Greg Orman
Gregory John Orman is an American politician, businessman, and entrepreneur. He ran as an independent to represent Kansas in the United States Senate in the 2014 election, earning 42.5 percent of the vote and losing to incumbent U.S. Senator Pat Roberts.
On January 24, 2018, Orman announced he would run again as an independent this time for Kansas governor. After the major party primaries in August 2018, polling indicated that in a three-way race Orman was at 19 percent, Democrat Laura Kelly at 32 percent and Republican Kris Kobach at 38 percent. Orman suspended his television ads and stopped actively fundraising in mid-September. In the general election of 2018, he received approximately 6.5% of the vote.
Background
Orman was born in Minneapolis, MN, raised in Mankato, Minnesota, and is the second-oldest of six children. His mother, Darlene Gates, was a registered nurse. When he was five his parents divorced. His mother received full custody of the children and later sued her ex-husband for increases in child support payments. His father, Tim, moved to Stanley, Kansas, where he co-owned a furniture store. Orman lived with his mother during the school year and with his father during the summer where he worked in his father's warehouse. His mother was a Democrat and his father a Republican. As a young adult, Orman admired Ronald Reagan.Orman graduated from Mankato East Senior High School in 1987 as co-valedictorian of his class. In 1986, he was the national President of the Boys Nation and met President Reagan at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.
Orman graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 1991 with a degree in economics and finance. He was a member of the Princeton College Republicans and worked for George H. W. Bush's presidential campaign in 1988. However, in 1992 he supported independent candidate Ross Perot.
Orman currently sits as a member of the boards for various charitable organizations and non-profit organizations, including Unite America, the National Police Foundation which studies the effects of policing, and American Public Square at Jewell College which advocates for public discourse.
Business career
After graduating, Orman worked for a consultancy firm McKinsey & Company. At age 23 he founded Environmental Lighting Concepts LLC, which designs and installs energy-efficient lighting systems for commercial and industrial companies. Orman built the business "into a multi-million-dollar enterprise with 120 employees within four years." About Orman, a colleague at the time said "this guy had a plan and a vision" and "seemed to work around the clock."In 1996, Orman was put in charge of KLT Energy Services, a subsidiary of Kansas City Power & Light after it bought a 70 percent stake in Orman's business. Orman remained at Kansas City Power & Light for six more years and grew KLT Energy Services from less than $100 million in revenues to almost $1 billion before leaving the company in 2002.
Drue Jennings, the CEO of Kansas City Power & Light at the time of their purchase of Environmental Lighting Concepts, referred to Orman as "very disciplined, and very studious, and never just took a flier at something. He had it thought through."
In 2004, Orman co-founded private equity firm Denali Partners LLC and is the Managing Member of Exemplar Holdings, LLC. Exemplar Holdings lists six portfolio companies on its website: 1. Combat Brands, a Lenexa, Kansas-based boxing equipment manufacturer; 2. Ripple Glass, a Kansas City-based recycler of glass containers that operates in six states; 3. Exemplar Medical, which focuses on investing in companies that reduce the cost of healthcare; 4. Exemplar Finance, which provides financing for capital equipment projects utilizing energy-efficient technology; 5. Dragon Jacket, a manufacturer of a patented, reusable pipe insulation product; and 6. an affordable housing subsidiary that invests in local, affordable housing communities.
On December 28, 2015, Combat Brands LLC, the Orman-led company, announced it acquired Kansas City-based Fitness First, Inc. Fitness First, a fitness equipment provider, was consolidated into Combat Brands, but operates under the name Fitness First. Acquiring Fitness First would help expand Combat's product offerings and grow the company, Orman said in an interview with Kansas City Business Journal. Orman extended employment offers to all Fitness First employees.
In July 2020, according to the Kansas City Business Journal, Orman sold Combat Brands to its employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Instead of selling to a competitor which would have led to layoffs and moving operations out of Lenexa, KS, Orman said the sale "allowed us to ultimately reward the people who had been so instrumental in helping the business be successful." Combat Brands CEO Doug Skeens is also quoted, as saying the transfer of ownership to the employees has "boosted morale, employee engagement, and collaboration" and "gives employees financial security." Skeens referred to it as "the highlight" of his career.
