try some of these:

%person = (  # much easier to maintain this way.
  1001 => { name => 'Jerry Calvin',   email => 'jcalvin@aidusa.com'},
  1002 => { name => 'John Q. Random', email => 'jqrandom@aidusa.com'},
);

@lines = <FILE>;
warn "wrong number of lines: $currentfile\n" unless (@lines == 5);
chomp @lines;
foreach $line (@lines) {
 ($name,$value) = split( /=/, $line);
 $value =~ s/^\s+//;
 $value =~ s/\s+$//;  # 'g' isn't needed
 $data{$name} = $value;
}

# some more ()'s never hurt, sure this wasn't 

if (($data{'SONUMBER'} eq '') || ($data{'SALESPERSON'} eq '')) {
 $data{'SONUMBER'} = 'No S.O. attached';
 $data{'SALESPERSON'} = 'No salesperson assigned';
 &sendemailspecial;
} else {
 &sendmailnormal;
}
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