James "Jim" Goodnight is the CEO of the SAS Institute and is generally recognized as the wealthiest man in the state of North Carolina and one of the wealthiest in the world. His net worth is around 7 billion dollars. He was born in Salisbury, NC and lived in Greensboro, NC until his family moved to Wilmington, NC when he was 12. As a youth, he often worked in his father's hardware store in Wilmington. His parents, Albert Goodnight and Dorothy Patterson Goodnight, are deceased. Even at a young age, mathematics and chemistry were his strongest subjects—thanks in part, he says, to a “wonderful chemistry teacher” at New Hanover High School. He applied to North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and opted for the Raleigh school largely because of his friendship with Roman Gabriel, a star football player from Wilmington who went on to an All-American career as a quarterback for the Wolfpack.

Goodnight holds a doctorate in statistics from North Carolina State University, where he was a member of the faculty from 1972 to 1976. James Goodnight is also a member of the social fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon. Dr. Jim Goodnight, with contributions from other esteemed alumni in TKE, was responsible for the building of a new fraternity house which was completed in 2002. He is still active in developing products for the company he runs. SAS Institute, which puts a quarter of its profits into research & development, develops business intelligence software. He is also the benefactor of Cary Academy, a private school near the SAS Campus.