Through The Fires

Robert Owen Carr is the founder of Heartland Payment Systems. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics in three years at the University of Illinois, and earned a master's degree in computer science from that school in the following year. He created the Give Something Back Foundation that gives college scholarships to students from modest backgrounds. His website is: www.RobertOCarr.com. Dirk Johnson is a former bureau chief for the New York Times and Newsweek magazine. He is the author of two other nonfiction books, Biting the Dust: The Wild Ride and Dark Romance of the Rodeo Cowboy and the American West and Meth: America's Home-Cooked Menace .