Morton H. Meyerson
Morton Meyerson was born in Fort Worth on June 3, 1938, into a family whose roots in Texas stretched back generations. His great-grandmother and grandmother Shuster arrived in Fort Worth around 1896 or 1897, and his grandfather Meyerson came through New York from a region that was then Russia before settling in Fort Worth around 1900. That grandfather worked as a tailor after coming under an indenture-like contract, while his other grandfather was in the jewelry business. Morton grew up largely as an only child after his younger brother died of cancer, raised by attentive parents and grandparents who represented both Orthodox Yiddish-speaking and sophisticated German Jewish traditions. His father worked in the insurance business and his mother was a devoted volunteer and musician.
Morton attended Bluebonnet Elementary and Paschal High School, the same school many family members had attended, where he was a football player, track athlete, president of the senior class, and president of the student council among only a handful of Jewish students. He was confirmed at Temple Beth-El in 1951 and later taught Sunday school there. After graduating from the University of Texas with a double major including philosophy, he served in the Army near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he was introduced to computer programming and knew immediately it would be his path. He worked for Bell Helicopter, then joined EDS as its fifty-fourth employee, moving to Dallas in the mid-1960s and remaining with the company for twenty-one years.
In Dallas, Meyerson joined Temple Emanu-El and supported the Federation, though long work hours left little time for community life during his career. He later became CEO of Perot Systems and worked with figures such as Richard Rainwater and Michael Dell. From 1979 he chaired the committee that guided the creation of the Dallas symphony hall, which was named for him after Ross Perot insisted on it in exchange for a major gift. A visit to an exhibition on Chinese Jews rekindled his interest in Jewish study, leading him to Torah classes, a period of study in Jerusalem, and the founding of a family foundation supporting Jewish causes and medical research in Dallas, Israel, and beyond. He received the UT Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2005 and was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007.
He reflected with gratitude on his family, six grandchildren, and the opportunities Texas offered Jewish people over his lifetime.
Full Transcript
here today July 11th 2008 with more Meyerson at his home on 3321 Armstrong at noon Dallas to talk about his life in Dallas for the Dallas Jewish Historical Society okay 2005 war you were a recipient of the UT Distinguished Alumnus award and in 2007 we were elected into the American Academy Arts and Sciences classic fellow quite impressive we want to discuss this morning how all this started where were you born I was born in Fort Worth Texas early morning June 3rd 1938 and how when did your family come to dallas-fort worth it didn't you don't let my family my family stayed in Fort Worth I
moved to Dallas in 1967 so you moved to Dallas and after you graduated from college nice so when when did your family United States to Fort Worth how far back my great grandmother and grandmother Shuster came in something like eighteen ninety six or seven to Fort Worth my grandfather Meyerson came to New York something like 1898 he later came to Fort Worth about 1900 maybe 1901 my grandparents gressman came in the early 1900s something like 1910 from Kansas City and the other with the original grandparents that came to Fort Worth Lee New York where did they come from in New York the ones that came
through New York were from volution which was Russia at the time which had been Lithuania and that which is now Belarus and my grandparents address ones came from Kansas City but their family was in Germany and they were from the mainland and they were with a fleeing persecution yeah but they came very early they came that that side of the family came in the 1830s from Germany in the first wave of early early programs so let's talk about your childhood in Fort Worth tell me that your neighborhood when I was born in for the first 18 months we lived in apartments which I barely remember
then we moved when I was between 18 months and two years old to Stadium Drive which is near Bluebonnet circle right now and to Bluebonnet elementary but at the time it was the last street in Fort Worth so behind us was a gigantic 20,000 acre ranch and which has now been developed but when I was so when I was very young behind my house was one or two streets and a fence and cattle so where did you live when you who wasn't considered a Jewish neighborhood there were Jews in the neighborhood but it was not considered a Jewish neighborhood there weren't enough Jews who Fort
Worth to have a Jewish what's not know the shul which was Orthodox was downtown was five miles away and the temple that we went to was near downtown was four months ago most of the only two synagogues and the temple that you went to with Pastor know it was there was a reformed temple beth-el that's Broadway and the Orthodox was alone which is my parents my grandparents Myerson and the elementary school that she waits you were there other Jewish children there there are only a handful there were in my elementary high school and high school there were about 14 or 15 Jews and there were
