Jack Perkowski gave up a successful Wall Street banking career to try something more audacious — building a world-class auto-parts maker in China. More than ten years and millions of dollars in losses later, is he motoring in the right direction? Jack Perkowski loves a challenge. In college the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, native ran extra wind sprints, intensified his weight-lifting regimen and pushed himself through seemingly endless drills to improve his blocking techniques to win the starting right guard position on Yale University's undefeated 1968 football team. Just 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds, Perkowski regularly tussled with much bigger opponents, among them Princeton University's 6-foot-5, 250-pound lineman, Bob Hews, a future pro footballer, who fell on him in a game, nearly knocking him unconscious. The tough-as-nails Perkowski didn't miss a play and went on to receive honorable mention as an All-Ivy League lineman. "Jack is probably the most dedicated athlete I've ever seen," an assistant coach told the Yak Daily News that season. For the past decade Perkowski has shown the same mix of grit, zeal and ambition on one of the world's most crowded and competitive playing fields. The former PaineWebber investment banking chief today runs Asimco Technologies, an investment company he set up in 1994 to inject foreign capital, technology and management skill into China's sprawling, fragmented and mostly state-owned auto-components business.
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