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| Affiliation | Democratic |
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| Name | Thor M. Jacobs |
| Address |
Cincinnati, Ohio , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | [Link] |
| Born |
Unknown
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| Contributor | ... |
| Last Modifed | None Entered
Mar 01, 2006 04:49pm |
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| Info | A Cincinnati Native with an International Heritage
I was born at the Christ Hospital in April of 1958, the 2nd child of a first generation Syrian-American father from Buffalo, NY and a German-Dutch mother from Detroit. I had an older brother Lance and my younger bother Lars was a few years off. My parents met at Michigan State University while both were studying to become professional educators. Mom - Carole on the teaching side and Dad - Jim on the administrative side. As circumstances would have it, they came to Cincinnati in the 1950s to visit relatives, fell in love with the city and never left. Both ended up working for the Cincinnati Public Schools.
A Year in Iraq Instills Lifelong Appreciation for Other Cultures
My father’s Middle Eastern roots and PhD. in education took the family on sabbatical to Baghdad, Iraq in 1961 where he worked for a year as a consultant to the Iraqi Ministry of Education under auspices of the United Nations; a role he would repeat again in summer of 1976. While just a toddler, it set me on a path of insatiable fascination with other peoples and cultures of the world.
Early Years – and Early Loss – in Cincinnati
Growing up in Cincinnati, we lived initially in Swifton Village, then Kennedy Heights before moving to a bigger home in Madeira in the mid sixties. Shortly thereafter, my beautiful Mom passed away from breast cancer at the tender age of 38. Luckily for us my father was subsequently able to remarry - the former Suzanne Hetzel whom both my parents knew well from the Board of Education and the church we attended; Pleasant Ridge Presbyterian. She inherited three young boys and did an amazing job to see that we stayed on the right path; a role she plays to this day.
High School Glory Days
My high school years at Madeira HS were marked by tough classes and a passion for athletics. Upon graduation in 1976, I was blessed to have been part of a 9 -1 football team and a basketball team that won the Eastern Hills League, which at the time included the likes of Loveland, Indian Hill, Milford, Marimont, Glen Este, Sycamore and Deer Park. I captained both teams while being selected All League and All City in both sports.
At Home with Superintendent Jacobs – a Lifelong Role Model
It was at about this same time that my Dad was serving his second stint with the UN on assignment to the Iraqi Ministry of Education. While in Baghdad, he was notified by the Board of Education that he had been selected to be the Superintendent of the Cincinnati Public Schools and beat a hasty return to Cincinnati. It was a post he had never coveted but once achieved, he relished the challenge it represented. Over the next ten years he took a school system that was fraught with morale and budget issues and transformed it to heights that had not been seen for decades, nor seen since.
A football scholarship took me to the University of Nebraska to play fullback but an injury put an end to my aspirations of being a professional athlete. I ended up a regular business student at Ohio State where I worked several jobs while majoring in Economics and International Business; graduating in 1981.
Superintendent Jacobs to most but just Dad to my brothers and me died of a heart attack while in office in 1985. The son of poor immigrant parents who grew up in the depression, he had worked over forty jobs by the time he graduated from college. He not only earned a PhD., but had made an enormous impact on his community at large. I cannot help but feel that he should have been the first Jacobs to seek elected office in service to his country. Sadly though, things do not always work out as we might hope. Nevertheless I am eternally grateful to this day for the lessons that he and my two mothers taught us; foremost of which were a penchant for hard work, humility, an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and compassion for our fellow man.
Higher Education: Degrees and a Career Take Me Around the World
I began my professional career in earnest with the NCR Corporation in Dayton selling computer products and services but longing for my home town, I managed a transfer to Cincinnati to work out of the district office downtown. This would not be the last time that the lure of the Queen City drew me home. Concurrent with my responsibilities at NCR, I attended the University of Cincinnati at nights and weekends in pursuit of a Masters Degree from the Lindner School of Business, earning my MBA in 1986.