2,000 students juice was in a situation where there were you said they weren't ready Jews in Fort Worth so most of the Jewish children were they had the same school that you went to or they pretty much scared no no there they were there they were all the Jews lived in the southwest quadrant I didn't live in the same neighborhood where they live in the same part of town with one exception the Greens the West fourth but all the rest of the Jews lived in South West and other you know there were about 200 families maybe 300 families max over time there's a very small
Jewish village and tell me about your high school what what was your high school life well I went to Pascal High School where my grandmother went my my father and mother went eight aunts and uncles and fifty cousins so all of our family went to the same high school we didn't go over the same junior high school in elementary but we went to the same high school Pascal was a very famous school in that they had very good teachers we had very good sports teams and it was academically the number one school in the city and I went to the same building in high school
that my mother and father went to for the first two years and my senior here we moved to a new building which was the old junior high school I went to and they refurbished the building and now Pascal I still go back quite a best to go to Fort Worth a lot and we have reunions and it's quite fun because the demographics in the school have changed dramatically when I was there was an all-white virtually all Baptist school there were very few well there are no Catholics and a handful of Protestant groups other than baptism there was one Chinese boy and no Hispanics african-americans now
the school is fully diversified has a huge population of Hispanics African Americans and some people believe it has the feeling of an inner city school yet when the rankings came out two months ago passport was the 88th best high school in America and Highland Park is number three and in in that Pascal had more National Merit Scholarships then all of the other schools in the Fort Worth system combined so there's still a tradition of excellent academics and when I was in school virtually all the salutatorians and valedictorians from Jewish so it was thought in those days you were smart and a good student and it
was expected to be a straight-a student and that's the way it was did you have close Jewish friends yes I had very close I mean I went to Sunday School and I had Temple beth-el and I'm still friendly with Gordon Appleman who was in class with me we moved from Dallas in the first grade so we're still friends and Donny Herman my friend died so some of my friends have died but I had very close to his friends and I had very close non-jewish friends of which I'm still friendly with today your synagogue lieutenant Pantheon synagogue yeah but yeah it's called temple because it was
reformed its Temple beth-el temple - and you said did you go to any kind of Hebrew school did you have worked no the temple this is the 1950s I mean I started in school in the 1940s and continued to the 1950s I was confirmed in 1951 and the reform movement at that time did not teach Hebrew only the few prayers and did not have bar and bat mitzvahs they had confirmations so that's what we do so did your attendance at the synagogue pretty much end with your confirmation no I kept our family were my grandparents were one of the founding families my mother was very
active in various clubs and socials and she was a musician there was a lot of activities at the temple and that went on until I came back from the Army in 1963 at which time I taught Sunday School in myself so I've been active I'm still a member of Temple beth-el forties so what was the congregation of like women growing up the congregation was very close it was a mixed bag of people some had lived in the city for a while like my grandparents but many of the people had moved to town it was very close socially the kids were very close there's a lot
of activities I actually was not involved in the youth groups but except for doing the sport season I was an athlete so they would draft me and baseball season was over I loved but I was very bit I was a football player and Pascal and in playing junior high school I was a good student and I had a complete schedule filled I have no time for Jewish youth groups and where's your schedule pretty much filled with sports that was filled with sports I was on the track team I played football and I was president of the senior class I was president of the student council
and I just I was busy all the time and were there other Jewish students and played sports like you did what was it no there were three Jewish football players from 1929 to 1954 my father was a football player at Pasco there was a guy named Indian silver who moved from Florida and he played there's ending luskey he played a little bit but the only first stream players that I know of four three two of which were my father in me for a long period of time and then my cousin Johnny played football for basketball about 15 years with what position did you play I
played a tackle on offensive end how did your family celebrate the Jewish holidays well we had you know because we had an orthodox family and Reform family we had moved between the families so we we had a gigantic Passover with our family and with neighbors the High Holidays family Witness group to Temple we did not celebrate some of these award in some other holidays we were mainly a Passover High Holidays and a discussion about Hanukkah as a child we didn't like the candles and we didn't do Shabbat because that wasn't something that was done where that services did your did your family go to Shabbat
