Ross Perot

Businessman-turned-politician Henry Ross Perot was born in Texarkana, Texas, on June 27, 1930. After two years at the Texarkana Junior College, he enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy in 1949, where he helped to establish the school's honor system. He remained in the Navy until 1957, leaving to take a position as salesman with IBM. By 1962, however, he was ready to strike out on his own, and left IBM to form his own company, called Electronic Data Systems (also known as EDS) in Dallas. His firm went public in 1969, after receiving several government contracts for computerizing Medicare records. By 1984, General Motors had purchased an interest in EDS worth more than $2 billion. Perot's involvement in the POW issue of the Vietnam War led to an increasing dissatisfaction with the government, and he supported a movement by Florida financial planner Jack Gargan, who spoke out against Congress for approving pay raises for legislators, despite average wages across the country remaining mostly stagnant. By the time of the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91, Perot was urging senators to withhold their support of the resolution, and began to consider a run for office. In 1992 Perot announced that he would run for president as an independent, providing supporters could get his name on the ballot in every state. Though initially his polling numbers were in line with the candidates of the major parties, he received a lot of media attention, and supporters had formed United We Stand America to back up his candidacy, turmoil within his campaign led to a slip in the polls, ultimately leading Perot to announce that he would not seek the presidency. He re-entered the race in the fall, after getting onto all 50 state ballots, and chose Vice Admiral James Stockdale as his running mate. Though he did not win the office, he was the most successful third-party candidate to that point, taking almost 20% of the vote. He founded the Reform Party and tried again in 1996, though again he did not win. He has stayed out of the political arena since, though he did endorse Mitt Romney in 2012.