Biography
Eckerd was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1913 and graduated from Culver Military Academy and the Boeing School of Aeronautics. He was a pilot for the U.S. Army Air Corps-cum-U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, receiving three Air Medals and the Presidential Unit Citation. He was also involved in poitics and served in both state and national government for 30 years. In 1968, he developed the first residential adolescent treatment program for troubled boys, founded in Brooksville, Florida. Eckerd believed children needed a holistic approach that provided long lasting change, different from the primary treatment option currently available, which was hospitalization. This was the beginning of Eckerd's investment in our at-risk youth. His life touched more than 60,000 at-risk kids in the need of challenge, reassurance and love.
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, Eckerd Drugs. His personal finances were estimated in 1975 by Forbes Magazine at $150 million.
Jack Eckerd's family includes 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). There were seventeen grandchildren, and, as of 2006, five great-grandchildren. A businessman to the core, Eckerd always introduced himself as "Jack Eckerd—Clearwater, Florida". He died of pneumonia in 2004, aged 91, leaving a legacy of philanthropy.
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