John Perkins
John Perkins was recruited by the National Security Agency during his last year at Boston University’s School of Business Administration, 1968. He spent the next three years in the Peace Corps in South America and then in 1971 joined the international consulting firm of Chas. T. Main, a Boston-based company. As chief economist and director of economics and regional planning, Perkins’s primary job was to convince third-world countries to accept expensive loans for infrastructure projects. Perkins left Chas. T. Main in 1981. He founded and became CEO of Independent Power Systems (IPS), pioneering technologies that promoted the use of “waste” power plant heat in hydroponic greenhouses and other cogeneration applications. In 1990, he sold IPS and founded Dream Change Coalition, which works closely with Amazonian and other indigenous people to help preserve their environments and cultures. He is the author of several books, including Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and Hoodwinked, a blueprint for a new form of global economics.
