Rachel Jacobs
Born(1975-10-03)October 3, 1975
Huntington Woods, Michigan, U.S.
DiedMay 12, 2015(2015-05-12) (aged 39)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
EducationSwarthmore College (BA)
Columbia Business School (MBA)
OccupationBusinesswoman
SpouseTodd Waldman
Children1
RelativesGilda Jacobs (mother)

Rachel Jacobs (October 3, 1975 – May 12, 2015)[1][2] was an American businesswoman and social entrepreneur. She was killed at age 39 in the 2015 Philadelphia train derailment while commuting between her home in New York and the Philadelphia offices of ApprenNet, the educational technology company she had recently joined as CEO.[3][4][5][6]

Early life and education

Jacobs grew up in Huntington Woods, Michigan,[7][8] the daughter of Gilda Jacobs, a former Michigan state senator.[4][9] She was a 1993 graduate of Berkley High School, a 1997 graduate of Swarthmore College, and a 2002 graduate of Columbia Business School.[8][10][11] Jacobs moved to New York City in 2000.[12]

Career

Jacobs was CEO of ApprenNet,[1][13] a video-learning tech company which was cofounded by Karl Okamoto, a law professor at Drexel University.[4] The company "provides tools for instructors to create video-based learning exercises."[4][10][14] Before joining ApprenNet, Jacobs worked for the education-technology firm Ascend Learning where she was vice president of business innovation.[10][15] According to Okamoto, the two met because ApprenNet was doing business with Ascend and Jacobs "was our customer before she became our colleague."[16]

In a career The Washington Post described as "moving from one big job to the next," Jacobs' first job out of business school was as a manager at the Pragma Corporation, based in Kyrgyzstan, where she helped the government develop IT strategies.[3][17] She next worked for the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.[3][18] In 2007, Jacobs joined McGraw Hill, where she "led the expansion of McGraw-Hill's career-learning business into China, India and the Middle East."[2][3][19]

Jacobs was hired to lead ApprenNet, which is backed by the National Science Foundation, in an expansion from its original focus on educating lawyers, into a phase to apply its online teaching technology to training health-care professionals, college level instruction and training for K-12 teachers.[10]

Following Jacobs's death, ApprenNet merged with Handsfree Learning of California.[20][21][22]

Social activism

In 2009, Jacobs organized 635 Mile Road, a non-profit organization of former Detroit-area residents "dedicated to improving the flow of funds, ideas and energy between native Detroiters."[7][23] By the end of 2010, 635 Mile Road became Detroit Nation.[24] The organization soon had chapters in chapters in New York, Seattle, Chicago, and other cities dedicated to helping Detroit natives who continue supporting the region after moving away.[4][8][12][25][26][27][28][29] The group offers free consulting to Detroit-based, grassroots entrepreneurs and artists.[3] Through Detroit Nation, Jacobs helped arrange the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's first Carnegie Hall concert in 17 years.[30] By the time the group held a Detroit ex-pats meet-up in their hometown in 2014, the group had 10,000 members online.[31] Detroit Nation raised money for Detroit charities with fund-raising events held by expats in Seattle, Chicago, New York and other cities,[25] but, as Jacobs explained to an interviewer in 2011, the ex-pats also provide "human capital... helping organizations to better integrate social networking tools, develop marketing materials, or structure the organization and bring in larger donors."[32]

In 2014, Jacobs was one of 150 business leaders invited to attend the first annual Detroit Homecoming.[15] Interviewed during the Homecoming, Jacobs told The Detroit News that, "Detroit doesn't need ideas. It has phenomenal ideas. It needs doers... My challenge to expats is who will raise their hand and be a doer in Detroit?"[31]

Personal life

She was married to Todd Waldman, who as of 2015 worked for Navigant Consulting; the couple had one son.[33][2][9][34] Jacobs and Waldman had been considering whether to move the family to Philadelphia.[3][10][16][17]

Death

Media attention focused on Jacobs in the hours after the crash because she was known to have been on the train but had not been identified among the injured and the dead.[19][35] ApprenNet co-founder and COO Emily Foote went to the crash scene to try to locate Jacobs by showing her photograph to survivors and rescue workers.[16][19]

