Kenneth Ward Anderson, who co-founded Blockbuster Video almost 35 years ago in Dallas with David P. Cook, has died at age 87.

Anderson was president and chief financial officer of Cook Data Services, which he assisted in taking public. Cook then decided to get out of the business of supplying software to the oil and gas industry when oil prices collapsed in the mid-1980s.

Kenneth Ward Anderson (Courtesy photo / Kenneth Ward Anderson family)

The partners started Blockbuster Video with a store at the corner of Skillman Street and Northwest Highway on Oct. 21, 1985. Anderson was president and served on the company's board.

They sold their controlling interest in Blockbuster in 1987 to a group of investors led by Wayne Huizenga, founder of Waste Management Inc., the world's largest trash collection company. Huizenga moved Blockbuster's headquarters for a few years to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., until it moved back to Dallas in 1996.

Cook and Anderson then grew Amtech Corp., which developed the tracking device system known as "Tolltags." The company installed the system in Dallas for free to prove that it would work.

Anderson was also involved with Richardson-based Fossil Inc., where he was on the board for 18 years.

Anderson died at his home in Horseshoe Bay. He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Jean Jensen Anderson; and three children: Ken Jr. and his wife, Beth Anderson, of Dallas; Richard and his wife, Michelle Anderson, of Dallas; and daughter Wendy and her husband, Pat Blanchard, of Plano. Anderson had five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

He was a native of Evanston, Ill., a finance graduate of Northwestern University and completed post-graduate studies in finance at USC and UCLA.

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