Henry Ross Perot was born on June 27, 1930 in Texarkana, Texas. He grew up in Texarkana and spent one year at the local junior college. He then attended the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1953 as class president. After graduation, he spent four years at sea.

At the Naval Academy, Perot received a basic education in engineering. He had no special training in electronics or computing, but his personal qualities impressed a representative from IBM, a leading company in the relatively new computer industry. When Perot left the navy, he was hired by IBM to sell computers in Dallas. In 1962, after he could not convince IBM that it could make money by leasing unused computer time to clients who needed it, Perot started his own business, Electronic Data Systems (EDS). In the years that followed, EDS expanded to run entire data-processing departments for insurance companies...