biography
| name: |
Perot, (Henry) Ross
|
pronunciation:
[peroh]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1930– )
|
| biography:
| Business executive and public figure, born in Texarkana, Texas, USA. He graduated from the US Naval Academy (1953) but resigned from the navy as soon as his required tour of duty ended (1953–7). He went to work as a salesman for International Business Machines (IBM) and soon realized that his future lay not in hardware but in the expertise behind using the growing capabilities of computers. He left IBM and founded Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in Dallas (1962), becoming a multimillionaire by providing the software and services for organizations that owned computers, a billionaire after he took the company public (1968). In 1969 he commenced his efforts to obtain the release of American POWs in Vietnam, and in 1978 he organized a commando brigade that helped to rescue two EDS employees from jail in Teheran, Iran (an escapade popularized in a book and film On Wings of Eagles). He sold his company to General Motors (1984) and went over to join in the management, but he soon fell out with the top executives there, so resigned (1986) and started Perot Systems (1988). In 1992 - by then one of the richest men in the world, with personal assets of $3·5 billion - he presented himself as a populist candidate for the presidency of the USA against Bill Clinton and George Bush. Reviving an organization he had founded during the Vietnam War, ‘United We Stand’ as his own third party, he ran a controversial campaign, but obtained 19 per cent of the popular vote. He unsuccessfully stood again in the 1996 elections. |
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