BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum is little-known on the national stage but is now a top choice to be former President Donald Trump’ s vice presidential running mate.

The wealthy software entrepreneur has led North Dakota like a CEO. He’s championed business-oriented items such as income tax cuts and tech upgrades for state government, from cybersecurity to state websites. He has not been outspoken on social issues, even as the state’s Republican-led Legislature sent him a flurry of anti-LGBTQ+ bills last year. But after vetoing some of the bills in 2021 and 2023, he later signed most of them — around the same time he was preparing a 2024 presidential bid that fizzled within months.

Here are some takeaways on Burgum and his actions:

From small-town roots, Burgum became a wealthy executive

Burgum, 67, grew up in a tiny North Dakota town. After college, he led Great Plains Software, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2001 for $1.1 billion. Burgum stayed on as a vice president with Microsoft until 2007. He went on to lead other companies in real estate development and venture capital.

Burgum was largely known as a software executive and businessman before his upset campaign for governor in 2016 when he beat the state’s longtime attorney general in the GOP primary. He ran on “reinventing” government as the state grappled with a $1 billion revenue shortfall.

As governor, his focus was on economic, not social issues

Burgum campaigned in 2016 as a business leader and has governed with the same approach. He’s talked about “treating taxpayers like customers.” He brought some Microsoft veterans and other private-sector people into state government.

He’s pushed income tax cuts, cybersecurity enhancements, state website upgrades, cuts to state regulations and changes to higher education governance and animal agriculture laws. The planned Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library is one of his biggest efforts.

Burgum can talk at length about carbon capture, energy policy and other topics of interest to him. He frequently boasts of North Dakota’s underground “geologic jackpot” for carbon dioxide storage, and touts an approach of “innovation over regulation.”

People who have worked with him in the governor’s office say he’s extremely inquisitive and works long hours.

Burgum’s positions on LGBTQ+ issues changed

Democratic and Republican lawmakers who have worked with Burgum say it was disappointing to see him sign a sheaf of anti-LGBTQ+ bills in 2023, and that he might have been eyeing the national stage as he did so. Burgum launched a bid for president in June 2023, about a month after the legislative session ended.

In 2021, Burgum vetoed a bill banning transgender girls from public schools’ girls sports. In early 2023, he vetoed a bill he said would make teachers into “pronoun police.”

But later in the 2023 session, as he prepared to run for president, he signed the slew of bills restricting transgender people, including a ban on gender-affirming medical treatments for kids and two sports bans similar to the bill he vetoed in 2021.

He also signed a book ban bill but vetoed a further-reaching one. Opponents said the bills went after LGBTQ+ literature.

Burgum also signed a bill that revised North Dakota’s abortion laws after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. The state’s abortion ban is one of the strictest in the U.S. Burgum has not been outspoken on LGBTQ+ issues or abortion.

Burgum ended his presidential campaign in December 2023, having failed to gain traction. The next month, he said he wouldn’t seek a third term as governor.

MEDORA, N.D. — A group of six riders had just finished packing and started on a trail ride through the Badlands at Theodore Roosevelt National Park when a wild horse came scurrying down a butte toward them.

“All of a sudden I heard a whinny come from up on the bluff,” Kelly Ringer said. She was one of the riders visiting the park from Park Rapids, Minnesota. “He came barreling down.”

The horse’s dramatic arrival came with a spirited exchange of whinnying and neighing as the wild horse, a 5-year-old stallion named Alluvium, and the horses in the riding group chatted.

At first, Ringer, who was riding a young horse who had never before been exposed to a wild horse and was unfamiliar with the terrain, was concerned. But her worries quickly faded.

“It was magical,” Ringer said. “He was fine. He wasn’t aggressive.”

It soon became apparent that Alluvium had a particular interest in a “little mare” named Gypsy in the riding group, she said, which was departing from the Roundup Group Horse Camp 12 miles from Medora in the park’s south unit, where 185 to 200 wild horses roam.

“He decided to hang around” and followed the group as it left for the trail ride on Thursday, May 16, Ringer said. Alluvium circled the riders and after about five minutes, Ringer’s horse, Boone, bucked, and she fell. She was not hurt.

