25
Business Lessons
From Gary Tharaldson
M
y first interaction with Gary Tharaldson, North Dakota’s richest person, came at 4 p.m. on a Wednesday. It was a quiet day in the office. Most everybody was at the groundbreaking for the Block 9 Tower downtown so it was just one other employee and I in the office at the time. From my office, I hear a bell going off letting me know that there’s somebody who needs help up front. I hear from my office, “Is Andrew here?” I trudge out of my office wondering what this is going to be about. I walk up to a man who looks like he’s not afraid of hard work
but still sees the best in the world. In a polo shirt and khaki pants, he introduces himself as Gary Tharaldson and hands me a signed copy of his book. That’s right. North Dakota’s richest man, valued at $900 million, traveled to Downtown Fargo and braved the construction and traffic just to deliver me, a lowly journalist, a copy of his book. And that’s exactly the type of person that Gary Tharaldson is. After that interaction, Tharaldson quickly agreed to do an interview and, boy, did we learn a lot. Here are 25 lessons we learned from our hour and a half interview.
BY Andrew Jason PHOTOS BY Hillary Ehlen
24
NOVEMBER 2018