Mary P Burke

Before running for governorof Wisconsin in 2014, Burke was hardly a household name. Her father, Richard Burke, founded Trek Bicycle Corporation “in a red barn in Waterloo,” as she would say on the campaign trail. She served for a while as an executive at Trek, and for two years as secretary of commerce under former Gov. Jim Doyle. Dane County residents may have recognized her from her involvement with the Boys & Girls Club or from her spot on the Madison school board. Days before the election, it fought against rumors she had been fired from Trek — allegations both she and Trek CEO John Burke, her brother, said were politically motivated and untrue. Burke graduated from Harvard Business School and asked her dad for a job. He didn’t have anything for her at the time, which was annoying but not surprising to her. She worked elsewhere until Trek’s vice president of finance left and she was offered that job. About a year later, she found a letter her father had written to his board of directors, to be opened in the event of his death. It said the company should be left to her younger brother, who had started working for the company right out of college. All her life, she had wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps. After reading the letter, she felt ashamed and embarrassed — and she wanted to hide that shame. So she didn’t talk to anyone about the letter for 20 years.