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Doug
Burgum is a senior vice president
at Microsoft and president of the Microsoft
Great Plains division. Microsoft
Great Plains Business Solutions
is a leading provider of business applications
that help small and mid-sized companies become
more agile in today's interconnected economy.
Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions
was created through Microsoft's April 2001
acquisition of Great Plains.
Microsoft Great Plains has been recognized
as a leader in providing e-business solutions
that include financials, project accounting,
distribution, electronic commerce, human resources
and payroll, manufacturing, enterprise reporting,
sales and marketing management, and customer
service and support applications.
Doug earned top honors in the technology category
of Ernst and Young's 1997 Minnesota and Dakotas
"Entrepreneur of the Year" awards.
He has been honored in Accounting Today magazine
by being named to its "The Top 100 Most
Influential People in Accounting" list
for the past five years.
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Doug
Burgum Great
Plains Software
Year Inducted: 1989 |
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John
Odegard, Dean of the UND
Center for Aerospace Sciences,
and President of the non-profit UND Aerospace
Foundation, is a native of Minot, ND. In 1968,
Odegard pioneered UND’s aviation program
with one other faculty member and a pair of
aircraft financed by the University’s
Alumni
Foundation.
Under his leadership, the college has grown
to become one of the nation’s most widely
respected aerospace education programs, and
a leader in atmospheric research. Beginning
with only 12 students, enrollment is now over
1,400. The Center’s flight training
facility is the largest of its kind in North
America. Odegard’s reputation for leadership
has earned him industry respect and numerous
rewards. |
John
Odegard
UND Aerospace
Year Inducted: 1989 |
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Norman
Jones began his career at Metropolitan
Federal in 1952 and was named President in
1967. At that time, Metropolitan’s assets
were $57.5 million and its branches were limited
to the Red River Valley. By 1990, it was one
of the largest institutions of its kind with
assets of $4.3 billion and a financial performance
that ranked in the nation’s top ten.
It was the first North Dakota company to be
named to the Fortune 500 list. Jones was named
Chairman of the Board in 1983 and led the
company’s conversion from a mutual to
a stock thrift. Among Metropolitan’s
innovations were the acquisition of Edina
Realty, Minnesota’s
largest home seller, and the acquisition of
seven insolvent thrifts. Metropolitan was
acquired by the First Bank System in 1995,
at which time Metropolitan had assets of over
$8 billion. |
Norman
M. Jones Metropolitan
Federal
Year Inducted: 1990 |
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Bob
Spolum joined the Melroe
Company in 1963 as Controller;
sales at that time were $4 million. When he
was named Executive Vice President in 1969,
sales had increased to $25 million. Today,
sales of the Bobcat®
skid-steer loader total $500 million per year,
outselling the nearest competitor two to one.
All of the Bobcats sold worldwide are manufactured
in Gwinner and Bismarck, North Dakota. Fortune
magazine has twice named the Bobcat one of
"America’s Top 100 Products."
Today, Melroe is owned by Clark Equipment
Co. and employs 1,500 people. Spolum retired
as President and Chairman of the Board of
Melroe in 1992. |
Bob
Spolum
Melroe Company
Year Inducted: 1991 |
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Gary Tharaldson’s Fargo-based
company, Tharaldson
Enterprises,
is the largest developer of new motels in
the U.S. Today, his company owns and operates
225 motel properties in 21 states, including
13 in North Dakota. Carving out a market niche,
Tharaldson’s motels fall into the "economy
luxury" category and are located in mid-size
university cities. Hotel and Resort Industry
Magazine called him "the entrepreneurial
and financial guru for the U.S. motel development
and management industry." Room sales
will exceed $190 million in 1996 with a 74%
occupancy rate. |
Gary
Tharaldson
Tharaldson Enterprises
Year Inducted: 1992 |
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Gerry Groenewold became Director
of the UND
Energy and Environmental Research Center
in 1987. Under his leadership, the
EERC has grown from $6 million in annual research
contracts to over $21 million in 1996. EERC
is the world’s largest low-rank coal
research center and the leader in lignite
coal and groundwater research. North Dakota’s
largest research entity, with a staff of 260,
EERC offers technical solutions to energy
and environmental problems. |
Gerry
Groenewold UND
EERC
Year Inducted: 1992 |
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Judy
Johnson is President and CEO of Meyer
Broadcasting of Bismarck, and under her leadership,
Meyer Broadcasting has become a national industry
leader in automated telecasting, using custom-designed
computer applications. Meyer Broadcasting
has long dominated the electronic media in
western North Dakota and purchased KTHI-TV
in 1995. As a partner in Pentor Communications,
Johnson was the first American woman to own
a business in post-Communist Poland. Pentor
Communications is a media conglomerate in
Warsaw employing 200 people. |
Judy
Johnson Meyer
Broadcasting
Year Inducted: 1993 |
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Barry
Batcheller is the founding president
of Phoenix
International Corp. of Fargo,
which has an international reputation for
quality electronic design and manufacturing.
