It's a long way from selling tires to the halls of Congress, but the trip may not be as strange as it seems. At 26, Gabrielle Giffords was president of her family's business, Tuscon, Ariz.-based El Campo Tire & Service Centers Inc., an 11-store chain with 100 employees and annual revenues of $10 million.
Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords, the one-time tire dealer who served in the U.S. Congress for five years before being gravely injured in a campaign-stop shooting in January 2011, has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.