{"id":133313,"date":"2025-08-10T03:03:33","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T03:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/133313\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T03:03:33","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T03:03:33","slug":"how-a-beard-and-sword-linked-the-dallas-friends-colleagues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/133313\/","title":{"rendered":"How a beard and sword linked the Dallas friends, colleagues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">The photo that ran on the<a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.dallasnews.com\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/epaper.dallasnews.com\"> front page of The Dallas Morning News<\/a> on Wednesday was taken the last time I interviewed Mort Meyerson in 2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">It was part of an obituary package that I wrote about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/business\/2019\/07\/14\/remembering-ross-perot-the-pranks-thanks-and-moments-shared-by-his-friends-colleagues-and-family\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/business\/2019\/07\/14\/remembering-ross-perot-the-pranks-thanks-and-moments-shared-by-his-friends-colleagues-and-family\/\">H. Ross Perot Sr.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Meyerson had been a 26-year-old, clock-punching systems engineer in 1964, when he first laid eyes on this relatively unknown guy in a white button-down shirt, narrow tie and military-esque shaven head. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Two years later, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/arts-entertainment\/2025\/08\/06\/morton-meyerson-followed-unconventional-path-to-business-success\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/arts-entertainment\/2025\/08\/06\/morton-meyerson-followed-unconventional-path-to-business-success\/\">Perot hired Meyerson<\/a> as EDS employee No. 54 as a systems engineer trainee making $11,000 a year, nearly double his salary at Bell.<\/p>\n<p>Business Briefing<\/p>\n<p class=\"dmnc_features-cta-social-cta-social-module__zWZy- mb-4\">Become a business insider with the latest news.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Meyerson had turned down an offer for the same money with a much more impressive title at Bell\u2019s parent, Textron, in Rhode Island. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">But Perot dangled the promise of 400 shares of EDS, when it went public \u2014 which it did in 1968.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Meyerson paid $40 for those first shares, which were worth several million dollars when he eventually cashed out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">He and Perot had an \u201cunpleasant head-banging\u201d when Meyerson left Perot Systems as CEO in 1996. It was a complicated relationship, Meyerson said, but never one without mutual respect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">A few years after Meyerson left, Perot called, saying he was sending an artist to paint his portrait for Meyerson\u2019s contributions to EDS\u2019 early success.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Perot later phoned saying he was sending him an Excalibur \u2014 Perot\u2019s medal of honor for those who devoted their lives to EDS\u2019 dream.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019m thinking, \u2018What the hell? Am I going to have to pull it out of a rock?\u2019 Meyerson said with a chuckle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">He kept his framed Excalibur in a place of honor at his home, which was a converted DP&amp;L power station.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Meyerson had grown a beard on a lark and Perot hated it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">Meyerson shaved the beard for the portrait and then quickly grew it back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">He went to see his former boss one last time at Perot headquarters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-text-paragraph\">He went clean-shaven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The photo that ran on the front page of The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday was taken the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":133314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,64,1596,3546,256,158,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-133313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-people","12":"tag-philanthropy","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115002252307201314","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}