The Perot Systems & EDS magnate; Henry Ross Perot Sr.

Henry Ross Perot Sr. was an American business mogul, politician, and philanthropist, who was the founder and chief executive officer of Electronic Data Systems and Perot Systems in the maverick age of American entrepreneurship (1900s).

He ran an independent campaign for the presidency of the United States in 1992 and in 1996, he ran a third-party campaign as the nominee of the Reform Party, which was founded by Perot's 1992 campaign's grassroots supporters. In each election he emerge as the third winner and third strongest presidential showings by a third party or independent candidate in U.S. history.

Henry Ross Perot was born June 27, 1930, in Texarkana, Texas, a son to a cotton broker, Gabriel and Lulu May, a lumber company secretary. It is said that his patrilineal line is supposed to have originated with a French-Canadian who arrived in the Louisiana colony in the 1740.

Ross Perot attended a local private school, Patty Hill, before graduating from Texas High School in Texarkana in 1947. Two years after, he entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. He was commissioned in the U.S. Navy in 1953 and served until 1957, after which he worked as a salesman for International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).

Perot started his first job at eight years old, helping to distribute the Texarkana Gazette as a paperboy. His father died when Perot was 25 years old. He joined the Boy Scouts of America and became an Eagle Scout in 1942 after 13 months of participation. He was the winner of the Eagle Scout Achievement Award.

In 1962, Perot quit IBM as a top computer salesman and formed his own company, Electronic Data Systems (EDS) to design, install, and operate computer data-processing systems for clients on a contractual basis. By handling medical claims for Blue Cross and other big insurance companies, EDS expanded. In 1968, Perot, the company's principal shareholder, raised several hundred million dollars when he cleverly arranged the company's share offering.

EDS continued to prosper under his leadership, and in 1984 Perot sold the company to General Motors (an American largest motor-vehicle manufacturer for much of the 20th and early 21st centuries) for $2.5 billion worth of special-issue stock and a seat on GM’s board of directors. In 1986, his criticism of GM’s management prompted them to buy back his seat for $700 million.

Ross Perot also became a big time investor for NeXT, which was founded by Steve Jobs after losing the power struggle at Apple. Perot invested over $20 million in the company and eventually become an angel investor in Apple upon Steve Jobs' return to the company. He had faith in Jobs and did not want miss out, as he had with his chance to invest in Bill Gates' fledging Microsoft.

In 1988, he founded Perot Systems in Plano, Texas. The new company just like EDS was an information technology services provider that provided services in the industries of health care, government, manufacturing, banking, insurance and others.

Perot Systems excelled in the health care sector, offering services for medical record automation and digitization. His son, Ross Perot Jr., eventually succeeded him as CEO. In September 2009, Perot Systems was acquired by Dell for $3.9 billion as at the time of sales.

In 1992, Henry Ross Perot declared his intention to run for U.S president, he promoted and advocated a balanced budget, an end to jobs outsourcing and the enactment of electronic direct democracy. He chose Admiral James Stockdale as his running mate towards the election against opponents, President Bush of Republican party and presumptive Democratic nominee Bill Clinton.

Perot campaign for US presidential election '92

At that time, Clinton suffering from personal scandals and facing a tough primary race from Jerry Brown and with the incumbent Republican president George H.W. Bush weakened by a faltering economy, support for Perot initially earned widespread popularity, particularly among voters dissatisfied with traditional party politics.

After spending some $65 million of his personal fortune, Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote in the U.S general election in November, earning the third position whiles Bill Clinton emerged as president.

In September 1995, Perot established the Reform Party with a full support from 1992 campaign's grassroots supporters. In its significantly construed platform, the party demanded campaign reform, term limits for members of Congress, federal budget balance, reforms to the health care and income tax systems, and limitations on lobbying.

Running as the Reform Party nominee in the 1996 U.S. presidential election with Pat Choate as his vice presidential nominee, Perot received 8 percent of the popular vote, emerging second runner up again whiles President Clinton was reelected with 49 percent of the vote and 379 electoral college delegates. In the year 2000, Perot distanced himself from the Reform party and eventually closed his chapter on active politics.

Ross Perot and Family

For the remaining years of his life, Perot lived peacefully as a family man with his wife, Margot Birmingham, whom he got married to after their college days in 1956. The couple had five children (Ross Perot Jr., Nancy, Suzanne, Carolyn, and Katherine) and 19 grandchildren.

On July 9, 2019, less than two weeks after turning 89, Perot passed away from leukemia in Dallas, Texas. At the time of his death, he had an estimated net worth of about $4.1 billion and was ranked by Forbes as the 167th-richest person in the United States. He was buried at the Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery and his memorial service was held at Highland Park United Methodist Church.

Honors & Achievements

In 1970, Henry Ross Perot Sr. was the recipient of the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement and was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in 1985.

In 1986, Perot became the third American to receive the Winston Churchill Award for his efforts on behalf of American POWs in Vietnam in the 1960s and for organizing the rescue of two EDS employees from a prison in Iran.

In 2003, he received Entrepreneur of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award, for outstanding high-growth entrepreneurship, demonstrating excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, business and contributing communities.

2009 was the year Perot was highly recognized and honored for immense contributions. On April 22, 2009, he was made an honorary Green Beret at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In May, he was appointed an honorary chairman of the OSS Society and on September 18, the Texarkana Independent School District named him (1947 graduate of Texas High School) as a 2009 Distinguished Alumnus. On October 15, same year, the United States Military Academy at West Point awarded him with the distinguished Sylvanus Thayer Award.

In 2010, Perot was presented with the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Command and General Staff College Foundation, Inc., Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and in honor of his 80th birthday, the bridge connecting Walton and University drives in Texarkana, Texas, was named the H. Ross Perot Bridge.

A museum was built in honor of him called Perot Museum of Nature and Science. On October 28, 2011, the museum announced it was naming a new species of the dinosaur genus Pachyrhinosaurus after the Perot family. The new species is named Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum.