Greg Gianforte

Gregory Richard Gianforte was born on April 17, 1961, in San Diego, California. He is the oldest son of Frank Richard Gianforte, who had a career as an aerospace engineer and, later, as a landlord. His mother, Dale Douglass, worked for General Dynamics in San Diego, and later was a school math teacher. Gianforte is of Italian, English, and Scottish ancestry. He has two younger brothers, Douglass and Michael. After the age of three, Gianforte was raised in the Valley Forge and King of Prussia suburbs northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, including Wayne, an affluent unincorporated township community that extends into Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware Counties.

During his high school years in the 1970s, Gianforte started a software business. He attended Upper Merion Area High School in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where he was elected class president during his junior and senior years. Gianforte was also captain of his school football team, where he played left offensive guard. He graduated from high school in 1979.

Gianforte graduated in 1983 from his father's alma mater, Stevens Institute of Technology, with a BE in electrical engineering and a master's degree in computer science. He directed a computer lab with 12 programmers. He was a member of the Delta Tau Delta men's fraternity, and enjoyed playing squash.

Software entrepreneurship

Gianforte began his career in 1983 at Bell Laboratories, working in product acquisition. Frustrated by the bureaucratic corporate hierarchy at Bell Labs, Gianforte departed to co-found Brightwork Development Inc., a developer of server-based LAN management software for the banking industry, which was based in Tinton Falls, New Jersey. He and his partners sold the company to McAfee Associates for $10 million in 1994. Gianforte then began working for McAfee as head of North American sales. In 1995, he moved to Bozeman, Montana.

Gianforte and his wife, Susan, a mechanical engineer by trade, co-founded RightNow Technologies in 1997. Part of Gianforte's strategy was to leverage the internet as a means to overcome geographic barriers to building a globalized business. By the time the company went public in 2004, it employed over 1,000 workers and executives in Bozeman and globally, with offices in the U.K., Asia, and Australia. Future U.S. senator Steve Daines was among its executives. The company was acquired by Oracle Corporation for $1.5 billion in 2011. At the time, Gianforte's 20% stake in the company was worth about $290 million. Right Now Technologies had contracts with federal agencies, including handling all of the online search queries for the Social Security Administration and Medicare websites. In 2012, Gianforte sued the Montana Democratic Party for defamation, alleging the House campaign ads it aired critical of then House candidate Daines were libelous. Gianforte alleged the party aired television ads that claimed that Right Now Technologies capitalized itself with public contracts, and then offshored jobs.

In 2005, Gianforte and Marcus Gibson co-wrote the book Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company with Almost No Money. He has offered business lectures on entrepreneurship and building a global business.

While working at Bell Labs in New Jersey in the 1980s, Gianforte met his wife, Susan, the first-generation daughter of German immigrants. They married in 1988. Gianforte and his wife have resided in Bozeman since moving from New Jersey in 1995. They have four children. Gianforte was raised Presbyterian. He and his wife attend Grace Bible Church, a nondenominational church in Bozeman.

Gianforte is an avid hunter. In a 2016 interview, he described entertaining investment bankers from Scotland and New York at his Montana home, in connection with his company's public stock offering, where he served them a dinner of mountain lion teriyaki, antelope chops wrapped in bacon, and elk tenderloin. On October 28, 2000, he was fined $70 for violating state Fish and Wildlife Commission rules by killing an elk. In February 2021, he violated state hunting regulations by trapping and shooting an adult black wolf known as "1155". While born in Yellowstone National Park and radio collared in 2018, it was roughly 10 miles (16 km) north of the park's boundary. As Gianforte had not completed a wolf trapping certification course, he was issued a written warning by Fish, Wildlife and Parks. In December, he killed a mountain lion near the same area that was also being monitored by the National Park Service. "M220" was radio collared in 2019 and was estimated to be five years old when he was driven up a tree by the hunting group's dogs and shot in compliance with Montana state laws.

Gianforte received an honorary doctorate from Stevens Institute of Technology and gave the commencement speech in 2012. In 2007, he received an honorary doctorate from Montana State University's College of Engineering. In 2007, Gianforte was inducted into the CRM Hall of Fame. He received the 2003 Stevens Institute of Technology's Stevens Honor Award. Gianforte was named Pacific Northwest Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young in 2003.

As of 2018, Gianforte's net worth was more than $189 million, which made him one of Congress's wealthiest members.

Philanthropy and civic life

In 2004, Gianforte and his wife founded the Gianforte Family Foundation, which has promoted his creationist beliefs in the public sphere, and has made tens of millions of dollars in charitable contributions. The foundation describes its primary mission as supporting "the work of faith-based organizations engaged in outreach work, strengthening families, and helping the needy; organizations in Montana that work to improve education, support entrepreneurship, and create jobs; and organizations that enhance the local community of Bozeman, Montana." Gianforte, his wife, and his son, Richard, are the foundation's three trustees. The foundation had assets of $113 million in 2013.

The Gianforte Family Foundation has given nearly $900,000 to the Montana Family Foundation, in some years making up half of that organization's total revenue. The Montana Family Foundation has promoted conservative and Christian values in the Montana legislature. Asked why he donated to the group, Gianforte said it was because the organization aligns with his views.

Through his nonprofit, the Gianforte Family Charitable Trust, Gianforte has contributed substantial funds to several conservative organizations. Some have led legal efforts to dismantle federal campaign finance regulations. Gianforte has donated to the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, which advocate for a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage, as well as the Montana Family Foundation, which is "the state's primary advocate against LGBT policies". Gianforte served on the board of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, an education reform organization founded by economist Milton Friedman which advocates for school vouchers.

Gianforte believes in Young Earth creationism. He has donated at least $290,000 to the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum, a Montana creationist museum that teaches visitors that the theory of evolution is false, that the Earth is about 6,000–6,400 years old, and that humans and dinosaurs coexisted during the same period. The museum claims dinosaurs were aboard Noah's Ark, and that they likely went extinct 4,300 years ago during the great flood described in the Book of Genesis. The Gianforte Family Foundation also donated a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton replica to the museum.