service went to Sunday school got confirmed taught in Sunday school had major holidays but we didn't you know we didn't routinely go to Temple and the Passover that she had was it did you a service or was it just kind of a gathering together not together there we go that was the big did was a long long before our right now what about your parents what Jewish organizations did they belong to well my dad was in the Brotherhood and was very active and my mother was in the Council of Jewish women and she was part of a group of women basically were the heart of
the temple they did all the social programs that did the musical programs that put on plays that forum plays and musicals she was always active mother was a very big moment here she is a great musician and during the war she used to play for the soldiers that came in who were injured at the VA hospital and so she did that forever and then I had a younger brother who died of cancer young and she played for children who had cancer and other difficult diseases I'm worried about the sisterhood sisterhood of the sensor the technology was yes they did and she was active my mother
wasn't she with she was in everything she was very active a big volunteer anything outside the temple that they did that was Jewish I'm not sure what happened I just wondered any other organizations no she said national counts of Jewish women yeah but I think the national counts of Jewish women was associated with Temple beth-el I'm not sure but as a national organization I know it's national but I think the chapter was tightly affiliated temple because Siddhartha was tightly affiliated with Orthodox or conservative Shu and my other grandmother was very big so there was a lot of discussion doing one grandmother about Hadassah no Vanessa
so your activities as a teenager mostly revolved around your sports and your academics and your social ID or your leadership roles in high school and junior high school yeah what did your parents do for a living my mother was a homemaker and a volunteer she was like a professional volunteer as I said she played the piano and she was I used to call her nurse Myers she was always helping other people and my father is an insurance business he graduated from high school in 1929 not a great year ago model high school couldn't find a job and there was a man who was an insurance
business that needed a driver so my dad was hired $5.00 a week to be a driver and several years later the man died and the family gave the business to my father he that business was bought by an insurance agent City and David became part of that it all worked out day you know dad had a high school education nobody in my family ever had gone to college graduated before I but everybody got out of high school and everybody had a job but it worked we didn't have a lot of money but what about your grandparents what did they do probably my grandfather Meyerson was
a tailor he was apprenticed as a tailor and working the sweatshops of New York and it's brought to Fort Worth by a man under a contract to be to Seoul and do alterations which I think he was an indentured circle as best as I could tell he had a contract was given train fare and he had to work for two years to earn back the $25 train fare after that he opened a small taper shop himself and shocked that I knew on Main Street down near the railroad station he had a small shop and he he made clothes and did alterations and my other grandfather
was in the jewelry business [Music] basically sold fine jewelry and forth and then when I was about 12 he moved to Wichita Falls and worked in a true story later so how did you find your course of interest to college well I was some people have called me terminally curious I'm very interested in a lot of subjects I was very musical I played the piano and sang all my life so I was I kind of grazed my way through college I didn't even have a major into my last two semesters because I took courses and everything I was good in math and science and yet
I liked rewards things and I sang an acapella choir at the University and I was active in my social fraternity and I was in an honorary fraternity and I was active and I was the representative of the School of Arts and Sciences which was the largest school in the university so I was active in student government music academics social at work hours I was at social fraternity yeah it's a social return - I was the same Sigma so it's a Jewish she was a Jewish fraternity but in those days you had oh yeah they were second there's no such thing as the Jewish so did
you feel that most of your friends at college were Jewish no I had very close relationships with people who were savings you know that's where my pals roommates etc but I also was elected to Texas Cowboys which is an honorary fraternity and I was very active Cowboys and I was in student government so to be in student government I had to be elected by twelve thousand students and so I was all over the campus gave speeches all over the campus I knew people all of you know it's just like high school it's like a bigger high school I was very active in a non Jewish
community but I was active in the Jewish community but my home was in the Jewish and so what was your major when you could declared your major in the last few years finally I decided to be and I had a double major in philosophy what is now called it was then called Arts and Sciences and then when you graduated we decide he went into the military when he could arm and we're recession in Pennsylvania outside of Harrisburg Pennsylvania and it was the first time I had lived outside of Texas I had traveled a little bit we didn't have much money so we did road trips
