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Joseph J. Jacobs, Ph.D. '34
Engineer, Humanitarian, and Author
The son of hard-working Lebanese immigrant parents, Joseph J. Jacobs, Ph.D. followed Brooklyn Tech by earning his Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate Degrees in Chemical Engineering at Polytechnic University.
As a promising young chemical engineer, Dr. Jacobs helped the pharmaceutical giant Merck Co. develop the mass production of the wonder drug penicillin. But, even with such professional success, he was determined to create a thriving business of his own.
At the end of World War II, Dr. Jacobs pulled up his Brooklyn roots and headed west to participate in the post-war California boom. Over the past 55 years, he developed Jacobs Engineering Group from a one-man chemical process consultancy to its present status as one of the world’s engineering-construction companies with over 60 offices on six continents, employing over 35,000 people.
Dr. Jacobs’ lifelong keen interest in education led him to serve as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Polytechnic University. In 1983, he received the Hoover Medal, which recognizes the civic and humanitarian achievements of professional engineers. In 1994, he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering.
In his autobiography entitled, The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur: Family, Culture, and Ethics, he traces the high standards of morality and ethics, which he learned in the ethnic background of his family and the Lebanese American community in Brooklyn. His second book, The Compassionate Conservative, was published in December 1995.
Dr. Joseph Jacobs married Violet Jahara, who introduced him to the arts and fortified his own parents’ insistence on principles and honor. They have three daughters: Linda, Margaret, and Valerie.
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