleagues in his workplace and swore them to secrecy.
He wished to uphold the modesty and decorum central to his North Dakota birthright and his chimney-sweeper previous, however he was desperate to boast a couple of splashy new buy. Whereas others splurged on automobiles or boats, Mr. Burgum’s huge reveal was a Bobcat front-end loader — a mud mover for his ranch close to Fargo.
“I keep in mind considering, ‘Yeah, Doug, you’re not big-timing anybody with that one,’” Jeff Younger, the software program firm’s former operations chief, recalled with fun.
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 certainly one of a handful of the main contenders in Donald J. Trump’s seek for a operating mate.
Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign has requested private data and different paperwork from a broad discipline 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 response to three individuals briefed on the method who insisted on anonymity to debate personal conversations.
However Mr. Trump seems to have narrowed his focus to contenders with the flexibility 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 dealing with a number of different authorized issues.
Mr. Burgum has squarely positioned himself as a major contender, spending months supporting Mr. Trump on the marketing campaign path and in courtroom, whereas risking his personal political capital again dwelling 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 most important wild card.
He’s largely untested on a nationwide stage and isn’t recognized for thrilling applause strains on the stump. Mr. Burgum has little in the best way 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 tens of millions 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 towards state lawmakers in 2018. His short-lived, long-shot bid for the White Home final yr price 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 many of the different Republicans below severe consideration. He endorsed Mr. Trump in 2016, however gained 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 observe of the political money owed he’s owed, in response to two individuals accustomed to the previous president’s considering.
Mr. Burgum possesses a Stanford diploma, a simple 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 informed those that Mr. Burgum has the “central casting” look he favors in public figures.
In some methods, he will be simple 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 might 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 submit, hypothesis that allies of different vice-presidential contenders have eagerly pushed in an try and diminish him as a potential 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 precise 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 a detailed good friend of Susan B. Anthony’s and, on the 1892 Populist Occasion conference in Omaha, turned the primary 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 — ultimately 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 economic system.
Ms. Slaughter’s youngest son, Joseph B. Burgum, married Katherine Kilbourne, a university dean. The youngest of their three kids, Douglas, was sworn-in because the thirty third governor of North Dakota in December 2016.
As a pupil at North Dakota State, Mr. Burgum averted declaring a serious and as a substitute requested buddies for his or her most passionate academics and enrolled in these lessons. 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 longer term 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 have been ranch palms in faculty. He was not stunned Mr. Burgum returned dwelling.
“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 street.
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 dwelling 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 a substitute 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 turned the primary tech firm in North Dakota to go public.
4 years later, his previous 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 big, 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 might assist settle issues from pro-business voters torn between Mr. Trump’s putative commerce insurance policies and President Biden’s allegiance to labor unions. However 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 suppose so.”
“I simply suppose 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 individual.”
That type of political expediency is one thing of an artwork type 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 mounted 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 precise individual.”
