Doug Burgum, 33rd Governor of North Dakota

Doug Burgum is an American businessman and politician serving since 2016 as the 33rd governor of North Dakota. He is among the wealthiest governors in the United States and has an estimated net worth of $100 million according to Forbes. He is a member of the Republican Party.

Burgum was born and raised in Arthur, North Dakota. After graduating from college in 1978 and earning an MBA two years later, he mortgaged an inherited farmland in 1983 to invest in Great Plains Software in Fargo. Becoming its president in 1984, he took the company public in 1997. Burgum sold the company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001. While working at Microsoft, he managed Microsoft Business Solutions. He has served as board chairman for Australian software company Atlassian and SuccessFactors. Burgum is the founder of Kilbourne Group, a Fargo-based real-estate development firm, and also is the co-founder of Arthur Ventures, a software venture capital group.

Burgum won the 2016 North Dakota gubernatorial election in a landslide. He was reelected by a wide margin in 2020. In June 2023, Burgum launched a campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. He ended his candidacy in early December 2023, and became an advisor on the Trump campaign's energy policy.

Family life

Burgum was born on August 1, 1956, in Arthur, North Dakota, where his grandfather founded a grain elevator in 1906. The company evolved into an agribusiness that the family still owns. He is the son of Katherine (née Kilbourne) and Joseph Boyd Burgum. During his freshman year in high school, his father died. He later said that the experience shaped him as a person for many years.

Burgum married his first wife, Karen Stoker, in 1991. They had three children before divorcing in 2003. In 2016, Burgum married Kathryn Helgaas. (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources

• "Doug Burgum." Wikipedia, revision of 8 July 2024. < link > Accessed 8 July 2024.