No. 12: Richard O. Jacobson
February 6, 2012 | Read Time: 1 minute
Amount donated in 2011: $100-million
Beneficiary: Mayo Clinic
Donor’s background: Mr. Jacobson founded the Jacobson Companies, a Des Moines corporation that operates public warehouses and trucking and packaging businesses.
Mr. Jacobson, 75, pledged $100-million to the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn., to establish a proton-beam therapy program at the clinic’s cancer center in Rochester and at a new facility in Phoenix.
The proton-therapy approach concentrates a beam directly on the tumor, sparing any surrounding organs and tissue from destruction, and can be used at a higher dosage than traditional radiotherapy, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Mr. Jacobson, who has been a patient at Mayo over the years, previously gave the institution $2-million for a professorship in molecular medicine and $55,000 to support Mayo’s clinician investigator program. A payment schedule for the $100-million pledge was unavailable.
—Maria Di Mento
