NPR’s Scott Simon Interviews James Jacobson on Weekend Edition
April 11, 2009
The headline on NPR’s story says it all:
“Parents’ Escape From Nazis Inspires Entrepreneur”
My father, Kenneth Jacobson and me at my college graduation from the University of Virginia in May 1988.
As I write this post, I am flooded by the deep feelings of gratitude and appreciation I have for my father, Kenneth Jacobson. He passed away on March 12, 2005 at his home in suburban Washington.
He was a big fan of NPR and was responsible for introducing me to public radio when I was a small child. We had many “driveway moments” together as we would sit in a parked car, listening to the last few minutes of a fascinating NPR story. Perhaps someone will have one of those moments today when they listen to my story on Weekend Edition.
As the interview with Scott Simon reveals, the fact that both of my parents fled Nazi Germany when they were still children was a quiet–but most definite–influence on my desire to create and mold my own destiny.
I am certain that it impacted my decision to persue an entrepreneurial life where both my successes and my failures would be as a direct result of my own efforts.
For most of my life I have not discussed my past or my parent’s history with anyone. It was not because I was ashamed or thought that they would take it wrong. It just did not seem to matter.
Today, as I get a bit older and perhaps a bit wiser, I see that my family’s background did and does influence who I am and what I do. I am now just beginning to understand the importance of it and how it has been a silent hand guiding me along my career paths and through my life choices.
I remember the conversation with my wife Molly Jacobson several months ago when the pieces started to fit together. We were talking about Barack Obama and I quipped, “You know…I’m first generation American.”
Then there was a pause.
I had never really thought of myself in that light before. I am first generation American.
So while the part about fleeing Nazi Germany is interesting and makes for a good story, the thing that I believe that means more and has shaped me the most is that I am first generation American.
I still get a lump in my throat when I think about our country’s founding fathers and what they achieved to make this grand experiement manifest. I believe in free enterprise and the marketplace of ideas where people vote with their pocketbooks. I cherish the opportunity that we as Americans have as a birth right.
I am deeply honored that NPR will share my story with so many people today and I hope that the story serves as a small reminder of what a great country we live in.
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2 Responses to “NPR’s Scott Simon Interviews James Jacobson on Weekend Edition”
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Loved the interview and your inspiring story and just sent you a note asking about dogs and air travel. Dogs can be in the cabin leaving but not returning, right? How do we dog lovers who travel deal with this?
I enjoyed the Scott SImon interview.
While I am about four years younger than you — I graduated college in 1973 — my parents were adults when they fled Germany in 1939. They both came from Germany’s upper middle class, lost many if not most of the family and took along the exact same thing as your maternal grandfather: 2 Leica cameras! (I learned on them and still have both.)
As the story goes, they also fled to Holland where they expected to spend a few weeks with an uncle of my mother. No sooner had they arrived than the police came knocking on the door telling them that they had to leave the country so as to allow for more Jews to enter.
I now practice architecture — something my father who died in 1959 was not encouraged to pursue — and one of our specialties is designing facilities for the broadcast media. The story came full circle when I heard that you were in the studios of Hawaii Public Radio; when I was designing a new facility for Cox in Honolulu a few years ago, I called Michael Titterton who was then GM for HPR. We spent part of a morning together trying to strategize how they could possibly move/upgrade. (They may have done so already.)
Regards,
Peter