3/13/2007:
On this date, March 13, 1957, a baby boy, John, was born to Jack and Trish at St. Alexius Hospital in Bismarck. John, the middle of three children, ( he has two sisters), would grow up to graduate from Bishop Ryan High School in Minot and later earn a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire…after that, a master’s degree in business administration from Northwestern University in Chicago. After several years in the banking industry, John Hoeven would make his first foray into politics a successful one, becoming elected Governor of North Dakota in two thousand.
Hoeven began his professional banking career in Minot where he worked until 1993, at which time he was appointed by the State Industrial Commission to the position of President of the Bank of North Dakota. During Hoeven’s tenure at the BND, from ’93 to 2000, bank assets grew from nine hundred million dollars to just over one and one half billion dollars.
When popular Republican Governor, Ed Schaefer stepped down from the office, John Hoeven, also a Republican, ran for the office against popular Democratic candidate, Heidi Heitkamp, who had served as the state’s Attorney General for 8 years. Hoeven won the November 2000 election by a 55% to 45% margin. Hoeven, who had no political experience before taking office quickly became a popular governor, and defeated Democratic challenger, Joe Satrom by a 71 to 28% margin in 2004. Hoeven’s popularity continues to rise and in November of 2006 had the highest approval rate of any governor in the nation at 86% with only 10% disapproving.
The Republicans have been hard-pressed to come up with a strong candidate to challenge the popular all-Democratic delegation to Washington D.C., so it’s no surprise that the party urged Hoeven to challenge Kent Conrad whose Senate seat was up for reelection in November of last year. Hoeven declined, saying on September 30th, 2005 that, “A day may come when we ask the people of North Dakota to allow us to serve them in a different capacity, but that time is not now.” During an interview, just about a month ago Hoeven was again asked about the prospects about running for Congress at some time in the future…he was again noncommittal, without ruling out the possibility entirely.
Hoeven audio: “You know people talk to me from time to time about those things, but like I say, any of those kind of decisions and thinking them through…that comes later. It’s too early for that. Again, you know, we’re focused on the work and that stuff will come down the line.”
For the time being it sounds like, John Hoeven, is quite content living in the ND Governor’s mansion and today, celebrating his 50th birthday with his wife, Mikey and children, Marcela and Jack.
By Merrill Piepkorn
Sources:
ND Blue Book 2005-2007
www.banknd.com
en.wikipedia.org
www.nd.gov