gary Abbott:  

When High School was finally over I enlisted in the Army and after basic training volunteered for the Paratroopers. After completing jump school I was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and did 2 tours overseas, Korea and Laos. It took a while to get traction after the Service and didn't start college until I was 24 - attending the University of Minnesota on the G.I. Bill, then a Masters' from Iowa State University and a PhD in economics from the University of Illinois. Uncle Sam provided a fellowship in Grad School, but in exchange for 2 years as an intelligence analyst afterwards (during which time I became convinced that "send only to armpit countries" was stamped on my personnel jacket). I subsequently went with Union Carbide and then Ernst & Young and then LifeMark, where I headed up the International Division over in the Middle East - "commuting" between there and Houston. In '83 I and a group of other investors formed an export trading company in Saudi Arabia - again commuting between there and Houston. The winds of timing, circumstance and luck favored us well and over the course of 16 years the Firm...Expand for more