once we drove to California as a child and once we drove to New York but I had rarely been outside of Texas so when I went in the Army I was almost 22 years old it was a huge shock for me to live northern community but within a very short period of time I played through the bridge and I met a lot of local people through the bridge and I played handball at the JCC in Harrisburg and I met people playing handball and I'm and I was single so I was a single Jewish 22 year old officer so were you in Pennsylvania the whole time
you were just Harry and what were you doing in the military well in the beginning I was the aide to a colonel but he was retiring so I didn't really have a job so I was president of the bowling I ran an officer's club part-time it was it was a very strange life I played a lot of different bridge and I bowled a lot but my duplicate bridge partner worked in the computer department and he was the head of it and he asked me if I wanted to transfer it or become a work with computers and I told him I didn't know what computers were
so he said the way you play bridge you'll be a good computer program so I took a IBM test passed it and they sent me to school in New Jersey and I went to plan it's a three-week class they learn how to program computers and was at home and the frak can remember the first hour of the class because my teeth the teacher was Jewish this was 1961 or early 62 and it was he was a Jewish officer and there weren't many Jewish officers in the military and he was the teacher and he he stood up there and said you know you need the following
algorithm to time the disk to get the instructions to get the data I had no idea what he was talking about because I had never seen a computer but at the end of the first hour we took a break and I said to myself this is gonna be what I'm and those days computers were huge no damn yeah there were like Rin sized room they were like outside so you so how long did you work with computers in the army well I was I did for maybe 18 months and I worked in logistics and I worked on the first computerized logistic system which is supply
keeping up with material and it was really quite exciting I love doing it they later sent me to New York to school and I spent three weeks at The New Yorker Hotel for $14 at night when tan I'd be on programming school which was very exciting and then I came back moved to Fort Worth and I went to work with my dad but I really didn't like this you finished your article finished the army came back to Fort Worth worked my dad it is insurance agents they really didn't like it did a test a battery of tests at TCU to figure out what I was
good at and the test said that I should the orchestra conductor were we should be an industrial engineer and I didn't know anything about conducting an orchestra so I started figuring out what was an industrial engineer going to do and I interviewed AT&T IBM and Bell Helicopter and AT&T did not offer me a job and it's actually got a footnote to that story IBM did offer me a job but they offered me a job in sales and I didn't want to go to somebody like program and Bill helicopter offered me a job in programming so I took developer and they were they were based in
Hirsch which is between four teams but 20 years later my that's one of my best friends and still worked for a TMT and he's the one that got me the interview and I gave a speech in Atlanta to about 1500 AT&T executives I was president of EDS at the time and he introduced me and he said I want to tell you a story about our company in 1963 Mort Meyerson who's president of EBS is one of the biggest companies in the country interviewed at AT&T and it wasn't offered a job and the evaluation said that he would never be able to rise higher than the
two levels above entry and it's quite amazing he said but then I dug into it and find out they didn't hire him because he was Jewish and the crowd almost collapsed it was very and he never told me he just but he introduced me anyway so that's what happened so his 18-gauge was so you went to work for Bell Helicopter I work for Bell Helicopter for two and a half years loved it loved the person I work for which is doing computer programs computer programmer I was called a data processing engineer and I did logistical kind of systems and contract scheduling which is very complex
I loved it I also taught computer programming evening because they paid me $25 a night and that's how I had enough money to go to movies and it was it was a great life and I was promoted to Textron new home belt to be a vice president the number to vice president for processing and how long have you started with I was two and a half years he was offered this job in Providence Rhode Island and I went up there interview took tests got the job and before I went I company called EDS called me and said you want to interview and I said no
I've got a job not like Providence so why don't you meet us he s had 53 people and I was the 54 and so did you move them from Fort Worth to downs now I commuted for about a year and then I joined EDS and December of January of 1966 move about of your life so when you move to Dallas in 1967 did you join a temple yes and did you have any other connections were you acted in the Jewish community at all no I was working I was working at 70 hours the only connection I had with the Jewish community at that time about
