Jack Eckerd
Jack Eckerd | |
---|---|
Administrator of the General Services Administration | |
In office November 21, 1975 – February 11, 1977 | |
President | Gerald Ford |
Preceded by | Arthur F. Sampson |
Succeeded by | Jay Solomon |
Personal details | |
Born | Governor of Florida | May 16, 1913
Jack Eckerd (May 16, 1913 – May 19, 2004) was an American businessman and the second generation owner of Eckerd chain of drugstores.
Early life
Eckerd was born in
Career
Starting in the 1950s, he transformed his family's retail drugstore business into one of the leading self-service drugstore chains in the United States,
The Eckerd chain, oldest of the major drugstore companies in the U.S., was founded by Jack's father, J. Milton Eckerd, in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1898. After serving as a pilot in World War II, Jack Eckerd started a phenomenal expansion of the chain by buying three stores in Florida in 1952. The company went public as Jack Eckerd Corp. in 1961 and when Eckerd sold his shares in 1986, there were about 1,500 stores.
The chain was later sold to
In July 2007 Coutu's 1,549 Eckerd stores across the Mid-Atlantic and New England became part of the Rite Aid drugstore chain, finally ending more than a century of the Eckerd name in drug retailing.
Family and death
Eckerd's family included seven children—two from a previous marriage, plus three adopted and two of his own after his marriage to Ruth Eckerd (1922 – July 18, 2006).[1] He died of pneumonia in 2004, aged 91.[2][3]
Public service
In 1975 Eckerd was appointed administrator of the
Political campaigns
In
Distraught that Kirk's antics had led to a fratricidal primary, Cramer said that he "customarily" avoided involvement in primaries outside of his own race. Kirk claimed that Cramer assisted Eckerd, whom Kirk assailed as "notorious for his ability to change the scope of the truth. He has an ego problem."[8] In the campaign rhetoric, Kirk denounced Eckerd for having previously contributed to Democratic candidates, for allegedly running down a Cuban fisherman in a yacht race, and for spending lavishly from his personal fortune in the 1970 primary campaign.[7] Though he defeated Eckerd, Kirk was then unseated, 57-43 percent, by the Democrat Reubin Askew, a state senator from Pensacola.
Eckerd said that though he had supported Kirk in 1966, he became disappointed and embarrassed with the governor: "I was offended by his public behavior and chagrined that he was a Republican."
In 1974, Eckerd was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate against the Democrat
In 1978, Eckerd defeated U.S. Representative
Philanthropy
With the millions he made, Eckerd became a philanthropist.
- Frank Lloyd Wright Foundationand opened in 1983.
- Florida Presbyterian College in St. Petersburg, Florida, changed its name to Eckerd College in 1972 following a $12.5 million contribution from Jack, who also served for a time as its interim president.[12]
- In 1968, Jack and Ruth Eckerd founded Eckerd Youth Alternatives (known simply as "Eckerd Kids"), a private, not-for-profit organization dedicated to strengthening children, families and communities, using an Outdoor Therapeutic Program model that included opening the first OTP in the state of Florida for boys in 1968 and the first OTP for girls in the southeastern United States. The organization's success with outdoor therapeutic programming soon expanded beyond Florida to several states.[13] Today, Eckerd serves more than 18,500 children and families annually through a continuum of over 30 behavioral health and child welfare services, ranging from early intervention & prevention to community-based interventions, out-of-home care, and workforce development. Affiliate Programs include Paxen Learning and CARING for Children.[14]
- National Foundation for Youth, a philanthropic organization underwritten by Jack and Ruth Eckerd in 1994 to support programs benefiting troubled young people, was later merged into the work of Eckerd.
Writing
In 1987, Jack wrote his autobiography with
Awards and honors
- Air Medal
- Presidential Unit Citation
- Floridian of the Year by the Orlando Sentinel
- Child Advocate of the Year
- Florida Enterprise Medal
- Mr. Clearwater by the Greater Chamber of Commerce
- LeRoy Collins Lifetime Achievement Award by Leadership Florida
- Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, 1974[19]
References
- ^ Basse, Craig; John Fleming (20 July 2006). "Philanthropist of grace and style". St. Petersburg Times. Archived from the original on 13 March 2007. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- ^ Basse, Craig (19 May 2004). "Drugstore magnate Jack Eckerd dead at 91". St. Petersburg Times. Archived from the original on 24 June 2004. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- ^ a b Silva, Mark; John Kennedy (20 May 2004). "J. Eckerd, 91, built drugstore chain". South Florida Sun Sentinel. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- ^ "Jack Eckerd, 91; built drugstore chain, was philanthropist, politician". Los Angeles Times. 22 May 2004. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- ^ United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Government Operations. (1976). Nomination of Jack M. Eckerd: hearings before the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, first session, on nomination of Jack M. Eckerd, to be Administrator of the General Services Administration, October 31, and November 13, 1975. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- ^ Hathorn, Billy B. (1989). "Cramer v. Kirk: The Florida Republican Schism of 1970". Florida Historical Quarterly. 68 (4): 414. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
- ^ a b c Hathorn, Billy B. (1989). "Cramer v. Kirk: The Florida Republican Schism of 1970". Florida Historical Quarterly. 68 (4): 415. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
- ^ Hathorn, Billy B. (1989). "Cramer v. Kirk: The Florida Republican Schism of 1970". Florida Historical Quarterly. 68 (4): 414–415. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
- ^ Hathorn, Billy B. (1989). "Cramer v. Kirk: The Florida Republican Schism of 1970". Florida Historical Quarterly. 68 (4): 416. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
- ^ Jack M. Eckerd and Charles P. Conn, Eckerd: Finding the Right Prescription (Old Tappan, New Jersey, 1987), pp. 113-119
- ^ Hathorn, Billy B. (1989). "Cramer v. Kirk: The Florida Republican Schism of 1970". Florida Historical Quarterly. 68 (4): 424. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
- ^ Nohlgren, Stephen (8 June 2003). "The Eckerd elixer: He thrived at business, flopped at politics and gave away millions. Now 90, Jack Eckerd draws spirit from the children whose lives he touched". The St. Petersburg Times. Archived from the original on 23 October 2017. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- ^ "History - Eckerd Kids". Eckerd Kids. Retrieved 2016-03-25.
- ^ "Eckerd Merging Missions". Archived from the original on 2015-05-14. Retrieved 2015-05-08.
- ^ Eckerd Youth Program (19 May 2004). "Jack Eckerd, drug store pioneer, philanthropist and founder of Eckerd Youth Programs, dies". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- ^ Fodiman, Aaron (November–December 1988). "Rx for success". Tampa Bay: The Suncoast's Magazine: 46. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- ^ Marlowe, Dick (4 September 1993). "Ethics, values still have spot in corporate America". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- ^ Chewning, Richard C. (1993). "Review of Why America Doesn't Work by Chuck Colson, Jack Eckerd". Journal of Church and State. 35 (1): 179–180.
- American Academy of Achievement.
External links
- St. Petersburg Times obituary
- Ruth Eckerd dies - St. Petersburg Times
- Eckerd.org