Ross Perot was born in Texarkana, Texas in 1930. After working for IBM, he founded (1962) Electronic Data Systems (EDS), a computer services company. During the Iranian hostage crisis (1979), he funded a successful operation to rescue two of his employees from an Iranian prison. He sold EDS to General Motors in 1984, diversified into real estate, gas, and oil, and later started a new computer services company.

He ran unsuccessfully for U.S. president as an independent in 1992 and fought U.S. ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Posted by Contact on Monday September 21, 1998.