"We're a bond in drag, " laughs Garry Ridge, the stocky 42-year-old chief executive, a onetime traveling salesman from Australia.

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You can solve the Traveling Salesman problem using glue and paper clips.

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Neither his father, a traveling salesman of dental equipment, nor his mother, who was a secretary, went to college.

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But all that may be changing under Garry Ridge, the stocky 42-year- old chief executive, a onetime traveling salesman from Australia.

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The Bass Co. bought the company in 1927 and owned it until the following year, when its first traveling salesman, Bill Gustin, bought the company.

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Consider the traveling salesman in Boise waiting on some samples.

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Adleman mimicked this process in the laboratory, and used it to solve something called the traveling-salesman problem.

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