What he does: Manufactures farm equipment and sells around 40 percent of it in the former Soviet Union.

"I believe deeply in the proposition that one should understand the culture and history of a country that one intends to do business with, so I try to read at least one or two histories of Russia each year. What I've learned from these books is that the culture of distrust is deeply ingrained in the Russian people. That's why they are such good chess players -- they have been conditioned to think several steps ahead of everybody else in order to survive. I was astonished to learn that, even in the 1990s, many Russians believed that the United States would seriously consider invading their country militarily. History has made them paranoid."

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