 Ross Perot had never been elected to public office , but he ran several successful corporations and was involved in public affairs for decades . After serving in the United States Navy in the 1950s , Perot joined IBM as a salesman . He surpassed his one @-@ year sales quota in just two weeks . After the company ignored his idea for electronic storage , he founded Electronic Data Systems in 1962 , which was then contracted by the United States Government to store Medicare records . Perot earned a fortune with the company , and by 1968 was named by Fortune as the " fastest , richest Texan . " Perot was known to run the company in a militaristic fashion , built on loyalty and duty . His best known venture with the company was in 1979 , when he sent a private militia into Iran in the midst of the Iranian Revolution to rescue two of his employees who had been imprisoned . The episode inspired the 1983 novel , On Wings of Eagles . Perot eventually sold his company to General Motors in 1984 for $ 2 @.@ 55 billion , and founded Perot Systems in 1988 . By 1992 , his fortune was judged to be $ 3 billion . 
