General Information

Participants listened and gathered new ideas during the 2005 Entrepreneuring in North Dakota conference.

This conference is structured to inspire and encourage the entrepreneurial spirit within and amongst the residents of the state of North Dakota and the surrounding region. It promises its participants an abundance of educational and stimulating ideas presented specifically to reinforce their determination and desires to succeed in a chosen business, as well as their search for an enhanced lifestyle. The conference is based on the premise that the more we can encourage community involvement in valued educational activities, the more willpower and determination on the part of present and future entrepreneurs will be sustained and realized. This event will provide ideas, encouragement, and valuable interaction resulting in an increase in the potential for growth in southwest North Dakota and throughout the entire state.

Jerome is a Dickinson State College alumni who lives in Los Altos Hills, Calif. He and his late wife, Rosie Ann have been enthusiastic supporters of Dickinson State since their graduation in 1958 and 1960.

The Stroms have supported and contributed financially to Dickinson State University’s entrepreneurship conferences since its inception in 2001. They have stressed that there continues to be a need for new job opportunities within the state. Stroms, like many other graduates of the North Dakota school system, left the state in 1960, because opportunities were more apparent in other states. After teaching in Oregon and California, they have been in private business since 1963.

They credit their success in private business to the importance of commitment that was stressed by their North Dakota heritage. It is their belief that because of increased education, communication and transportation capabilities, North Dakota will become, more and more, a job destination.

Jerome Strom, a native of Beulah, N.D., graduated from Dickinson State in 1960 and his late wife, Rosie Ann (Ridl), a native of Dickinson graduated in 1958. They established the Strom Business Scholarship fund in 1982, which remains the largest single business scholarship at Dickinson State. In addition, they have funded many different activities, including being the sole contributor for Dickinson State University’s North Dakota Entrepreneurship conference. Strom owns and operates Yale Investment Company, a private real estate Investment firm in Palo Alto, California.

Jerome Strom has two children and four grandchildren.