He has professional and personal ties to former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta, and served as his designated representative on the board of New Silk Route, a private equity fund, from April 2013 until March 2014. When Gupta was convicted of insider trading in 2012, Orman said that "He is a friend of mine, he made a huge mistake, and he's paying the price for it. It shocked me like it shocked a lot of people when it came out that he was charged with those things." According to news reports, Gupta's conviction was unrelated to any business affiliation with Orman.
Political career
Orman has been unaffiliated with a party since 2010. At various times before that, he was registered as a Republican and a Democrat. After a debate in 2014 Orman stated, "I've tried both parties, and, like most Kansans, I've been disappointed."Orman has made donations to both Democratic and Republican candidates. In 2006, while he was considering running as a Democrat for the Senate, he gave $1,000 to Harry Reid and $4,600 to the 2008 presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Public records also show donations to the Democratic Party, Kansan United States representatives Dennis Moore and Nancy Boyda, as well as Minnesota Democratic senator Al Franken.
Orman's Republican donations include Todd Akin in 2006 and Scott Brown in 2010.
Orman said the Scott Brown donation was made in part to block the passage of Obamacare because Orman believed that the ACA would not achieve the central goal of decreasing healthcare costs. According to the Associated Press, Orman said, "I thought at the time we were expanding a broken system." Orman also said that later attempts by Republicans to repeal the law were impractical because Obama remained in office with veto power. The AP quotes Orman saying "It sounds like a hollow political promise they can't keep."
Orman was briefly a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 U.S. Senate election in Kansas, but dropped out before the primary, saying "Whenever you run as a candidate in either party, there are certain constituencies that want you to behave and act and believe certain things. As I evaluated the race and looked at the positions I was going to have to take to get the support that was necessary to win, I just didn't feel comfortable taking those positions."
2014 U.S. Senate election
Orman was an independent candidate in Kansas's 2014 U.S. Senate election. The campaign gathered enough signatures to get on the ballot as a candidate for the general election.He faced incumbent Republican Senator Pat Roberts in the November general election. Orman was the main rival to Roberts after Democrat Chad Taylor dropped out of the race on September 3 over concerns that he and Orman would split votes from Independent and Democratic voters not breaking for Roberts.
The group Traditional Republicans for Common Sense endorsed Orman on September 3, 2014. This group was composed of approximately 70 former Republican elected officials. Jim Yonally, chairman of the group, stated "We believe Greg Orman is the best-qualified candidate for the office of United States senator from Kansas", although some other members of the group expressed their support for Roberts following the announcement. During the campaign, Orman did not appear to receive significant support or help from any politicians or organizations, including Democrats. After the election, final fundraising reports showed that groups supporting Orman had received $1.5 million from Senate Majority PAC, run by former advisors to Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, $1 million from Independent New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and donations from GOP donors Peter Ackerman, Greg Penner, Jeffrey Binder and John Burbank.
Because the makeup of the U.S. Senate might have been affected if Orman were elected, NBC News said that Orman could be "the most interesting man in politics" in 2014. If Orman had been victorious, the U.S. Senate would have had three independent senators for the first time in the chamber's history.
Potential caucus affiliation
Due to congressional makeup leading up to the 2014 Senate elections, Orman could have played a pivotal role in selecting the Senate Majority Leader. He proposed to caucus with whichever party held the majority in the Senate, saying that "it's in the best interests of the voters of Kansas that they have a senator in the majority".In the event that Orman held the tiebreaking vote in the Senate, he stated that he would ask both parties to commit to issues including immigration and tax reform and caucus with whichever agreed. He said in October 2014 that if, after caucusing with one party for four or five months he found that "they're engaged in the same old partisan politics", he would "absolutely" consider caucusing with the other party to give them the majority instead. He explained: "Ultimately, this is about solving problems. This is about the voters of Kansas saying—the status quo doesn't work anymore."
Orman stated that he voted for Obama in 2008 and voted for Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. In 2010 he founded the Common Sense Coalition to promote the voices of "the sensible middle".