Hundreds of people attended memorial services held at the Greenwich Village campus of Hebrew Union College on Saturday, May 16, 2015.[36][37][38][39][40] An estimated 1,500 people attended the funeral held in suburban Detroit on May 18, 2015.[41]

Legacy

According to CNN, Jacobs' family have set up two memorial funds in her honor, including the "Rachel Jacobs Detroit Nation Fund" to benefit Detroit Nation[42] and a scholarship fund at Columbia Business School to benefit social entrepreneurs.[2][43][44]

Former campers and counselors who had spent summers with Rachel at Tamarack Camps, located in the state of Michigan, came together and raised money to dedicate the Rachel Jacobs Tikkun Olam Leadership Award. Rachel often spoke to others about how her camp experiences help shape her identity during her formative years. Beginning in 2016, this award will go to one summer staff member each year who embodies Rachel's values for healing or repairing the world (the Hebrew translation of Tikkun Olam).[45]

Daily News columnist Mike Lupica demanded a full investigation of Amtrak safety from the National Transportation Safety Board to prevent future tragedies in which a two-year-old child "grows up without a mother."[46] Assigned to ride on the first train through Philadelphia after the derailment, columnist Ronnie Polaneczky wrote for The Philadelphia Inquirer that, "The next time I sigh that I can't afford to fix the roof or haven't time to help a friend move across the country, I will try to remind myself that Rachel Jacobs would have given anything to still be here to indulge such petty worries."[47]

