1922-
Conglomerate Organizer; Founder of Ling-Temco-Vought

Growth Stock of the Go-Go Sixties.

 James Ling built one of the most exciting, widely diversified conglomerates of the 1960s — Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV). In 1965 Fortune magazine hailed LTV the fastest-growing company in the United States from 1955 to 1965. Three years later it was the country's fourteenth largest industrial concern with sales of $2.8 billion. Ling's assault on the business world and LTV's meteoric rise were nothing short of amazing.

Business Beginnings.

A high-school dropout from a working-class background, Ling held a spate of odd jobs before becoming an electrician in Dallas, Texas. After serving in the navy, where he studied electrical engineering, Ling returned to Dallas in 1946. He then sold his house and used the proceeds to set up Ling Electric Company. The small firm originally specialized in residential wiring but soon expanded into larger commercial projects. By 1955 the company was...