Phoenix supplies electronic instrumentation,
control systems, sensors, and other devices
to more than a dozen North American manufacturers
and five in Europe. Starting with three employees
in 1987, Phoenix has grown to over 450 people.
Sales have doubled every year since 1990.
Batcheller holds 17 patents on control and
instrumentation products and has authored
numerous papers on the use of electronics
in agriculture. |
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Barry Batcheller
Branic Industries
Year Inducted: 1994 |
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Darlene
Jackson-Hanson is the President and
CEO of Fisher
Flying Products and President,
CEO, and Owner of Jackson
Mfg. of Edgeley, North Dakota.
Fisher
Flying Products is North Dakota’s
only light aircraft kit manufacturer and a
leader nationally in the number of models
available. Their R-80 Tiger Moth and the Dakota
Hawk won "Best of Show" awards at
Oshkosh ‘94, the international fly-in
convention, and their bi-wing model, the "Classic,"
has won "Champion" awards for 1991,
1992, and 1993. The company is one of the
largest in sales in competition with 60 other
companies offering 500 models. |
Darleen
Jackson-Hanson
Fisher
Flying Products
Year Inducted: 1994 |
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Steve
Orr joined Lutheran
Health Systems of Fargo in 1988
and serves as its Chairman, President, and
CEO. Under his leadership, LHS has experienced
the most successful period ever in its 60-year
history. Net income increased from $800,000
in 1987 to $55.8 million in 1995. Orr’s
commitment to the historical mission of LHS
to serve rural areas has proven that rural
health care is a vital and important part
of America and serves to anchor the economic
viability of rural communities. LHS owns,
leases, and manages health care facilities
in 70 communities across 17 states and employs
14,000 people.
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Steve
Orr
Lutheran Health Systems
Year Inducted: 1995 |
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Russ
Brown joined the family business,
AGSCO, in 1956. After
three years at the Watertown, SD, branch,
he returned to Grand Forks to become Sales
Manager in 1961. He was named CEO and President
in 1978, a position he held until 1995, when
his son, Randy Brown, was named President.
Russ continues as CEO, and his father, Larry,
as Chairman of the Board. Under Russ’s
leadership, AGSCO expanded tremendously and
earned a national reputation as an innovator
in the use of seed treatments, herbicides,
insecticides, adjuvants, and chemical application
equipment.
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L.
Russell Brown
AGSCO
Year Inducted: 1995 |
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After purchasing the Grand Forks Chevrolet
dealership from his father, Leonard, in 1976,
Wes Rydell has expanded the
Rydell
organization to include nearly 30 automobile
dealerships in seven states. The expansion
of the organization has grown out of Wes's
personal philosophy rather than the desire
to simply "get bigger." Taking great
pleasure in promoting the success of his employees,
each and every dealer in the organization
used to work for Wes, or is an employee of
former employees who are now owners. In 1995,
Wes established Cartiva, a planned network
of used car dealerships, based on the concept
of enhancing the image of the car business
by taking better care of the customers. He
believes giving the customer what they want,
when they want it, is the key; profits and
market share follow.
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Wes
Rydell Rydell
Chevrolet/Cartiva
Year Inducted: 1997 |
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Continuing
a family tradition of creativity and innovation,
Howard Dahl founded Concord,
Inc., a manufacturer of conservation
tillage farm equipment, in 1977 in Fargo.
In 1981, the first Concord Air Drill was manufactured.
Surviving the severe economic downturn in
the ag machinery market of the 1980's, Concord
emerged as a leader in seeders for wheat and
small grains. Concord was the first to manufacture
an air drill with row-by-row packing and precision
depth control, the first to put down fertilizer
below the seed at the same time as planting,
and the first to build a machine that changed
seeding and fertilizing rates on the go. After
the sale of Concord to Case Corp. in 1996,
some of the retained technology was incorporated
into Amity
Technology, a leading manufacturer
of sugar beet harvesting equipment and the
manufacturer of the Concord Air Drill in Russia,
the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and China. |
Howard
A. Dahl Oil
Pioneer
Year Inducted: 1997 |
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In
1986, when First Bank decided to divest 42
community banks in a five-state territory,
Donald R. Mengedoth saw the
potential of serving the smaller, mostly rural
markets. Mengedoth led a group of investors
who acquired 21 of the banks in Minnesota,
North Dakota, and South Dakota. From its unique
beginnings with 21 banks and $630 million
in assets, Fargo-based Community First has
grown under Mengedoth's leadership to become
a $6 billion multibank holding company serving
154 communities in 11 states. It now employs
604 people in North Dakota alone. True to
its community-based roots, Community First's
expansion strategy has been to grow though
acquiring financial institutions in small
and median sized markets…markets that
are typically under-served or overlooked by
other major banking organizations. |
Donald
R. Mengedoth
Community First
Banksharers, Inc.
