Founder and longtime Chairman of the Board of Jacobs Engineering in Pasadena. I'm off to his funeral in 45 minutes. The son of Lebanese immigrants, he grew up in Brooklyn and built Jacobs Engineering from nothing to a $4.6 billion per year company. A giant in his industry. I sold a company to Jacobs, Environmental Resources Group, which became their environmental division, at one time 1,000 people strong. I had to stay five years as an employee to get my money out of the deal, ended up staying nine, before starting Athanor. Joe was a real character. We were once flying in his Rockwell Saberliner corporate jet, on takeoff, when Joe hollered to the pilot "Step on it, Ted we're late." The pilot put it in a steep climb and pinned us to our seats. Joe jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow and said "We're not really late, I just love it when he does that."

 

I am sorry for your loss.

 

Great story telling Keep the memories alive!

 

Great story, George. Sorry to hear about the loss of your friend.

 

It was a beautiful service. huge crowd. It was nice to hook up with a bunch of people I haven't seen in 15 years.

 

RIP JJ