Facebook founder visits oil patch
By Jack Dura
Farmer Staff Writer
When Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Williston last week, a small contingent from Watford City was there to meet with him.
On a tour of the nation to visit states where he has never been before, Zuckerberg visited Williston early last week and dined Tuesday evening, July 11, with a delegation of nine local community members, including Steve and Gretchen Stenehjem and Kira Noll, of First International Bank & Trust; McKenzie County School District No. 1 superintendent Steve Holen; Fr. Brian Gross, who serves Catholic parishes in Alexander and Watford City; and Lynn Welker-Fevold, CEO of Welker & Fevold PR.
The group discussed the region’s economy including the oil and gas industry, as well as climate change, effects of the Bakken oil boom and technology.
Noll helped to organize the gathering with Zuckerberg’s camp and said their dinner at Outlaws’ Bar & Grill in Williston was interesting and wide-ranging in conversation.
“He was very captivating and easy and very approachable,” Gretchen Stenehjem said of their three-hour meeting.
Gross said Zuckerberg was interested in the human impacts of the oil boom, from housing to people’s livelihood, as well as the influence of technology in business and oil extraction.
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