Year Inducted: 1998 |
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A
native of Berthold, North Dakota, and UND
graduate in physics, Richard J. Lee,
Ph.D. purchased an analysis and consulting
company with six employees in Monroeville,
Pennsylvania in 1985. Through his leadership,
RJ
Lee Group, Inc. now employs a
staff of over 120 professionals at five nationwide
locations, providing contract research, analytical
services and applications development in various
fields of materials analysis and problem solving
on behalf of an international client base.
In the late 1980's, company scientist and
engineers developed an innovative personal
electron microscope, which is now produced
and sold by a new spin-off company, RJ Lee
Instruments, Ltd. (now known as ASPEX®,
LLC) located in Trafford, Pennsylvania.
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R.J.
Lee Ph.D. RJ
Lee Group, Inc.
Year Inducted: 1998 |
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Mark
Stutrud launched Summit
Brewing as a microbrewery in
1984 and built the first new brewery in the
Twin Cities area in over 100 years when in
1995 he built his 58,000 square foot brewery
with a capacity of 70,000 barrels per year.
Summit Brewing became one of only 33 "regional"
breweries producing more than 15,000 barrels
in 1995. Summit brews - in the tradional British
style - three beers year-around and four on
a seasonal basis. Profitable since 1990, the
company has enjoyed nearly a decade of double
digit growth, ranging from 11% to 35%. Summit
is one of the nation’s leading regional
brewers of specialty beer, and is the premier
specialty brewer in the Upper Midwest. Stutrud
is a native of Wahpeton and is a graduate
of UND as well as the Siebel Institute of
Technology in Chicago.
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Mark
O. Stutrud Summit
Brewing Co.
Year Inducted: 2000 |
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Jack
Dalrymple, a Casselton, ND durum
grower and influential state legislator saw
a changing market for pasta and recognized
that the quality of pasta the general public
was demanding could only be achieved through
complete control and integration of the grain
procurement, milling and manufacturing processes.
Dalrymple also recognized that this could
best be achieved through a grower-owned cooperative
structure, ensuring a steady supply of the
right kind of durum wheat. In its first five
years of operation,
Dakota Growers became
the third largest producer of pasta in North
America, employing 500 people with processing
capacity of 470,000 million pounds of pasta
a year and sales in excess of $150 million.
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Jack
Dalrymple
Dakota Grower's
Pasta Co.
Year Inducted: 2000 |
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Tim
Dodd is the foremost authority on
integrated pasta manufacturing. He was responsible
for the design, construction and start-up
of the Dakota
Grower’s plant and has
continually used innovations to refine the
manufacturing process. A Kansas native, Dodd
has developed three pasta plants considered
leaders in the field. Dodd quadrupled sales
of Dakota Grower’s pasta in four years,
and built the company’s clientelle to
include 30 supermarket chains and a number
of restaurant chains. Dodd led the company
to become the largest producer of non-branded
pasta in the United States, and the third
largest pasta producer in the industry.
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Tim
Dodd
Dakota Grower's
Pasta Co.
Year Inducted: 2000 |
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Patrick
H. Sweeney has been the President
of Weather Modification, Inc. of Fargo since
1992. Weather
Modification, Inc. is a worldwide
atmospheric research and cloud seeding company
conducting business in Europe, the Middle
East, Asia, South America and North America.
Since the early 1960s, the company has been
a worldwide leader in the field of cloud modification
and atmospheric research. Currently, the company
operates multiple weather radars and more
than 25 high performance aircraft staffed
by experienced pilots, meteorologists and
radar technicians on its cloud seeding and
research programs. In 1995, Sweeney formed
WMI’s sister company, Fargo Jet Center,
Inc., a full service aviation company located
in Fargo. In 1999, Sweeney formed Ice Crystal
Engineering, LLC, which is the largest producer
of cloud seeding pyrotechnics in the world.
In 2000, Sweeney was instrumental in the development
of Fargo Air Medical LLC, a professional,
on-demand, fixed-wing air ambulance service
for North Dakota, Minnesota, and the Upper | | |