1969 or 68 was the first time that I made enough money that I had I had bills that wife and small children in 69 and I can remember computing my taxes and I discovered that I had more money than I did expenses so I called Federation and said how do you make a contribution and most I was that Federation he tells me the story that they had never had anybody call as having that contributed they didn't know I was in town and so I made a contribution and then thereafter I made an annual contribution there and I made contributions into temple and our kids went
to Sunday school and we did my holidays but I had no time for anything else and we met your wife Russia active at the time she raised children I think she was in something at the temple but she was in Junior League and she was very active so did you feel like your friends where you princess it from work the personal friend sergeant were they in the Jewish community my friends were in both places but I wouldn't say I had a lot of friends we let it in have any time I was working 60 to 80 hours a week I had a wife and children
and there were no hours so if I was going to be a father and a husband I had to stay at home so I stayed at home when I wasn't working and we never we were not very active socially and I joined no clubs I mean anything and so how long did you stay in the details I was in EBS until 1986 twenty-one years and then what what change did you make them well I retired from media in 1966 December 7th and I got a call from Richard rainwater the next week yet and he asked me if I would help him on a project and
he told me what it was and he came to visit me and I told him that he didn't need to hire me I knew the company I knew the project and he shouldn't he's talking about buying Western Union and I told him it didn't make any sense because it was not a good company and he said well would I go look at it I flew to New Jersey I came back and I said this thing about a week later he gave me a check for several hundred thousand dollars I said what's this for he said because you say he's been doing something stupid and would
you like to office with me part-time and I said I can't do it full-time because they have other things I'm doing so I was retired I spent outside office with three children for worth half time in Michael Dell had called me from Dell computing and asked me if I'd help him sort of the kind I didn't want to do that but he came to Dallas and talked to me I agreed if he would give me del stock which I could give to charity that I would help I helped him I was a coach and that's I had a very interesting time for about five years
and in your retirement did you get involved at all with any Jewish activities nine at that time I was still investing helping Michael which of the High Holidays we did a Passover every year but I was still kind of distant it was it was a good life and then in 1992 parole started it started a company in 1988 which he asked me to join and I wouldn't do it and then in 92 he wanted to run for president so he called me said would you help me run for president in the meantime would you run the business and I said no and he said please
and I said ok so I became CEO systems for six years but in the interim there was a big change in 1996 I went I was in New York and I went to the Jewish Museum there was an exhibition on China I wanted to see an exhibition on Chinese Jews I've always been very interested in history and culture read many books about month old Mongolian Mongolians and they conquered China's a lot of history from China I never heard of Chinese Jews so I went to this exhibition and I was looking at calves on the wall next to the pictures and one of them referenced Michael
Pollan of Dallas as an expert in Chinese Jews Michael [ __ ] so when I came back to Dallas and I called Michael and said you don't know me my name is Wharton Meyerson tell me about your interest in Chinese Jews he said well let's have lunch and we had lunch we got to be friends and then he said do you do anything Jewish Lee and I said well I'm a member of temple manual and I give money to Federation he said but if you ever studied and I said no he said well why don't you come to Jason see there's a monthly meeting where we study
sacred Jewish texts today I didn't sound that actually but I'll come so I went and retailer was rented and we studied some book which I came over which one it was and I got interested so I started going once a week this is a monthly I started going and then after about a year in 1997 approximately I read in the temple bulletin there was a Torah class but it was a small and not a big thing so I I had gone to some class attempted manual eighty people so I decided I'd go and I went and rocket and Casper was teaching and we started studying
passage of Torah at that point did you know we've been English we started discussing it and as we were unpacking this portion of Torah I realized that everything that I had done in software was the same thing as studying Torah so I went wow this is interesting and I came fascinated and I started going to class and then I started going to the larger tour class then I started studying myself and then I made arrangements to go to Israel to study and I went for six weeks in 1998 and I study in Jerusalem they HUC and that I became you know with class all day
and I got really interested study and one of the things I studied was Sadako the way I'd like to study things I'd like to understand where it comes from so we got the original text and study where the doctor evolved from and when I came back to the US I spent six months evaluating where our family was what money I had and I wanted to form a foundation so I did were you working or we retired I was retired I retired in 1998 in January so this was 1999 it's been six months figuring out to do form the Fatma Foundation came the head of the