Shortly thereafter, I accepted a position with Convergys Corporation (formerly known as CBIS) where I spent the next twelve years serving in various sales and marketing roles, one of which was Marketing Manager for Latin America. I loved experiencing the various cultures to our south and met more wonderful people than I can remember. However, one of the things that left a major impression on me was the grinding poverty that marked the lives of so many hard working people. It helped me realize how lucky we were to be Americans and set my thinking in motion regarding the role of government and its obligations to its citizenry. I began to pay much more attention to the functions of the federal government, geopolitics and the world economic order.
A Second Experience Living – and Learning – in Another Culture
In addition to my international business trips which took me all over Latin America and Europe, I began making regular trips to other parts of the world in the 1990s including many countries in the Middle East and Africa. As my grandfather came from Syria, this part of the world held a particular fascination to me. Still single, I made the decision to make official my interest in the region and geopolitics by applying and being accepted for admission to the most prestigious and storied university in the Middle East; the American University of Beirut (AUB). In the fall of 1998, I left Convergys, put my career on hold, sold my home in Anderson Township and moved to Beirut, Lebanon.
Where Better to Study International Relations than Beirut?
I spent the better part of the next three years living in the amazing country of Lebanon and traveling throughout the region including rediscovering my “long lost” relatives in Syria. These three years were a profoundly important experience in shaping my understanding of the issues facing that part of the world. I found that there were few economic opportunities for the common man and even fewer means of expressing dissatisfaction with the governments (the one possible exception being Lebanon itself). It became easy for me to see how the resulting feelings of impotence, frustration and hopelessness were providing fertile ground for the roots of religious fundamentalism and various forms of radicalism to take hold. I graduated from AUB in July of 2001 with an MA in Political Science and a concentration in International Relations.
Back to the States. Back to Class. This Time, to Teach.
After a year living in Washington, DC and working for a failed dotcom start-up software company, I returned home to Cincinnati where I took the opportunity to teach a year of high school civics at Walnut Hills. I never worked so hard in my life and I not only learned a lot of history but came to see first hand some of the issues facing our students, professional teachers and the public schools in general. As my Dad had before me, I developed a reverence for the profession and to the dedicated individuals who often strive to overcome the ills of our society through the formal education of our children.
New Territory: Running a Small Business
Today I work with my brother Lars running a small business called Sovereign Construction in the field of residential construction. Lars is the genius behind what we build while I handle the sales, marketing, I/T and on occasion can be found working an eighty pound jack hammer; an unfortunate consequence of being an ex-football player. Along the way, I obtained my real estate license to keep apprised of issues facing the housing market and to have a means to buy and sell our own real estate. Not only have I learned about these industries but more importantly, the issues related to being self employed and running a small business. I have found there are good and not-so-good government regulations and that health care can be a severe burden on a small company. Thanks in part to the policies of George Bush and the factors associated with many such social and economic issues, my political activism began in earnest as well.
Finding a Life Partner in Ingrid
And I finally got married a year ago August to my brilliant and beautiful Ingrid formerly of Columbus and San Francisco. We had an enchanting wedding and reception at Coney’s Moonlight Gardens, honeymooned in Italy and now live in eastern Hamilton County. Ingrid is a corporate recruiter who supports me in more ways than I can count. Thanks to her, I fully understand the concept of marriage and what a life partner is truly about. We are a team dedicated to each other, our community, country and the real human beings who live on our delicate planet earth.
True to My Midwestern Roots and Values
In summary, I have had a fantastic and amazingly diverse life; having worked in several fields, traveled the world and had a great education. I have seen and experienced many wonderful times offset by tragedies that we sometimes have to endure in life. Yet taking the good with the bad, nothing defines me better than the soil that nurtured me. I am a Cincinnatian. My values reflect those of this little patch of the great American landscape: courtesy, humility, integrity, a strong work ethic and a stead fast belief that this is the greatest place in the world to live. I guess that is why no matter where I lived or traveled, ultimately, I always relished the prospect of coming home.
Let Me Be Your Voice in Washington
I now ask my fellow citizens of greater Cincinnati and the sons and daughters of Hamilton, Clermont, Warren, Brown, Pike, Scioto and Adams County to send me away one last time; to Washington DC, to make sure our beautiful corner of southern Ohio and our country at large, remains a land of unlimited opportunity, with liberty and justice for all.
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