Dennis Daugaard for Governor

Children's Home Society
Since 2002, I have been Executive Director of Children’s Home Society of South Dakota. Children’s Home Society provides a home, school and therapy to young children, most of whom are victims of abuse and neglect. In this role, I am responsible for over 300 employees and an annual budget of over $16 million, serving over 2,000 women and children at four locations in the Black Hills and Sioux Falls. Sioux Falls Children's Home Society serves 62 young children, ages four to 13 years old. I am also responsible for the Black Hills Children's Home, which serves 52 children at a site near Rapid City. Children's Home Society also provides emergency shelter to abused and neglected children at two sites: Children's Inn in Sioux Falls and Messengers Emergency Foster Home in Rapid City. The Children's Inn site also provides shelter to battered women. Last year, over 1,000 women and children were served at the Children's Inn. Many other programs provide services to adoptive and foster families, and to reported victims of abuse and neglect.

Law Degree
My working career began in 1978. After graduating from law school in Chicago, I passed the Illinois bar exam and began work for Supena & Nyman, a small law firm in downtown Chicago. I drafted complaints, managed discovery, prepared legal memoranda, and handled real estate transactions, private securities offering circulars, and a franchise offering prospectus.

After a year, I left the firm to develop a leasehold interest in a loft apartment building on South Dearborn Street – in an area now known as Printing House Row. I signed a five-year lease with an option to buy and then took possession of raw space in a multi-story heavy timber frame building with a brick veneer. When the building owner filed a declaration of condominium, I purchased the property covered by my leasehold interest, and developed the space. I sandblasted the brick, sanded the maple floors, installed interior walls and arranged for plumbing and wiring, to develop it as a small residential loft space.

After moving into the finished space, I took a position with Shand, Morahan and Company as an underwriting manager, handling liability insurance and claims for Northbrook Insurance, a subsidiary of Allstate Insurance. There, I supervised construction malpractice lawsuits involving east coast architects and engineers. I hired local counsel, and conducted settlement negotiations in New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Returning Home
By 1981, I had grown tired of “big city life” and left Chicago to return to South Dakota, where I studied for and passed the South Dakota bar exam. I accepted a position as a trust officer at what is now US Bank in Sioux Falls. From 1981 – 1990, I administered estates and trusts, and ultimately was promoted to Vice President, responsible for trust administration and new business development for eastern South Dakota.

While working at the bank, I began to volunteer at Children’s Home Society. In 1990, I left the bank to work full-time as Development Director of Children’s Home Foundation, the fund-raising arm of CHS. I worked for 12 years in this position. When I began, unrestricted gifts to Children’s Home averaged about $38,000/year. Through special events, mail appeals, and face-to-face solicitations, I built unrestricted gifts to $650,000/year. Over the course of those years, I also raised $1.8 million to build a new school at Black Hills Children’s Home, and additional funds to build a new children’s residence – Madsen House - at Sioux Falls Children’s Home. In 1998, I launched a $10 million endowment-building campaign, which I successfully concluded four years later. In 2002, I became Executive Director of Children’s Home Society of South Dakota.