Jim Young

The Margate Group, Principal

TBHF Distinguished Service Award Recipient, 2022

Dallas

TBHF was honored to speak with Mr. Jim Young, a Director out of Dallas. Jim joined the TBHF Board of Directors in 1992 and has been one of our most active and engaged supporters during his 30-year tenure. This winter, our organization presented Jim with the inaugural TBHF Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his dedication and service to our organization, to the Dallas community and to organizations throughout the country and around the globe.

Most of your professional career was spent at EDS (Electronic Data Systems, founded by TBHF Legend Ross Perot Sr.). What led you to take a job at EDS? You joined the company when it was still relatively young and unknown.

It was definitely unknown! I was employee number 40 at EDS, so when I joined it was a very small operation. I was working at IBM in the D.C. area as a systems engineer. I liked my job and wasn’t in the market for a new one. Then one night I unexpectedly got a call from a recruiter about a new opportunity. He wanted me to come meet him downtown in a hotel room to talk about a job. That sounded quite unusual to me. My wife, Carole and I had only been married for six months and she thought I was nuts to even consider it. But maybe I am a little nuts, because I decided to go meet him.

After meeting this recruiter, I was very impressed. I liked what he had to say. He asked me to come in for a team interview and it went very well. The final step of the interview process was to speak with Mr. Ross Perot. At this time, most people hadn’t heard of him. He was not a well-known name in the industry. I agreed to meet him for lunch at the EDS office in D.C. When I got there, the doors were locked. There was a short guy standing around who introduced himself to me as Ross Perot. I introduced myself and since he didn’t have a key to the EDS office we went out for lunch. He made me an offer that day, and I think he was probably a little surprised that I told him I needed time to think about it. But after doing some research and speaking with my wife, I decided this was an interesting opportunity that I wanted to pursue.

You ended up staying at EDS for 34 years and held numerous positions. Can you tell me a bit about the evolution of your career within the company?

For about the first five years, I was based in EDS’s D.C. office as the manager. It was a really smart group of people and we worked hard, but I enjoyed it. EDS had only a few offices, maybe four, at this point. We were still a small company, and our motto was you do whatever it takes to get the job done. So, when they asked me to transfer to the Dallas office to support the commercial insurance division, I said yes.

And that’s how I ended up in Texas and where I stayed for the rest of my time with EDS. I would travel often for work, but Dallas was home-base. I got to wear a lot of different hats during my tenure. I worked in sales and marketing, managed corporate communications, managed strategic planning, and led numerous special projects for the corporation. Before retiring in 1999, the final role I took on was executive assistant to the chairman of EDS, which I held for twelve years.

Volunteerism is something you are clearly very passionate about. You have served on the board or advisory council for more than 20 different organizations. What initially sparked your interest in volunteerism and what causes are you passionate about?

When Carole and I lived in D.C., Carole worked as a mathematician/programmer for the Navy Department, but when we relocated to Dallas, she didn’t have a new job lined up. So, she began to volunteer in the community. Carole worked as a volunteer computer programmer in cancer research and became involved with several organizations including the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce. She was eventually asked to serve on the Chamber Board.

I attended some of the Chamber events with her and often introduced myself as “Mr. Carole Young”. Initially my involvement was small. At some point, I got “the virus.” There is something infectious about volunteering. I also saw volunteering as an advantage for the business. Out in the community volunteering, I could help spread the word about EDS, make new connections, and discover opportunities.

In 2009 you co-founded TEDxSMU. Tell me a little bit about this event and why you were committed to bringing this to SMU’s campus.

In the 90’s, I chaired the board of an organization called Mac IS. A colleague on the board called me one day and told me about this new event she had just attended called TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design). This sounded like it was right up my alley, but it was hard to find information on TED because this was before you could just Google things.

The conferences were not held annually at this point as the organization was still quite new but I was finally able to attend a conference the following year.

I was immediately impressed by the conference and had a great experience. I quickly became a regular at the TED events. It kind of became a family affair. I would take my kids to the conferences and eventually my daughter Kelly was recruited to work for TED!

As TED grew, they began hosting more independently organized, local events, called TEDx. Carole and I were very involved with SMU in those days; both of our children and our son-in-law are SMU graduates (and our granddaughter is a current sophomore). It seemed to me that SMU would be a good place to host a TEDx. In 2009, I connected with some of the deans, and we got the ball rolling.

We also started the first TEDx Kids which I’m really proud of because I think we were able to impact a lot of kids. Kids are interested in learning new things, and they are very good at it too. You just have to give them a platform. It’s incredible to see.

How did you come to be involved with the Texas Business Hall of Fame?

A long time ago, Carole and I were invited to attend TBHF’s annual Induction Ceremony. The dinner was in Dallas that year. I was incredibly impressed and knew quite a few people at the event thanks to my involvement in the Dallas community. I knew I wanted to get involved- so I did. When I find something that I think is really interesting, I often get hooked on it. And I was hooked on TBHF. I’ve had so much fun with this organization and I’m planning to stay as long as y’all will have me.

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