“That’s just what horses do,” she said. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

Alluvium followed the riders for a time but stopped after a while, seeming to keep to a certain area while avoiding others.

“I think that was probably his territory,” and he appeared to regard other areas as off-limits, possibly because they were the turf of other wild stallions in the park, Ringer said.

The wild horses are organized into social groups called bands, each led by a stallion.

Later on during the ride, when Alluvium was no longer tailing the group, Ringer’s horse again bucked, possibly spooked by some brush.

“It’s horses,” Ringer said. “They have a mind of their own. It’s a risk that you take.”

Horse advocates have said Alluvium, a bachelor stallion, was acting naturally by trying to recruit mares to form his own band.

Ringer and her fellow riders had another drop-in visitor at Roundup Group Horse Camp — a bison that came up close to the corral and charged, spooking Boone, who was inside the corral.

“He took a couple of charges at the corral with my horse in it,” she said. “That was a little unsettling.”

But the group of riders came to the park knowing that it is home to wildlife, including horses and bison, Ringer said.

“These are just risks that you take,” she said. “What would that park be without the bison and the wild horses? The park would not be what it is without the wildlife, and that includes the wild horses.”

During their stay, a park ranger paid a visit to the group of riders at Roundup camp, and they told him about their encounter with Alluvium.

“We didn’t necessarily report it,” Ringer said. “We didn’t contact the park, but a ranger came in one day and the horse (Alluvium) was there and asked if he was a nuisance.”

Ringer mentioned that she had been bucked off. The ranger asked if they wanted Alluvium removed and was told no. The ranger left soon after, and Ringer thought no more of it — until she learned the park considers Alluvium a “nuisance animal” that poses a danger to the public and will remove him from the park.

“That’s why I feel so bad,” she said. “We told the ranger, ‘No, leave him.’”

She added: “This is a young bachelor stallion. He’s just doing what is natural. Horses are herd animals.”

Another rider in the group, Kaylee Bickey, also of Park Rapids, said Alluvium was not acting aggressively around Gypsy and the other horses.

“He wasn’t really trying to cut her out or anything,” she said. “When we said, ‘Git,’ he got, he went away. He just wanted other horses to be with.”

After their ride, when Gypsy was returned to the corral, Alluvium stayed close by.

Bickey’s recollection of the discussion with the park ranger about Alluvium matched Ringer’s.

“We told the ranger about him, but we never complained. We went to see wild horses. It was probably a top-five experience of my life.”

The riders brought young horses that hadn’t experienced situations like those in the park and reacted more than seasoned horses would have, Bickey said.

“It wasn’t any fault of Alluvium,” she said. “It was our fault for not exposing them to things before just taking them out. Once they had been around him for a little bit, they were fine.”

Ringer, who has ridden horses for 30 years, recalled encounters with dogs, deer and even inanimate objects that spooked horses. “If I would go and eliminate something every time it spooked my horse — that’s just insane,” she said.

Park officials have not given interviews about Alluvium but issued statements.

Park Superintendent Angie Richman said Alluvium was “harassing visitors and visitor’s horses at the horse camp campground. Park staff relocated it once and it found its way back to the camp the next day. This is a nuisance animal that can potentially harm visitors or their animals.”

Park officials have been holding Alluvium in a pen for several weeks “until it can be sold or transferred to a tribal partner or other government agency,” Richman said earlier.

Chris Kman, president of Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates, asked park officials to allow Alluvium to stay in the park. He was in his home and acting naturally in the encounter with visiting horses, she said, noting bison are dangerous but remain in the park, apparently even after goring visitors.

By describing the horses as livestock instead of wildlife, a term the park formerly used, park officials are doing a disservice to visitors by making the horses seem tame, Kman wrote in an email to Richman.

In an interview, Kman said it appears Richman is determined to reduce the size of the herd, and Alluvium’s encounter with the mare provided an excuse to get rid of a horse. She said a horse trailer has been parked near the pen where Alluvium is being held, apparently in preparation for transporting him.