foundation and that's 30 spending about half my time that's what I do and what organizations does the foundation get to go to my website it's very extensive but about 75% of the money goes to Jewish Jewish related causes and 25% goes to medical research and we we take us a different view than most people I mean I've followed the rules that sadaqa first I made sure that everybody in the family was taken care of once I did that and I started working in Dallas Jews and non-jews and we developed programs here and then in 2001 I went to Israel in Israel the way that we
do it which is a little bit different is we give to under the radar kind of organizations we select the organizations based on what they're doing how efficient they are and how good the leader is and so we read back what we consider the really talented people who are doing great things but they're generally supplying services to people that are in great need but the system doesn't take care of them like some forms of homelessness kids in Jerusalem street kids helps them after school program and Tel Aviv for kids of parents that don't come home school to get a place to go many programs wonderful
thing so some of the things some of the organizations are in Israel in summer to this and some Grinnell in summer in Argentina so tell me thank you what you can see your adults involvement in the Jewish community are you still going to these are you still taking courses no well I'm take I live part time in New York so I have a plethora of things that I can do in New York I'd go to musical events and I study and I go to lectures so I go to NYU Skirball Center I go to various and sundry temples I'm a member of BJ and I
go to JCC when they have lectures that I'm interested in so I'm like Dallas do you do the same thing I don't do this well I'm not in Dallas that much I used to go every week to the Torah study but I did that for about six years and then finally you know got repetitious so you don't really have what do you have any involvement with Jewish organizations yes no I have I have a class in my house where I bring rabbis or teachers when I'm in town mrs. maybe eight times a year and we do study eat lunch it's been very interesting very you know been some either local rabbis or teachers or people who come into mountain town so let's talk about your family today tell me about your thing okay children I have two daughters one as in New York City has three children and other lives in Scarsdale outside of New York City and has three children the one in Scarsdale the children are holders so I've got one graduate student one undergraduate student and one high school student and the younger family I've got one third grade first grade so I have six
grandchildren three boys and three girls daughters are very they're both homemakers they both used to work they got married had children both very active in Jewish policies Marty the younger in New York City has just been elected the president of the JCC Westside which is neat job amazed that she got that she's only 39 she's very she's very active and I grant I grandchildren my grandchildren went to the preschool there so she's very Jason City and Leslie doesn't Scarsdale it's very active in Temple Israel which is it can sort of do in white plains and she's very active there and she's very active and a
lot of programs and she just went on the board of the Talib Center for Israeli Jewish living and why do you so she speaks in Hebrew she and her granddaughter my eldest grandchild go with me to Israel once a year search for new programs and so we're quite active on email based on work with foundation Marty's got younger children she used to do that but she couldn't do that and also working with JCC so tell me now looking back at your life what do you feel you're most proud of I think well I think I'm most proud of my grandchildren what type of children they
are they're you know all children have weird characteristics that's part of being a child but they're all sweet affectionate they're considerate they work hard they're all either decent or great students they all volunteer and I found my grandson we went to Johns Hopkins I went to visit him thought I was going to talk about fraternity and dating and stuff and he told me that he had formed a nonprofit organization for the students to help dogs and cats they were orphans himself so yeah he well that his mother is that way and he's that way the older sister Julia is very active she is Orthodox I'm
very pleased with my grandkids a different definition of being proud it's not really being proud I feel fortunate this is a different way of saying the same thing I was really lucky in my selection of my parents I had Orthodox Yiddish speaking foreign hand of feeling culture Jews on one side my grandparents and my other grandparents were very sophisticated spoke German at home listen to operas the German style cooking and there were very sophisticated so I had like a foot in both camps and my parents were active in the Jewish community although my father allowed my mother to take the lead which is how I
became reformed and they were very all six of those people were very intent on a few things they wanted me to know that I was Jewish they wanted me to contribute and be part of the Jewish community they also knew that I had that was too small because the numbers of people was so small so I had to compete and be part of the non-jewish community which I learned how to do and they were all great role models and my parents are still alive my father's 97 my mother is nd I still go see him and the roles are now reversed you know I was
