After Doug Burgum took his software company public in 1997, he gathered a few colleagues in his office and swore them to secrecy.
He wanted to maintain the modesty and civility inherited from his past as a chimney sweep from North Dakota, but he liked to brag about flashy new products. While others were splashing out on cars and boats, Mr. Burgum made a big show of showing off a Bobcat front-end loader, a construction vehicle for a ranch near Fargo.
“I remember thinking, 'Yeah, Doug, you're not fooling anybody with that,'” Jeff Young, the software company's former head of operations, recalled with a laugh.
Now governor of North Dakota, Burgum's longtime reluctance to be seen as an attention-seeker has catapulted the longtime Republican from political obscurity to prominence as one of a handful of potential running mates for Donald J. Trump's vice presidential running mate.
The Trump campaign has requested personal information and other documents from a range of potential vice presidential candidates, including Burgum, as part of the vetting process and as a media ploy to ratchet up tension ahead of a formal announcement at the Republican National Convention next month, according to three people briefed on the process and speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
But people familiar with the matter said Trump appeared to focus on candidates who could run disciplined campaigns, making reducing the chances of unwanted interference all the more important for a presidential candidate who remains in multiple legal trouble after being convicted of 34 felony counts last month.
Burgum has spent months backing Trump on the campaign trail and in court, positioning himself as the favorite to succeed him, risking his own political capital back home for a former president who values ​​loyalty, demands allegiance and sees any attempt to encroach on the spotlight as a betrayal of both.
Burgum is perhaps the safest choice on Trump's list, and also the biggest uncertainty.
Burgum has little experience on the national stage and is not known for drawing applause during speeches. He is also little known among Trump's most ardent supporters and is not an ideological warrior like some of the other candidates on the shortlist.
Still, his business and political ambitions have set him apart in North Dakota: He has poured millions of his own money into political endeavors, including an unsuccessful run for governor in 2016 and backing aggressive Republican candidates challenging state legislators in 2018. He spent $14 million on a short-lived, long-shot run for the White House last year.
A spokesman for Burgum declined to comment. A Trump campaign spokesman said only the former president knows who he will choose as his running mate.
At 67, Burgum is closer to the 77-year-old former president's generation than most of the other Republicans under serious consideration. Burgum endorsed Trump in 2016 but won both of his gubernatorial races without the former president's help. Burgum's independence, both electoral and financial, helps ease the burden on Trump, who is keeping a tight rein on the political debt he owes, two people familiar with the former president's thinking said.
Burgum, with his Stanford degree, ease in talking about sports and thick hair that he wore in a ponytail in his youth, has become the object of Trump's affection, with the former president privately telling people that Burgum has the looks for the “centerpiece” he likes in public life.
In some ways, he's easy to categorize as a mild-mannered Midwesterner. In college, he worked as a chimney sweep and wore a black top hat and tailcoat reminiscent of Dick Van Dyke's character in “Mary Poppins.” When he oversaw construction of a new hotel in downtown Fargo, he made sure it was shorter than the tallest building in North Dakota, the state capitol in Bismarck, to avoid any stir.
Trump has discussed the possibility of naming Burgum to a Cabinet post, and allies of other running mates have been pushing hard to disparage Burgum as a possible running mate, sparking rumors that Burgum has ties to multiple departments that allies are privately calling “Cabinet Bingo.”
“Opportunist isn't the exact word,” said Ed Schafer, a former Republican governor of North Dakota, “but Doug Burgum is very good at identifying opportunities.”
North Dakota Claim to Fame
Douglas James Burgum grew up in a small town in North Dakota, but he was born into a major part of the state's history.
His great-grandmother, Linda Slaughter, was one of the first settlers in the Dakota Territory, she opened the town's first school, was a close friend of Susan B. Anthony, and was the first American woman to vote for a presidential candidate at the 1892 Populist Party National Convention in Omaha.
Slaughter's daughter, Jessamyn, was the first woman to attend North Dakota State University, and the university had a dorm named after her in 1962.
Burgum's grandmother, Jessamyn Slaughter, eventually immigrated to Arthur, North Dakota, a small town that her father-in-law helped settle. Her husband, Joseph A. Burgum, managed the local grain elevator that his family established in 1906. The family still runs the business today, and it remains central to the local economy.
Slaughter's youngest son, Joseph B. Burgum, is married to college dean Katherine Kilburn, and their youngest child, Douglas, was sworn in as the 33rd governor of North Dakota in December 2016.
As a student at North Dakota State University, Burgum didn't decide on a major. Instead, she asked friends who their most enthusiastic teachers were and took their classes. When a guidance counselor told her she had enough credits to graduate, the school awarded her a degree in “college studies.”
At Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, where he played football and basketball for the school and befriended future Microsoft billionaire Steve Ballmer, Burgum earned his MBA and left California to take a job at global consulting firm McKinsey & Company in Chicago.
When a colleague showed off a new Apple II computer that calculated in minutes numbers that had taken Burgum hours to calculate by hand, Burgum decided to switch careers and become a tech entrepreneur.
It's kind of hard to believe, but he went back to Fargo to do just that.
Beau Bateman, a farmer in North Dakota's Red River Valley who used to rope and brand cattle with Burgum, a ranch hand, during his college years, wasn't surprised by Burgum's return.
“He's such a patriot to us,” Bateman said, sitting on the back gate of his Ford F-150, his cowboy boots stomping down the gravel road.
A billion-dollar business
At age 26, Burgum literally put his family farm on the line.
He mortgaged 160 acres of farmland he inherited from his father and bought $250,000 in stock in a small Fargo-based startup called Great Plains Software, and, with further investments from his family, he soon took control of the company and became its chief executive officer.
To attract talent, he compiled a list of alumni from North Dakota schools and launched the company's first direct mail campaign to recruit engineers to return to their hometown to work for a company that promoted a family-friendly culture. He insisted that the front doors of new office buildings never be locked, instead opening into a waiting room so that anyone who forgot their keys could step in and wait to get in, protected from the harsh winter winds.
In 1997, the company became the first technology company to go public in North Dakota.
Four years later, his college friend, Mr. Ballmer, came to visit him.
Burgum joined the company as its top executive in 2001 when it sold it to Microsoft in an all-stock deal for $1.1 billion. He left six years later to invest in human resources software company SuccessFactors Inc. and serve as its executive chairman. German software giant SAP acquired the company in 2010 for about $3.4 billion.
Burgum invested in Australia-based cloud software company Atlassian in 2012. The company went public in 2015 and is now valued at more than $40 billion. Burgum served as chairman of the company's board until 2016, when he stepped down before taking office as governor.
Burgum's entrepreneurial background could help ease the concerns of pro-business voters caught between Trump's trade policies and Biden's loyalty to labor unions, but few are likely to be familiar with him.
Asked in an interview on NBC's “Meet the Press” last summer if he would do business with Trump, Burgum replied, “I don't think so.”
“I think it's important to note that you are judged by the people you hang out with,” Burgum said.
Burgum has since reversed his stance, telling Fox News last week that he has a better understanding of Trump because “I've had the opportunity to travel with him, I've had the opportunity to meet him and see the real person.”
That kind of political expediency is something of an art in Arthur, North Dakota.
Shirley Nedrebo, 88, who still lives across the street from Burgum's childhood home, owns a Trump campaign hat, a keepsake from a 2018 rally in Fargo. Pinned to one side of the red cap is Burgum's campaign pin. On the other is a pin from Ben Carson, a former Cabinet secretary who is also being considered for vice presidential consideration.
She spoke highly of Burgum and his family but avoided answering a question about whom Trump should pick.
“Trump will pick the right person,” she added.