Park officials did not directly respond to the points raised by Kman or the account given by Ringer and Bickey that found no fault with Alluvium’s behavior.

“I would adopt him if I could,” Bickey said. “For a wild horse, he was pretty well-behaved.”

Park officials haven’t yet made arrangements for an auction sale of Alluvium.

“We currently do not have any additional details concerning an auction,” Maureen McGee-Ballinger, deputy park superintendent, said in an email. “When/if there is an auction, the details will be announced.”

Leaders of tribal nations highlighted efforts to bolster their communities and strengthen their sovereignty at an annual summit this week.

Frank Jamerson, vice chair of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said the tribe has made progress building relationships with other government agencies.

“We’re now able to take those steps forward so we can start showing the United States government that we as Native Americans can start taking care of ourselves,” Jamerson said.

During the event, which took place Tuesday and Wednesday at the Bismarck Event Center, the five tribes that share geography with North Dakota were invited to provide updates on projects and programs and to speak to accomplishments and challenges in their communities.

Standing Rock, for instance, will soon start construction on several new greenhouses. The goal of the program is to help the tribe produce more of its own food.

Standing Rock is planning a new records building, as well. The facility will store the tribe’s historical documents, Jamerson said.

“It will be like a teaching tool for our younger generation — that they can see the history,” said Jamerson, who spoke at the conference on behalf of Chair Janet Alkire.

The vice chair also highlighted a successful housing program for employees of the Prairie Knights Casino and a program that provides free meals for elders.

Spirit Lake Nation Chair Lonna Jackson-Street said her tribe is working to administer more public programs without assistance from the federal government.

“We believe that tribal government is the best-situated to provide for public welfare and law and order on the reservation,” Jackson-Street said at the conference.

Spirit Lake leaders are considering assuming responsibility for law enforcement services currently provided through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Jackson-Street said.

The tribe has already signed an agreement with the bureau to employ three of its own law enforcement officers. She said the agreement allows the tribe to bypass the agency’s background check process, which in the past has significantly lengthened the hiring process.

She noted that the tribe already manages programs formerly administered by the Indian Health Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa recently opened a food distribution center and this fall will welcome a new addiction treatment center, Chair Jamie Azure said.

Turtle Mountain also is adding new recreational facilities, he added.

A new water park recently opened on the reservation, and a trampoline park is slated to open within the next few weeks.

“We started hearing that the kids wanted a safe haven to go to — somewhere fun in the community that was safe, where they felt safe,” Azure said.

Azure said the tribe has formed a drug task force to combat drug trafficking.

The task force and state are “working together to stop the drugs from coming into our communities,” he said.

MHA Nation Chair Mark Fox shared a long list of new developments on the Fort Berthold Reservation, including public schools, medical facilities, government buildings and community centers. Like Standing Rock, the MHA Nation is also planning to build a greenhouse.

Fox also noted that the 4 Bears Casino has taken a significant revenue hit due to the explosion of electronic pull tabs in North Dakota.

In order to help its tourism industry bounce back, the MHA Nation is also planning updates to the 4 Bears Casino, as well as to build a new casino near White Shield, Fox said.

“Our strategy is not to retreat,” Fox said. “Our strategy, given our resources and everything else we do, is to reinvest.”

In the future, the MHA Nation hopes to open a regenerative treatment center for diabetes and other illnesses.

Fox said the MHA Nation is also investing its wealth outside the reservation. It has purchased land for development in Las Vegas, for example.

“Real estate development makes money,” Fox said.

Leadership from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Tribe was unable to attend the conference.

Many tribal leaders also took the opportunity to bid farewell to Gov. Doug Burgum, who started the conference six years ago. Burgum is not seeking reelection to the office of governor. His term ends in December.

During the conference, Burgum urged a continued focus on state-tribal relations.

“My first challenge for all of you is to say, ‘Hey, this is just the beginning. … We’re keeping this thing going, we’re moving forward,’ ” Burgum said. “One of the advantages we have as a state is that we’re nimble, we’ve got all these abundant resources, and we can tackle even the biggest challenges.”

This story was originally published on NorthDakotaMonitor.com