use strict;
use warnings;
use 5.016;


my $text =<<END_OF_TEXT;
          1         2         3
012345678901234567890123456789012
date      last      first     id
2/1/10    Smith               001 
3/1/11    Smith     Betty     002 
4/2/12    Jones               003
END_OF_TEXT

open my $INFILE, '<', \$text
    or die "Couldn't open string for reading: $!";

my $discard = <$INFILE> for (1 .. 3);

while (my $line = <$INFILE>) {
    chomp $line;

    printf "%-10s %-10s %-3s %-5s \n", 
           unpack('@20 A10 @10 A10 @30 A3 @0 A5', $line);
}

close $INFILE;

--output:--
           Smith      001 2/1/1 
Betty      Smith      002 3/1/1 
           Jones      003 4/2/1