once a child and they took care of me now and they're elderly and somewhat frayed of mile road you wouldn't know that if you talk to and I'm I'm very pleased and feel lucky that I was raised with that set of parents with a connection to the history of the family I know a lot about work and it's from I know who I am and yet I'm very comfortable in the non-jewish world because Fort Worth you had to be in the Army who had to be a TDs and the Purdue business you had to be I learned how to do that so I've I've had
a balanced life I Know Who I am I know where I come from it's wonderful good lucky and you work very hard and we have wonderful legacy to follow you with your children and your grandchildren which is is really the greatest reward that anyone can add to it so what about you have role models who are you role models I've already talked about that I paid very close attention to my grandparents they were all four of them different and I learned different things from each other I am an observer of people so when I was a child I was watching them looking for clues they
were I was the oldest grandchild so I was spoiled but I got a lot of attention from my grandparents and my parents focused on me I had brother that died when I was 10 and he was 5 so I was raised from 10 years old long it's an only child and I got a lot of attention they were very active in my life and those are my real role models I have had coaches and athletics I've had teachers make big impacts of my life I had people that were my first two bosses were very good people that I learned a lot from Ross Perot who
ran EDF was a person that I could respect so there are many different people and there were people in business I had customers that were I was close to and then I learned a lot from them I had people that worked for me that I learned a lot from there were competitors so I've learned from many many different people but in the final analysis I'm rooted in Fort Worth rooted in yeah let me ask you have you experienced actually very seldom in Fort Worth I never experienced any semitism Australian law but I think it was probably because there was such a small Jewish community when
I went to the University of Texas all my friends the majority of my friends were not Jewish and they went to different fraternities and I for some reason I thought I might go with them and then I discovered that they didn't like Jews in those Chinese it was not any Semitism it was segregation and that was the first time I experienced that and a couple of times in school I had a few instances but not much and the first in my face anti-semitism was when I moved to New York in 1971 and I was the CEO of a Wall Street firm and the firm was
deep on door forged and the DuPont's were obviously not Jewish and it was known as the manageress firm and they got into trouble and Ross Perot invested in them and we tried to find a CEO nobody would take the job so they sent me up there and when I first came in there was like a shudder in organization what is this guy named Meyerson sponsored by Perot was not Jewish how is it that he's become the CEO and somebody and the DuPont family made a nasty crack about Jews and Perot turned to him was that really there when I was there when it happened Perot
turned to the person Mort Meyerson it's one of the greatest executives I've ever known he's a friend of mine don't you ever say anything like that was the end of that and then of course have to talk about mentioned before the ATT job you didn't jump I didn't know it yeah it so much later when I didn't never occurred to me yeah occurred but I it's if you don't know it right is it a nice it's like a tree falling in the forest if you don't hear it so I didn't know that but then I had but later I actually ran into something and in
1973 the chairman I was the president CEO of DuPont or for the chairman was a waspy man named Bruce lo very good guy very friendly with me very nice man asked me if I wanted to become a member of the University Club I was a member of the Harmony flow which is a journey matures but do you want to know if I want to become University Club and I said yes and he put my name up and about six months went by and nothing happened this is University Club in New York it's a national big club all right sexual social club and they have you
know squash it's in New York so nothing happened so I eventually went to chuck burtzloff and said Chuck it's been six months I thought you put my name in he said I did and I said so what came back and he said nothing I said Jack that means one of two things either they don't want Jews or they don't want Texas because there's negative feeling about Texas and Chuck said I think it's because you're Jewish I said well do me a favor withdraw my name and he said no no I want to leave it in I want to fight because I feel like Groucho Marx
I don't want to belong do so that was the first time that happened and then later when I came back to Dallas there were no Jewish members of the Dallas Country Club and I was president of EDS at a very high-profile position who worked at the symphony and a group of Jewish men came to me and said Stanley Marcus tried to get into the Dallas fender club and he was not allowed to join you can get in and we have a non-jewish I think it was triangle crop' and I'm not sure there's somebody that it said they would put me up and they and and
