Dwight Opperman, Chairman and chief executive
Vance Opperman, President
Headquarters: Eagan, Minn., with editorial offices and training centers around the United States.
Ownership: Privately held.
Employees: About 4,500 in the Twin Cities area and 1,500 elsewhere in the United States.
Origins: Started in the 1870s in St. Paul by brothers John and Horatio West, who published a weekly newspaper of court opinions.
Business: West says it prints nearly 60 million books and pamphlets yearly, as well as CD-ROM electronic legal libraries. Its WESTLAW service is one of the nation's leading sources for computer legal research.