References

  1. 1 2 "Amtrak derailment victim Rachel Jacobs remembered with laughter, tears and music". New York Daily News.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Abdel-Razzaq, Lauren (May 17, 2015). "Funeral planned for train crash victim from Detroit". The Detroit News. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Shapira, Ian (May 13, 2015). "CEO mom who went missing after the Amtrak crash now mourned as dead". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 19, 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Bethencourt, Daniel (May 14, 2015). "Tech start-up CEO Rachel Jacobs among Amtrak crash victims". USA Today. Detroit Free Press. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  5. ↑ Italiano, Laura (May 13, 2015). "CEO still missing after Amtrak crash". New York Post. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  6. ↑ Matthew, Shaer (January 26, 2016). "The Wreck of Amtrak 188". The New York Times. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  7. 1 2 Dybis, Karen (October 25, 2010). "Only 635 Miles From Home". Time. Archived from the original on October 28, 2010. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  8. 1 2 3 Gottlieb, Amishai (May 13, 2015). "Rachel Jacobs, Missing After Amtrak Derailment, Connected Jewishly". Jewish Exponent. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  9. 1 2 Blau, Reuven (May 13, 2015). "Rachel Jacobs, daughter of former Michigan state senator, among 7 dead in Amtrak train derailment". New York Daily News. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Reyes, Juliana (April 6, 2015). "ApprenNet just hired a new CEO. Here's why that's a big deal". TechnicallyPhilly. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  11. ↑ Kampe, Paul (May 13, 2015). "Huntington Woods native, daughter of former state senator dead in Amtrak derailment near Philadelphia". Tribune News. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  12. 1 2 Cannon, Lauren (September 28, 2011). "On Urban Ex-Pat Networks in NYC". The L Magazine. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  13. ↑ "People in the News". The Philadelphia Inquirer. March 31, 2015. Retrieved May 19, 2015.
  14. ↑ O'Brien, Sara (May 13, 2015). "Rachel Jacobs, the chief executive of a small tech company in Philadelphia, died in the Amtrak train crash, her family said Wednesday". CNN. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  15. 1 2 Halcom, Chad (May 13, 2015). "Detroit Nation co-founder Rachel Jacobs, 39, died in Amtrak train crash". Craine's. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  16. 1 2 3 Lubrano, Alfred (May 13, 2015). "Philly CEO among the Amtrak crash's missing". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  17. 1 2 Svrluga, Susan (May 13, 2013). "Accomplished Amtrak victims: a midshipman, tech CEO, AP video staffer, banker". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 19, 2015.
  18. ↑ "(USA Today) – Tech start-up CEO Rachel Jacobs among Amtrak crash victims". wpanews.net.
  19. 1 2 3 Barrabi, Thomas (May 13, 2015). "ApprenNet CEO Rachel Jacobs Remains Missing After Amtrak Train Derailment". International Business Times. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  20. ↑ Blumenthal, Jeff (July 22, 2015). "Local tech firm that lost CEO in Amtrak crash merges with California firm". Philadelphia Business Journal. Retrieved July 27, 2015.
  21. ↑ Lurye, Sharon (September 1, 2015). "Overcoming death of CEO, ApprenNet raises $1.8 million". Philadelphia Voice. Retrieved October 21, 2015.
  22. ↑ Norton, Dan (September 1, 2015). "ApprenNet CEO talks taking over after death of Rachel Jacobs". Philadelphia Business Journal. Retrieved October 21, 2015.
  23. ↑ "Happy New Year Detroiters…Let "US" Help". New Economy Initiative. Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. December 13, 2013. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  24. ↑ "A Salute to a Mighty 'Detroit Nation'". Detroit Unspun. thedetroithub. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  25. 1 2 Cedo, Eric (May 14, 2015). "Detroit lost one of its genuine champions in tragic death of Rachel Jacobs". Crain's. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
  26. ↑ "Rachel Jacobs Founder/Chairwoman, Detroit Nation". Crain's. September 17, 2014. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
  27. ↑ Wisley, John (May 14, 2015). "Train crash victim Rachel Jacobs never forgot her roots". Detroit Free Press. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
  28. ↑ "Discover the D with Detroit Nation". The Detroit Jewish News. October 4, 2011. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  29. ↑ "'Detroit Nation' Spreading Motor City Pride". CBS. April 25, 2011. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  30. ↑ "Friends Mourn Software Executive Killed in Amtrak Crash". NBC New York.
  31. 1 2 Chambers, Jennifer (September 19, 2014). "Detroit's expats say city has 'phenomenal ideas'". The Detroit News. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  32. ↑ Koening, Leah (July 14, 2011). "Repair Interview: Rachel Jacobs of Detroit Nation". Repair the World. Repair the World. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  33. ↑ "Profound Impact". Detroit Jewish News. May 18, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  34. ↑ "Rachel Jacobs, Todd Waldman". New Castle News. April 1, 2009. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
  35. ↑ Bethencourt, Daniel (May 13, 2015). "Metro Detroit native Rachel Jacobs still missing after Amtrak crash". Detroit Free Press. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  36. ↑ Ortiz, Keldy (May 17, 2015). "Amtrak derailment victim Rachel Jacobs remembered with laughter, tears and music". New York Daily News. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  37. ↑ "Memorial Held for CEO Killed in Amtrak Derailment". NBC10. May 16, 2015. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  38. ↑ Bain, Jennifer (May 17, 2015). "Loved ones remember tech CEO who died in train crash". New York Post. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  39. ↑ "Life of Amtrak victim Rachel Jacobs celebrated at NY memorial Private ceremony held at Hebrew Union College for mom of two-year-old, CEO of education start-up; funeral set for Monday". Times of Israel. JTA. May 18, 2015.
  40. ↑ Langford, Steve (May 17, 2015). "CBS Newscast (video): Amtrak Victim Rachel Jacobs Remembered For Her Life-Changing Power". CBS/MSN. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  41. ↑ Martindale, Mike (May 18, 2015). "Mich. native killed in train crash lauded for kindness". The Detroit News. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  42. ↑ O'Brien, Sara Ashley (May 15, 2015). "Memorial funds set up for CEO killed in Amtrak crash". CNN. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
  43. ↑ Shelley, Jared (May 18, 2015). "Tech CEO Remembered as "Brilliant Strategist," "Beacon of Light"; A Rachel Jacobs scholarship fund has been created for female social entrepreneurs". Philadelphia. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  44. ↑ Dalby, Beth (May 18, 2015). "Amtrak Victim Left Legacy to Rekindle Detroit's Entrepreneurial Flame Through Detroit Nation, Rachel Jacobs left a legacy of community service that shows "one person can always make an impact."". Royal Oak Patch. Retrieved May 19, 2015.
  45. ↑ Lisa Goren
  46. ↑ Lupica, Mike (May 17, 2015). "We know money is needed to fix Amtrak, but the NTSB needs to explain why the crashed train was speeding to begin with". New York Daily News. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  47. ↑ Polaneczky, Ronnie (May 19, 2015). "Life After the Amtrak Disaster". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved May 19, 2015.
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