they were assured that I would get into the club so I would be the first night of June they don't want Jews I wouldn't waste my time so that's a subtle form and in Fort Worth there were three country clubs and two other three if you're Jewish you could enjoy but I never applied because my feeling is I'm not I worry with you so one thing we haven't discussed is your name is very well known in the community because of a Symphony Hall so let's discuss that would you tell me tell me about how it came to be well the symphony there's two stories one
story is how did the symphony of all come to be and the other story is had to my name get on the building it's two separate stories like making a brief the first story is in 1979 I was asked by a Robert Decker who was German if I would be the chairman of a committee to figure out what to do to build a new city and I told him I didn't really think I was qualified because I hadn't been in the city I didn't know like people and I wasn't very political and I didn't I was very impatient and I didn't think that would fit
very well and he said no the board's already discussed this and the reason why we want you to do discuss of the way that you are you'll cut through so I said okay so I started the job and I thought it would be like ever once while meeting and it turned out to be a real passion and over the course of the next ten years I spent about one man year about 10% of my time working so the way the Symphony Hall came into being was not exclusively my doing but I was in charge of the committee that actually made it happen the naming of
it is different the there were several families that we're going to give money to have all named after their families in the middle 1980s with bad time economically they didn't want to do it so they asked me if I go talk to Ross Perot I went to his office and I said Ross I'm here he had been keeping up with the building of the city hall because I was president indeed yes and he saw me working on it and he would say how is it going and what are you doing so he knew about it I said Ross we're gonna have a great hall this
is going to be a world-class hall we're gonna have one of the best in the world it's beautiful it's done by amp a but we don't have the money to complete it and we need ten million dollars would you be willing to do that and we could name it the parol all family hall or maybe David for your mother David for Margot or anything you want would you be wanting to do this and he said yes right on the spot it's like a five-minute conversation he said yes and then I said fry that's terrific so what name do you want Merson symphonies it's the Ross
that makes me feel bad because now I can feel like maybe I was coming to issue the money so you would give money to your name I said that number one I'm not very public oriented and I would find it embarrassing and I'm flattered that you have asked me and I've got to say no and I think you should name it for your family and then Ross looked at me the way he does he said you're not listening to me if you want the money that'll be the night that's a that's a great story and we're all indebted for spearheading all your work that should've
understood because the Symphony Hall is just magnets I go there every week I'm in town that they have symphonies and I take mother and it's it's it's really so let me just ask you is there anything else that we haven't touched on that you'd like to cover this interview it's been pretty comprehensive just in closing do you have any reflections on the differences in the Jewish - maybe when you were growing up today yes I will come in on that part of this maybe because of my involvement I'm much more deeply involved and I've studied and now I know something about my own religion something
about the text etc but I think actually there has been great change when in the 1940s Jews were integral but on the fringe forth and I think the same thing was true all across Texas and I think today it's much different Judit possible that a Jewish person will have their name on a Symphony Hall possible that there are no CEOs of companies that are in Jews there are very wealthy Jewish families there's powerful Jewish families and when I was a child that just wasn't possible most people middle-class there were if you consider to be wealthy but today they consider being middle-class people but I think
things have opened up and I actually am very happy I was born in Fort Worth Texas I'm very happy I live in Dallas Texas and I'm happy that I went to the University of Texas I think Texas has provided an opportunity for Jewish people you're sad that you were in it and excuse me saying that you were proud that you who weapon Dallas I mean you grew up in Fort Worth and dad saw Daleks changing the opportunities here yeah I think it's I think the greatest cities and the state of Dallas and Fort Worth Houston is by in San Antonio Austin etc but I know
this I know North Texas and I feel fortunate I was born here but it's beyond just the cities I think Texas has been an open society it's a Western society it's a what you do is more important than who you what family you come from and I think all that is in your benefit of the Jewish community in the Jewish communities now are very strong and I feel fortunate to have in both of those communities thank you I want to thank you more Meyerson for talking with us today and it's been a pleasure thank you and I hope this works out yeah yes when you
reviewed the tape I had something called oil deed of gift which I'd like you to take a look at we asked you