[4][5] In 1949 he married Mary Baldwin Gundersen, a physician's daughter and native of La Crosse, Wisconsin.
During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, he fled the country for Sweden enrolling in the Norwegian police troops from1944 to 1945 and decorated with the Defence Medal 1940–1945.
degree in 1947, and after studying French and history at the Free University of Brussels in 1948, he served one year as a deputy judge in Ringerike District Court.
He then spent a few years in the United States, working for Alcoa Steamship Company from 1949 to 1951.
[6] Bugge chaired Union Co from 1965 to 1980, Norsk Aluminium Company, Norsk Elektrisk & Brown Boveri, Volvo Norge and Arendal Smelteverk, and was a board member of Standard Telefon og Kabelfabrik, Årdal og Sunndal Verk, Fabritius Gruppen and Ilmenittsmelteverket in Tyssedal.