I've never looked at my career as something that I was striving to get to one position or another. For me, it was one step at a time.

Back when I was 15 or 16, in Dallas there was a department store called Sanger-Harris. One holiday season, I got a job as a gift wrapper there. The others were all experts who did that job every year, and I was by far the youngest person, who was totally inexperienced. In those days, department stores around Christmastime were a total frenzy.

While looking ahead, we know challenges remain, but we are encouraged by the strategies we have in place to improve our operational efficiencies and performance.

What's changed in New York, and what made us really change our thinking about New York, is that the different neighborhoods are becoming more important as shopping destinations than they used to be.

We targeted five industries for growth, industries where we have natural advantages in North Dakota: value-added agriculture, advanced manufacturing, technology-based businesses, energy and tourism. We worked very hard to grow all those businesses, and that's what's happening.

The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.

I like zombie movies. I like 'The Walking Dead;' I like the metaphor of it, simply because when we go with the zombie concept - if you're bitten by a zombie, you don't transform into something else like a vampire or a werewolf or whatever. You become something that's not you.

The low points I had all helped make up my character, so I probably wouldn't want to do away with them because I like being flawed and I like having them help me grow and change and become better and stronger.