Percy Ross was born in Laurium, Michigan in 1916 to immigrant parents from Latvia and Russia. With his father, he began collecting scrap metal and selling it to neighbors during the Great Depression. A short time later Ross started his own part-time business rebuilding old batteries and selling them. Ross sold his battery business in 1936 and moved to Duluth, Minnesota to work in the metal and fur industries. By the end of World War II he had made a small fortune and moved to Minneappolis in 1946. During the next 20 years he went broke twice until he struck it rich with a company that made plastic trash bags. He sold the company in 1969 and spent the rest of his life giving away his money. For 17 years Ross wrote a weekly syndicated column, "Thanks a Million," through which he gave out millions of dollars worldwide. It's estimated that when he ended the column in 1999 he had handed out as much as $30 million. Percy Ross passed away in 2001, shortly after his wife passed away.