Being an old Midwesterner myself, I confess a sneaking preference for people from the Midwest for important tasks. Us Midwesterners (well, outside of Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul) are generally solid, stable, and come with a good helping of common sense. So, when President-elect Donald Trump named his former election rival, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, as his nomination for Secretary of the Interior, I reckoned that it was a pretty good choice.
Burgum, 68, grew up in tiny Arthur, North Dakota, population 328. He earned a bachelor’s degree from North Dakota State University and his master’s of business administration from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
He went on to become a wealthy software executive. He led Great Plains Software, which Microsoft acquired for $1.1 billion in 2001. Burgum stayed on as a vice president until…
