![The sun set over the Bakken Oil Formation, behind an oil well near Williston. ] (JIM GEHRZ/STAR TRIBUNE) / September 26, 2013, Watford City, ND – BACKGROUND INFORMATION- PHOTOS FOR USE IN FIRST PART OF NORTH DAKOTA OIL BOOM PROJECT: Dozens of drilling rigs dot the North Dakota landscape in the Williston Basin and the Bakken Oil Formation. Once the rigs drill holes, several miles deep and then several miles horizontally, hydraulic fracturing technology (“frac](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/CJ2Z64IN5MCHDYAGZR7LQDSTNU.jpg?&w=1080)
I take my hat off to Andrew Klefstad and his wife, Tiffany ("Oil riches call … and family life waits," Oct. 27). They are a young couple with a family who found that they could not make a go of it in their hometown in Wisconsin. So Andrew took his work ethic to North Dakota, worked hard and is now general manager of an environmental company. He has worked to help build his employer into one of the major players.
The Klefstads have a goal of being debt-free by the age of 40. Both Andrew and Tiffany are sacrificing; Andrew by having to leave home for three weeks at a time and Tiffany for managing the family alone while Andrew is gone.
Several decades ago, Greyhound buses would leave the Iron Range on Sunday night loaded with workers and head to Beulah, N.D., where they helped build the gasification plant. On Friday night, they would board the buses to head home, only to leave again two days later.
Both examples are of people who did not sit around saying they could not find work. They went to where the work was instead of waiting for a government program to take care of them.
