Dean created and grew businesses for more than 40 years. His business savvy made him question the inefficiencies he saw in political campaigns, and led him to create PPP. Dean saw that campaigns were allocating huge sums to survey research that could be better spent elsewhere, and the price of survey research kept smaller campaigns from polling at all. In response, Dean created PPP to provide the benefits of quality survey research at an affordable price. PPP began operations in 2001 helping mostly local candidates in North Carolina and has since expanded its capacity, staff, and client list to include campaigns, businesses, and advocacy organizations across the country.