In case anyone is interested:
#! /d/program files/perl/bin/perl
use OLE;
use warnings;
print ("\tADO DSN-Less to pubs database on local MS Access database. \n"

;
print "\n";
# Create ADO auto object
$conn = CreateObject OLE "ADODB.Connection" ||
die "Error on ADO CreateObject: $!" ;
$conn->Open("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=c:/projects.mdb;"

;
if ( $conn->{State} != 1 ) { # 1 is adStateOpen, 0 is asStateClosed
die ("\t Connection Not Open. Make sure the server is started.\n\n"

;
}
$sql = "select project_name from projectInfo";
$rs = $conn->Execute($sql) || warn "*** SELECT ERROR *** $!";
while ( ! $rs->EOF() ) # Fetch each row
{ # Print each column value
print ("\t", $rs->Fields(project_name)->Value , "\n "

;
$rs->MoveNext;
}
$rs->Close;
print "finished \n";
print ("\n"

;